Film Theory: Rational Reconstructions is not just another summary of received ideas in film theory. Instead, Warren Buckland asks more radical and fundamental questions about how film theory gets written in the first place: how does it select its objects of study and its methods of inquiry? How does it make discoveries and explain filmic phenomena? And, most crucially, how does it formulate and solve theoretical problems? I ask these questions of film theory through two frameworks: a rational reconstruction of film theory, combined with a classical " commentary. Individual chapters focus on the most significant texts in film studies that have shaped and determined the direction of film theory since the 1960s. Each chapter will be devoted to a commentary and rational reconstruction of these seminal film theory texts. Texts considered include: Peter Wollen "s The Auteur Theory "-Barry Salt "s Statistical Style Analysis of Motion Pictures " - Christian Metz "s Film Language and Language and Cinema “ Francesco Casetti "s Inside the Gaze " “ Thomas Elsaesser "s Tales of Sound and Fury " “ Stephen Heath "s On Screen, In Frame " “ Laura Mulvey "s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema " “ Tom Gunning "s Cinema of Attractions " “ David Bordwell "s Narration in the Fiction Film " “ Richard Allen and Murray Smith "s anthology Film Theory & Philosophy "- The New Lacanians (Slavoj i ek, Joan Copjec) These texts have either been republished many times in anthologies (Wollen, Mulvey, Gunning, Metz,Elsaesser), or cited widely (Heath, Bordwell, i ek), or have founded new research programmes (Allen and Smith, Salt). Many, of course, have achieved all three. Film Theory Rational Reconstructions does not offer students a digested version of what film theorists have said. Instead, it will enable them to critically engage with and interrogate the claims of film theory.