Fifty Key American Films

Fifty Key American Films explores and contextualises some of the most important films ever made in the United States. With case studies from the early years of cinema to the present day, this comprehensive Key Guide provides accessible analyses from a range of theoretical perspectives. This chronologically ordered volume includes coverage of: Citizen Kane Casablanca Psycho Taxi Driver Blade Runner Pulp Fiction Amongst a raft of well-known films, the work of some of America’s best known directors, such as Lynch, Scorsese, Coppola and Scott, is discussed. This book is essential reading for students of film, and will be of interest to anyone seeking to explore the impact of American cinema.

Birth of a Nation (1915) Sabine Haenni; Sherlock Jr (1924) Jennifer Peterson; Sunrise (1927) Sabine Haenni; The Wild Party (1929) Nick Davis; Applause (1929) Paul Young; Scarface (1932) Sabine Haenni; Freaks (1932) Jennifer Peterson; Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) Neil Sinyard; It Happened One Night (1934) Neil Sinyard; Modern Times (1936) Elliot Shapiro; Gone With the Wind (1939) Neil Sinyard; Stagecoach (1939) Dave Allen; His Girl Friday (1940) Elliot Shapiro; Citizen Kane (1941) Robert Shail; Cat People (1942) Simon Ward; Casablanca (1942) John White; Double Indemnity (1944) Oliver Gaycken; Mildred Pierce (1945) Sarah Barrow; Gun Crazy (1949) John White; Singin’ in the Rain (1952) Elliot Shapiro; On the Waterfront (1954) John White; Rebel without a Cause (1955) Sabine Haenni; The Searchers (1956) John White; Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1956) Lincoln Geraghty; Psycho (1960) John White; The Misfits (1961) Nigel Wheale; The West Side Story (1961) Sabine Haenni; Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Sarah Barrow; Night of the Living Dead (1968) Adam Lowenstein; The Wild Bunch (1969) Sabine Haenni; Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) Paula J. Massood; The Godfather (1972) Sabine Haenni; Chinatown (1974) Elliot Shapiro; Taxi Driver (1976) John White; Killer of Sheep (1977) Keith M. Harris; Star Wars (1977) Paul Young; Apocalypse Now (1979) John White; Blade Runner (1982) Nigel Wheale; Blue Velvet (1982) Jennifer Peterson; Aliens (1986) Freddie Gaffney; sex, lies, and videotape (1989) Sarah Casey Benyahia; Do the Right Thing (1989) Michael B. Gillespie; Thelma and Louise (1991) Jean Welsh; Daughters of the Dust (1991) Terri Francis; Short Cuts (1993) Sabine Haenni; Pulp Fiction (1994) Sarah Casey Benyahia; Dead Man (1995) Lynda Townsend; Se7en (1995) John White; The Incredibles (2004) Nick Davis; Brokeback Mountain (2005) Nick Davis

John White is teacher of Film, English and Media at Parkside Community College and Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. He is co-author of AS Film Studies: The Essential Introduction, A2 Film Studies: The Essential Introduction, and co-editor of Fifty Key British Films, also published by Routledge. Sabine Haenni teaches Film and American Studies at Cornell University. She is the author of The Immigrant Scene: Ethnic Amusements in New York 1880-1920 and has published widely on popular theatre, early cinema and realist fiction.