Inhalt: Surreal and fantastic cinema is enjoying a resurgence. A movement that goes back to the earliest days of cinema, it provides an exemplary case study to introduce all sorts of concepts - auteur study, representations, 'shocking cinema', textual analysis. Neil Coombs' guide provides an explanation of the origins of surrealism followed by detailed analyses, including: Bunuel's The Phantom of Liberty, Svankmajer's Alice, Cocteau's Orphee, Lynch's Lost Highway, Jeunet & Caro's The City of Lost Children, and the work of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich) and director David Cronenberg (A History of Violence).