Cinema and the Cold War shared an intricate relationship. After World War II, the on-screen medium enjoyed global attention as a source of popular amusement, but governments and industries also utilised the moving image to further their ideological orientations. The recreational and political functions of the movies helped shape a larger cultural struggle – a cinematic Cold War – between the two superpowers as well as the states that aligned around them. This semantic contest was a complex experience. As the Iron Curtain draped across Europe and the rest of the world, a number of filmic narratives set out to boost the ideological struggle of the United States and the Soviet Union. But many others – particularly those of the 1960s and beyond – challenged and complicated the bipolar establishment through their critical worldviews. In the context of the Cold War, cinema was more than pure entertainment. It served as a ‘chosen instrument’ of the cultural Cold War.