Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966) was a member of the Frankfurt School, and is considered one of the great film critics of the 20th century. Johannes von Moltke is Associate Professor of German Studies and Screen Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan, author of No Place Like Home: Locations of Heimat in German Cinema, (UC Press). Kristy Rawson is a graduate student in Screen Arts & Cultures at Michigan.

"[A] fine work." -- Noah Isenberg Film Comment "There is an urgency in these pieces to convey exactly how powerful what he called "those movies with a message" could be." Los Angeles Review Of Books "American Writings shows that Kracauer was ... a cultural critic keenly attuned to the interplay of culture and politics as they collided on the cinema screen." Times Literary Supplement (TLS) "This edition is quite informative... [The editors' input] smoothly guides through the many facets of this important character." -- Alexander Ebert popcultureshelf.com

• Preface: Notes on the Edition Acknowledgments Introduction: Affinities Part I. A Cultural Critic in New York 1. Why France Liked Our Films (1942) 2. Hollywood's Terror Films (1946) 3. Jean Vigo (1947) 4. The Revolt against Rationality (1947) 5. On Jewish Culture (1947) 6. Filming the Subconscious (1948) 7. Psychiatry for Everything and Everybody (1948) 8. Those Movies with a Message (1948) 9. National Types as Hollywood Presents Them (1949) 10. The Mirror Up to Nature (1949) 11. Preston Sturges, or Laughter Betrayed (1950) 12. Art Today (1961) 13. About the State of the Humanities 14. A Statement on the Humanistic Approach 15. Talk with Teddie (1960) Part II. Film Reviews 16. An American Experiment (1941) 17. Dumbo (1941) 18. Film Notes from Hollywood (1941) 19. A Few American Films (1941) 20. William Wyler's New Bette Davis Film (1941) 21. Flaherty, The Land (1942) 22. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) 23. Paisan (1948) 24. The Decent German (1949) 25. The Eternal Jew (1956) 26. A Few Notes on The Connection (1961) Part III. Book Reviews 27. In Eisenstein's Workshop (1943) 28. The Russian Director (1949) 29. The Movie Colony (1942) 30. A Lady of Valor (1947) 31. The Teutonic Mind (1948) 32. Consciousness, Free and Spontaneous (1948) 33. Indologian Holiday (1948) 34. Portrait in Film (1948) 35. Total Teaching (1949) 36. Pictorial Deluge (1950) 37. Movie Mirror (1950) 38. Reflexion faite (1952) Part IV. Toward a Theory of Film 39. Stage vs. Screen Acting (1950) 40. The Photographic Approach (1951) 41. Silent Film Comedy (1951) 42. The Found Story and the Episode (1956) 43. Letter to film 56 (1956) Afterword: Kracauer, the Magical Nominalist / Martin Jay Notes Index