Essays written by both established and cutting-edge philosophers of film discuss the value of film in general and the value of certain films in particular. The essays explore such topics as the significance of narrative unity for self knowledge in David Lynch's Lost Highway; epistemology and the need for knowledge in Paul Schrader's Affliction; ambiguity and responsibility in Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon; consciousness and cognition in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane; pathological skepticism in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion; language and gender in Neil Jordan's The Crying Game; platonism in Chris Marker's La Jetee; race in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam; the concept of the imagination in cognitive film theory; and feminism and ideology in feminist film theory.