Hollywood

Hollywood, a district of Los Angeles, became in the early twentieth century the global capital of the film industry — and a name that stands for American movies and the dream factory behind them. Filmmakers came west for the sunshine and varied scenery, and by the 1920s the movie business had made its home there.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the "studio system" reigned. A handful of major studios controlled production, distribution, and the stars themselves, churning out hundreds of films a year during a Golden Age that made the movies the dominant popular entertainment of the era and Hollywood a symbol of glamour.

The industry was also a battleground of American culture and politics. The Hays Code censored what films could show for decades; the McCarthy-era blacklist destroyed careers over suspected communist ties; and Hollywood's images of race, gender, and the nation shaped how Americans — and the world — saw the United States.

Television, antitrust rulings, and later streaming broke the old studio system, but Hollywood remained the heart of American entertainment and a vast cultural export. Its films carried American stories and style to every corner of the globe.