Characterized by a causal, linear, individual-driven narrative, but also by a flair for excessive melodramatic spectacles, Hollywood's classical films from the 1920s through the 1950s pose unique challenges and constraints for making death meaningful. Death in Classical Hollywood Cinema shows how philosophies of death can be gleaned by looking at the role death plays within the classical Hollywood narrative and in later mainstream films which cope with death in light of virtual reality, cloning, and genetic engineering. Addressing major continental thinkers like Freud, Benjamin, and Deleuze, and focusing on the melodrama, gangster film, Western, and war film, this book analyses and challenges the ways Hollywood can offer to cope with death and to make sense of our inevitable and universal mortality.