This book examines the representation of death and dying in mainstream cinema‎.‎ Death and the Moving Image provides the first in depth study of the representation of death and dying in mainstream Western cinema from its earliest to its latest renditions‎.‎ It explores the impact of gender‎,‎ race‎,‎ nation and narration upon death‎'‎s dramatics on screen and isolates how mainstream cinema works to bestow value upon certain lives‎,‎ and specific socio cultural identities‎,‎ in a hierarchical and partisan way‎.‎ Dedicated to the popular‎,‎ to the political and ethical implications of mass culture‎'‎s themes and imperatives‎,‎ this book takes mainstream cinema to task for its mortal economies‎:‎ for its adoration and absolution of some characters and expendability of others‎.‎ It also ultimately disinters the capacity for film‎,‎ and film criticism‎,‎ to engage with life and vulnerability differently‎.‎ Aimed at the burgeoning field of death studies and explosion of interest in trauma and ethics within film studies‎,‎ this book charts important new territory for the discipline whilst arguing for the centrality of this subject to the socio political significance of cinema‎.‎ It examines the formal‎,‎ psychological and political exchange between cinema and death‎.‎ It offers an accessible ‎'‎before‎,‎ during‎,‎ after‎'‎ structure‎,‎ of death‎'‎s presence as narrative promise‎,‎ physical event and spectatorial reaction‎.‎ It also provides a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to film ‎(‎draws on critical race‎,‎ political theory and mise en scene analysis and case studies from beyond Western and fiction film‎)‎‎.‎