Feminist film theory emerged in the United States around the 1970s, significantly influenced by second-wave feminism, to critically analyze how women are depicted in cinema. Initially, theorists like Marjorie Rosen (1973) and Molly Haskell (1974) focused on sociological aspects, examining female characters, common stereotypes, and their historical context within film narratives. A major shift occurred with British theorist Laura Mulvey's influential 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," which integrated psychoanalysis (drawing on Freud and Lacan) to explore concepts like "scopophilia" and how film constructs the viewing subject.

The journal Camera Obscura, launched in 1976, furthered discussions on women's portrayal and their exclusion from film development processes, later expanding into broader media studies. By the early 1980s, the theory evolved to incorporate intersectional perspectives, with scholars like Jane Gaines, bell hooks, and Michele Wallace addressing the representation of lesbian identities and the erasure or stereotyping of Black women in film. This comprehensive approach continually adapts to analyze both past and present cinematic representations of women.