Bruce Bennett

Bruce Bennett

Bruce Bennett is a Professor in Film Studies at Lancaster University. His research is concerned with film and media technology, and with the history and politics of global cinema. His writing ranges from analyses of avant-garde and experimental film, through to reflections on Hollywood blockbuster cinema.

Bruce’s books include: The Cinema of Michael Winterbottom: Borders, Intimacy, Terror (2014), a comprehensive study of the British director’s work, and Cycling and Cinema (2019), a unique examination of the historical and cultural connections between these two technologies. He has also co-edited the volumes, Cinema and Technology: Cultures, Theories, Practices (2008), and, with frequent collaborator Katarzyna Marciniak, Teaching Transnational Cinema: Politics and Pedagogy (2016), an innovative collection of essays from scholars around the globe on the theoretical and practical challenges of teaching ‘world cinema’.

As well as publishing a number of single-authored and co-written book chapters and journal articles, Bruce has co-edited a ‘special dossier’ on ‘The Cinema of Michael Bay’ for the journal Senses of Cinema (2015), perhaps the first serious academic overview of that director’s work, and, with Kasia Marciniak, a special issue of the journal Transnational Cinemas, ‘Aporias of Foreignness: Transnational Encounters in Cinema’ (2018).

Bruce’s current project, commissioned by Oxford University Press and co-written with Kasia Marciniak, is the book Refugee Cinema. The final manuscript has been submitted and this is due for publication early 2026.

Having studied Fine Art at Leeds University as an undergraduate, Bruce is also a painter, photographer and film-maker.