World Cinema

Hollywood was never the whole story. Across the twentieth century, film industries in Europe, Asia and beyond built their own styles, stars and movements, and many of them changed how films everywhere were made. This section is a reader's map to those traditions.

World cinema classics is the starting point, a beginner's guide to the great national film movements. From there, Italian neorealism looks at the postwar films shot on real streets, the golden age of Japanese cinema introduces Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi, and the French New Wave follows the critics who became directors.

The section also covers smaller and less documented film cultures. Where records are thin, as they often are for regional cinemas, the articles describe what is known and say plainly what is not.