The atrocities of World War II—from the inhuman nightmare of the Nazi concentration camps to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945—overshadowed economic prosperity and surface optimism in the United States and reshaped geography and politics worldwide. Therefore, out of the postwar period, which extended roughly from 1946 to 1968, came several global film movements that reacted in various ways to the worldwide effects of the war.

Amid the social and political turmoil in postwar America, the film industry was made a high-profile target for its capacity for ideological influence. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) conducted an investigation into the film industry, interviewing “friendly” witnesses like Walt Disney, and “unfriendly” witnesses who refused to answer if they were members of the Communist Party. The writers and directors that refused to answer were known as the “Hollywood Ten.” HUAC’s investigation and intimidation tactics had a great influence on the industry and the movies of this time. The dissolution of the traditional power of the studios after the 1948 Paramount decision, the arrival and spread of television in the 1950s, the gradual relaxation of the Production Code, and the introduction of a ratings system also had enormous influence over Hollywood during this period. Movies from this time period tended to demonstrate a more self-conscious sense of image composition and narrative structure, and many explored more controversial themes.

One of the most profound influences on the emergence of an international postwar art cinema was Italian neorealism (1942–1952), whose relatively short history does not adequately illustrate its profound historical impact. At a critical juncture of world history, Italian cinema revitalized film culture by (1) depicting postwar social crises, and (2) using a stark, realistic style clearly different from the glossy entertainment formulas of Hollywood and other studio systems.

Influenced by Italian neorealism, a number of “new wave” movements appeared from the 1950s through the 1970s in such countries as Brazil, Czechoslovakia, England, France, Germany, and Japan, among others. Despite their exceptional variety, these different new wave movements shared two common postwar interests: (1) a break with past filmmaking institutions and genres, and (2) the use of film as an expression of personal vision.

The first and most influential new wave cinema was the French New Wave, which came to prominence between 1945 and 1960. Although the style and subject matter of these filmmakers varied, directors such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Alain Resnais each explored the struggle for personal expression and the investigation of film form as a communication system.

Japan is one of the world’s largest film-producing nations, with a long and varied tradition of using distinct perceptual and generic forms and drawing on a range of cultural and artistic traditions. After World War II and the subsequent Allied occupation of Japan, Japanese films increasingly incorporated Hollywood forms and styles, yet generally they (1) placed character rather than action at the center of a narrative, and (2) emphasized the contemplative aspect of images.

Inspired by the politicized atmosphere of Third World decolonization in the 1960s, Argentine filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino championed revolutionary films (dubbed “Third Cinema”) that opposed Hollywood and challenged the elite aesthetics of auteurist art cinema. Third cinema aimed to (1) reject technical perfection in opposition to commercial traditions, and (2) embrace film as the voice of the people.