An Introduction to Film Genres, written by leading film scholars specifically for undergraduates who are new to the study of film, provides an introduction that helps students see thirteen film genres in a new light---to help them identify the themes, iconography, and distinctive stylistic traits of each genre.

Sinister, swaggering, yet often sympathetic, the figure of the gangster has stolen and murdered its way into the hearts of American cinema audiences. Despite the enduring popularity of the gangster film, however, traditional criticism has focused almost entirely on a few canonical movies such as Little Caesar, Public Enemy, and The Godfather trilogy, resulting in a limited and distorted understanding of this diverse and changing genre. Mob Culture offers a long-awaited, fresh look at the American gangster film, exposing its hidden histories from the Black Hand gangs of the early twentieth century to The Sopranos. Departing from traditional approaches that have typically focused on the "nature" of the gangster, the editors have collected essays that engage the larger question of how the meaning of criminality has changed over time. Grouped into three thematic sections, the essays examine gangster films through the lens of social, gender, and racial/ethnic issues. Destined to become a classroom favorite, Mob Culture is an indispensable reference for future work in the genre.

Even though soap opera commands a vast and loyal audience, it has been trivialized by the mainstream media and even libelled as a form of pornography designed to keep women in their place. In this defence of a much-maligned genre, Martha Nochimson demonstrates how soap opera validates an essentially feminine perspective and responds to complex issues of women's desires and power by creating strong, active female characters. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory and feminist film criticism, Nochimson explores the ways in which soap opera has inverted the typical male-centered narrative charcterized by a domineering, Oedipal father-son relationship that serves to control female energy. Instead, women in soap operas resist their stabilizing role in male hierarchies. In breaking with traditional narrative, soaps create a distinctly feminine, open-ended format capable of tolerating ambiguity and lack of resolution.