Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Jul 20

David Thomson Releases 40-Book Veteran's Revisionist Cinema History as Streaming Shadows Big Screen

Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Jul 20

David Thomson Releases 40-Book Veteran's Revisionist Cinema History as Streaming Shadows Big Screen

Q: Is your living room truly the new cinema? A famed critic argues home screens are now more transporting.

Not entirely. David Thomson makes a serious case that the living room has become a primary cinema for many viewers, but the evidence points to coexistence rather than replacement. Thomson, in *A Sudden Flicker of Light*, argues that home screens can now feel “brighter and more transporting” than theaters, and he cites the power of streaming-era work such as Stephen Graham’s *Adolescence*. That view reflects real changes: streaming has widened access, improved picture quality at home, and made international film and TV far easier to discover. Netflix and other platforms have shown that home viewing can be culturally powerful, driving music, travel, fashion and language-learning trends well beyond the screen. But the theatrical experience remains distinct and resilient. Media scholar Jeff Stern argues that the best way to experience a film is still “on an enormous screen in a dark room,” with no pausing or multitasking and with a crowd reacting together. Recent box-office data supports that case. In 2026, major releases such as *The Odyssey* and *Toy Story 5* have drawn strong audiences, while independent titles like *Obsession* and *Backrooms* have also performed well. Gen Z, notably, is attending theaters more than any other demographic. So Thomson is right that the home screen is no longer a lesser substitute; for many people it is now a central venue for serious viewing. But the cinema has not been displaced. The living room may be a new cinema, not the only one.

2 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jul 20

David Thomson has published “A Sudden Flicker of Light,” a sweeping new history of cinema that recasts film’s story through his characteristically contrarian, wide-ranging lens.
More than 40 books into his career, Thomson ranges from Muybridge and Griffith to Lynch and Sean Baker, pairing celebration of cinema’s 20th-century adventure with doubts about movies’ power to cheapen culture.
Streaming and home viewing sit near the book’s sharpest arguments: Thomson points to Stephen Graham’s Netflix drama “Adolescence” to suggest theatrical cinema may be fading because home screens are now “brighter and more transporting.”
Rather than mourning cinema’s death, the book frames that anxiety as part of a broader revisionism, questioning whether audiences still feel the old longing for film while still treating Hollywood’s history with rhapsodic awe.

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The Guardian19h ago

David Thomson Releases 'A Sudden Flicker of Light,' a Revisionist History of Cinema

AOL UK19h ago

A Sudden Flicker of Light by David Thomson review – a brilliantly eccentric history of the movies - AOL

Is your living room truly the new cinema? A famed critic argues home screens are now more transporting.

As a film titan declares cinemas dead, is Gen Z's surprising movie habit about to prove him wrong?

With the big American film 'dying on its feet,' what kind of international cinema will shape our future?

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2 total

The Guardian19h ago

David Thomson Releases 'A Sudden Flicker of Light,' a Revisionist History of Cinema

AOL UK19h ago

A Sudden Flicker of Light by David Thomson review – a brilliantly eccentric history of the movies - AOL

David Thomson Releases 40-Book Veteran's Revisionist Cinema History as Streaming Shadows Big Screen

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