Film/Genre radically revises our notions. It is the first book to fully connect the roles played by industry critics and audiences in making and re-making genre. In a critiques of major voices in the history of genre theory from Aristotle to Wittgenstein, Rick Altman reveals the conflicting stakes for which the genre game has been played. Recognizing that the very term "genre" has different meanings for different groups, he bases his new genre theory on the uneasy competitive yet complimentary relationship among genre users and discusses a huge range of films from The Great Train Robbery to Star Wars and from The Jazz Singer to The Player.