In this collection of essays (which accompanied a BBC-TV series presented by the author), Thomas Sutcliffe looks past the dazzling surface of the movies at the ways in which they work their magic: be they Hollywood blockbusters or European 'arthouse' films. Watching is about how the simplest pleasures of cinema (from the satisfying impact of a well-filmed punch to the dreamlike wonder of a perfect close-up) have been crucial to the way in which the medium has evolved from a fairground novelty into the twentieth century's dominant form of cultural expression. Award-winning journalist Sutcliffe considers what is often forgotten in theoretical approaches to cinema - that it is an emotional experience before it is a cerebral one, that subconscious emotions can colour our conscious judgments. Read this book and you'll never watch films in the same way again.