Since the release of his first feature in 1996, Alejandro Amenábar has become the 'golden boy' of Spanish filmmaking, a bankable star director whose brand virtually guarantees quality, big audiences and domestic box office success. He has directed three of the highest-grossing movies in Spanish film history and has enjoyed enormous international and critical acclaim, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Film for Mar Adentro/The Sea Inside, 2004.

This book is the first full-length study in English of Amenábar's shorts and feature films. It provides detailed analysis of his engagement with popular film genres as the basis for an auteur cinema and incorporates a reappraisal of his auteurism as fundamentally decentred and shared. An essential resource for students, scholars and fans of Amenábar, the book will also appeal to a wider readership, including professionals in the film, media and culture industries as well as those who have a general interest in the best of Spanish, European and world cinema.