For France, see Richard Abel, French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915–1929 (1984), a definitive scholarly study of avant-garde and commercial cinema of the era, superbly illustrated; James Monaco, The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette (1976, reprinted 1980), an excellent critical study; Georges Sadoul, French Film (1953, reissued 1972); Roy Armes, French Cinema (1985); and Alan Williams, Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking (1992).
For Germany, see Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947, reissued with additions, 1974), a psychological, sociological, and political analysis; David Stewart Hull, Film in the Third Reich: A Study of the German Cinema, 1933–1945 (1969, reissued 1973), an exploration of the cinema’s role in Nazi propaganda; David Welch, Propaganda and the German Cinema, 1933–1945 (1983); Julian Petley, Capital and Culture: German Cinema, 1933–45 (1979), a discussion of the economic and social structure of the Nazi film industry; Lotte H. Eisner, The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt (1969, reissued 1973; originally published in French, 1965; new enlarged French ed., 1981), a study of the influence of the arts of painting, drama, and the novel on the cinema; and Eric Rentschler, West German Film in the Course of Time: Reflections on the Twenty Years Since Oberhausen (1984), a scholarly account of the New German Cinema and its historical-economic contexts.
Italian filmmaking is the subject of Pierre Leprohon, The Italian Cinema (1972; originally published in French, 1966); James Hay, Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy: The Passing of the Rex (1987); Mira Liehm, Passion and Defiance: Film in Italy from 1942 to the Present (1984), an informative though sometimes eccentric critical study; Roy Armes, Patterns of Realism (1971, reprinted 1986), a standard study of the Neorealist cinema; and Peter Bondanella, Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present (1983), a definitive scholarly analysis.
Films from the Soviet Union and eastern European countries are the subject of Jay Leyda, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film, 3rd ed. (1983), a broad, authoritative study of developments beginning with tsarist times; Mira Liehm and Antonín J. Liehm, The Most Important Art: Eastern European Film After 1945 (1977), a survey of Soviet, Polish, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Yugoslav, East German, Romanian, and Bulgarian cinema, illustrated with many rare stills; Ronald Holloway, The Bulgarian Cinema (1986), a well-illustrated study; Peter Hames, The Czechoslovak New Wave (1985); Graham Petrie, History Must Answer to Man: The Contemporary Hungarian Cinema (1978); and Daniel J. Goulding, Liberated Cinema: The Yugoslav Experience (1985), a critical history of the postwar period.
For other European countries, see Peter Cowie, Swedish Cinema (1966), and Swedish Cinema from Ingeborg Holm to Fanny and Alexander (1985); and Peter Besas, Behind the Spanish Lens: Spanish Cinema Under Fascism and Democracy (1985).
For a survey of Australian movies, see Graham Shirley and Brian Adams, Australian Cinema, the First Eighty Years (1983), a standard scholarly history covering developments to 1975; and Brian McFarlane, Australian Cinema 1970–1985 (1987), a valuable account of Australia’s unprecedented film explosion.
Filmmaking in Asian and African countries is discussed in Noël Burch, To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema, rev. and ed. by Annette Michelson (1979), a classical study of the film form and its misinterpretations in the West; Tadao Sato, Currents in Japanese Cinema, trans. from Japanese (1982), original essays with a filmography to 1981; Audie Bock, Japanese Film Directors (1978, reprinted 1985), a scrupulously researched critical study of 10 directors spanning the history of the industry; Thomas Weisser and Yuko Mihara Weisser, Japanese Cinema: The Essential Handbook, 4th rev. ed. (1998); Joseph L. Anderson and Donald Richie, The Japanese Film: Art and Industry, expanded ed. (1982); Jay Leyda, Dianying: An Account of Films and the Film Audience in China (1972); Erik Barnouw and S. Krishnaswamy, Indian Film, 2nd ed. (1980), an authoritative study; T.M. Ramachandran (ed.), 70 Years of Indian Cinema, 1913–1983 (1985), a well-illustrated, extended history; Roy Armes, Third World Film Making and the West (1987), a historical overview that also includes discussions of Latin American cinema; and Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, new rev. ed. (1999).
Book-length works on Latin America, Cuba, and Mexico include Jorge A. Schnitman, Film Industries in Latin America: Dependency and Development (1984), an economic analysis from the silent era through the 1980s; Randal Johnson and Robert Stam (eds.), Brazilian Cinema (1982), a definitive English-language history; Michael Chanan, The Cuban Image: Cinema and Cultural Politics in Cuba (1985); Carl J. Mora, Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896–1980 (1982), a scholarly critical history; and Chon A. Noriega (ed.), Visible Nations: Latin American Cinema and Video (2000).
The cinema of the United States is the subject of Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America: A Social History of American Movies (1975); Lewis Jacobs, The Rise of the American Film, a Critical History, expanded ed. (1968, reissued 1974), a detailed study with emphasis on trends and audience preference; David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, and Janet Staiger, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960 (1985); Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System (1985); Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929–1968 (1968, reprinted 1985), a classic definition of the auteur theory and its critical application to American films and filmmakers; and Tino Balio (ed.), The American Film Industry, rev. ed. (1985), an anthology of historical scholarship and primary documents from the origins to the 1980s. Genre studies
Thomas Schatz, Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System (1981), examines prevalent styles and forms. Nonfiction films are discussed in Richard Meran Barsam, Nonfiction Film: A Critical History (1973), which focuses on British and American documentaries; Richard Meran Barsam (ed.), Nonfiction Film: Theory and Criticism (1976); and Erik Barnouw, Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film, rev. ed. (1983). War themes are explored in Craig W. Campbell, Reel America and World War I: A Comprehensive Filmography and History of Motion Pictures in the United States, 1914–1920 (1985); and Jeanine Basinger, The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre (1986).