Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader offers students an introductory and comprehensive view of perhaps the most central concept in film studies. This unique anthology addresses the aesthetic and historical debates surrounding auteurship while providing author criticism and analysis in practice.

* Examines a number of mainstream and established directors, including John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Douglas Sirk, Frank Capra, Kathryn Bigelow, and Spike Lee

* Features historically important, foundational texts as well as contemporary pieces

* Includes numerous student features, such as a general editor's introduction, short prefaces to each of the sections, bibliography, alternative tables of contents, and boxed features

* Each essay deliberately focuses across film makers' oeuvres, rather than on one specific film, to enable lecturers to have flexibility in constructing their syllabi