"For too long, the term "art cinema" has suffered from slippery, I-know-it-when-I-see-it usage. Incisively and intrepidly, Geoff King dissects this contested category, deliberating on the diverse, yet codified ways of attributing cultural value to film drama." - Mattias Frey, Professor of Film and Media, University of Kent, UK "Here's a book film studies has long needed. Geoff King is sensitive to nuances of both text and context and he introduces fruitful terms like the "heavyweight" film. Essential reading for anyone interested in art cinema!" - Michael Z. Newman, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA "With Positioning Art Cinema , Geoff King deftly executes a delicate intellectual manoeuvre: writing nonjudgmentally about critical judgments. The book navigates the subjective and contradictory terminology that surrounds a range of films, filmmakers and modalities framed as distinct from perceived mainstream entertainments. Never drifting into schematic taxonomy, King shrewdly unpacks the proliferating categories that scholars, critics and filmmakers themselves have used to assign cultural value to cinema.

" - Mark Gallagher, Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies, University of Nottingham, UK.