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In this enthralling study, David Thomson takes readers around the globe, through time and across multiple media as he tracks the ways in which the world has been enchanted by the mesmerising art form of motion pictures. He also explores how we let movies – the stories, the stars, the looks – show us how to live and aspire to greater, more exciting things. Thomson also charts the changes in society which affected cinema (and likewise how the changes in cinema in turn affected society).

At the same time he shows readers the darker side of the movies; how they offer a seductive escape from the everyday reality and its responsibilities, how they have made it possible for people to evade life altogether. He investigates how the entranced audience has become a model for powerless citizens trying to pursue happiness by sitting quietly in a dark room.

Does the big screen take us out into the world, or merely hypnotize us? Are the movies a wonder or a curse? That is Thomson's question in this wonderfully adventurous and highly thoughtful work.

The product of a lifetime’s obsession with film, David Thomson’s The Big Screen is a passionate feat of storytelling that is vital to anyone trying to make sense of the age of screens – the age that, more than ever, we are living in right now.