Within this wholly original function of film criticism, David Thomson, celebrated writer of The Biographical Dictionary of Film, probes the countless ways in which sexuality has shaped the films—and the ways that the films have shaped sexuality. Discovering the tangled notions of masculinity, femininity, beauty, and sex that characterize our cinematic creativity—and drawing on good examples that range from advertising to pornography, Bonnie and Clyde to Contact Me from your Name—Thomson illuminates how film as art, entertainment, and business offers historically been a polite cover for a kind of erotic séance. In so doing, he casts the artwork and the artists we love in a fresh light, and uncovers how film can both expose the mistake lines in typical masculinity and stage the way past it, toward a far more nuanced knowledge of what it means to be always a person with desires.