Having read English at Brasenose College, Oxford, Professor Ian Hunter completed a DPhil there on the films of Paul Schrader in 1991.

Since then his research has mostly focused on adaptation and British and American genre, cult and exploitation cinema. Books include British Trash Cinema, Cult Film as a Guide to Life, and a number of edited and co-edited books, such as British Science Fiction Cinema, Pulping Fictions, Controversial Images, and The Routledge Companion to British Cinema History.