v. 1. The artisanal era, 1897-1941. Preface: how it all began ; Introduction: national cinema, modernity, and Iranian national identity ; Artisanal silent cinema in the Qajar Period ; Ideological and spectatorial formations ; State formation and nonfiction cinema: syncretic Westernization during the first Pahlavi Period ; A transitional cinema: the feature film industry and sound cinema ; Modernity's ambivalent sujectivitiy: dandies and the dandy movie genre -- v. 2. The industrializing years, 1941-1978. International haggling over Iranian public screens ; The statist documentary cinema and its alternatives ; Commerical cinema's evolution: from artisanal mode to hybrid production ; Family melodramas and comedies: the stewpot movie genre ; Males, masculinity, and power: the tough-guy movie genre and its evolution ; A dissident cinema: new-wave films and the end of an era -- v. 3. The Islamicate period, 1978-1984. Transition from "cinema of idolatry" to an "Islamicate cinema" ; Documenting the uprising, the revolution, and the emerging opposition ; Consolidating a new "Islamicate" cinema and film culture -- v. 4. The globalizing era, 1984-2010. The resurgence of nonfiction cinema: postrevolutionary documentaries and fiction war films ; Under cover, on screen: women's representation and women's cinema ; All certainties melt into thin air: art-house cinema, a "postal" cinema ; Emergent contestatory films, media culture, and public diplomacy ; Iranian, but with a different accent: a cinema of displacement or a displaced cinema? ; Appendix A: Iranian films in distribution (c. 2005) ; Appendix B: Film house of Iran's film collection ; Appendix C: International film and video center Iranian film collection