The work of Karl Marx is revered in social philosophy, political science and literary criticism, but there is an area where Marxism seems not to have penetrated. That area is the study of popular culture, especially the cinema, where Marxism provides a useful lens through which seemingly disparate films can be explored.

As a whole the new essays assembled here approach a wide cross-section of cinematic history and provide analysis of blockbusters, cult hits, comedies, suspenseful dramas and history-making films within a framework of power, power relations and class struggle. The collection brings to popular culture studies the same scholarly weight that attends the work of Aristotle or Plato or Derrida and, at the same time, presents that scholarship in an accessible style.