This book traces the key developments and debates in feminist film theory over the past twenty-five years. Beginning with the work on images and sterotypes of women from the early 1970s and moving to the most recent debates within feminist cultural criticism, it charts the relationship of feminist film theory to the theoretical and cultural contexts from which it arises, and to which it offers a profound challenge. From arguments about 'the male gaze' to work on fantasy, horror and the body, each chapter presents a clear and detailed critical account of a key area of debate within feminist film theory. As it develops in response both to internal criticisms and challenges and to the impact of a range of cultural theories from the 1970s to the 1990s, feminist film theory emerges as the central arena in which feminist theories of representation, identity and cultural politics have been fought out from the 1970s onwards.