The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film presents a comprehensive overview and analysis of the history, myriad themes, and critical approaches to the action and adventure genre in American cinema.

• Draws on a wide range of examples, spanning the silent spectacles of early cinema to the iconic superheroes of 21st-century action films

• Features case studies revealing the genre’s diverse roots – from westerns and war films, to crime and espionage movies

• Explores a rich variety of aesthetic and thematic concerns that have come to define the genre, touching on themes such as the outsider hero, violence and redemption, and adventure as escape from the mundane

• Integrates discussion of gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality alongside genre history

• Provides a timely and richly revealing portrait of a powerful cinematic genre that has increasingly come to dominate the American cinematic landscape

Yvonne Tasker is Professor of Film and Media at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema (1993) and Soldiers’ Stories: Military Women in Cinema and Television Since WWII (2011), and editor of Action and Adventure Cinema (2004).