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Published: 7 July 2026
ISBN: 9781837315123
Imprint: Penguin eBooks
Format: EBook
Pages: 368

A Sudden Flicker of Light

Name: A Sudden Flicker of Light
ISBN: 9781837315123

A Revisionist History of the Movies

David Thomson

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From cinema’s most distinguished historian and critic comes a masterful assessment of the whole sweep of movie history

‘The movies traded on the liberation of secret desires—drive that car as fast as you can; turn your humble abode into a palace; conquer all the mean spirits in the world; be as free and winsome as the Tramp yet as rich as Charlie … Every lowlife can be a Corleone.’

Every flicker of light has its shadow. In this masterful reassessment of the whole arc of movie history, David Thomson, film’s wisest and most penetrating critic, shows us how cinema has entranced and transported us, but also profoundly changed us.

From the earliest days of the first picture shows to the screens of today, Thomson glories in the great movies. Sharp, arresting readings of films from Metropolis to Rear Window, The Godfather to Anora can be found in these pages. Yet there is unease, too, at how cinema suckered us into a fantasy neverland that only looks like life. Hungry for spectacle and happy endings, submitting to voyeurism and villainy, we have let films change the way we experience reality; a habit of passivity that may have even betrayed our culture and our politics.

As Thomson says, ‘This is our history, and our show.’ The result of a lifetime of immersion and reflection, this book is a reckoning and a testament from a writer who sees like no other.

Published: 7 July 2026
ISBN: 9781837315123
Imprint: Penguin eBooks
Format: EBook
Pages: 368

About the author

David Thomson

DAVID THOMSON is the author of more than 25 books, including How to Watch a Movie, The Whole Equation, and biographies of Orson Welles and David O. Selznick.

DAVID THOMSON is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com or visit prhspeakers.com.

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Praise for A Sudden Flicker of Light

The best writer on film in our time
Michael Ondaatje

What Thomson does not know or feel about films is not worth knowing or feeling
Guardian

A giant in the world of film criticism
The Times

The greatest living writer on the movies
John Banville

One of the liveliest, most literate, productive, provocative and daring movie critics
Observer

He is irreplaceable
The New York Times