A Sudden Flicker of Light

David Thomson is the doyen of film historians, and for most of a century has, he tells us, seen two films a day pretty well every day. He knows a lot… Thoughtful, insightful and rather haunting… I enjoyed this book so much that I came close to missing the deadline for the review. I kept having to break off to see if a movie Thomson had wonderfully evoked was, as it ought to be, on the streaming services

Philip Hensher, Spectator

Deeply personal, persuasive and intelligently-argued… Lively, entertaining and unpredictable… Thomson is an excellent critic and his sharp, often witty writing brings to life many celebrated works

Greg Jameson, Entertainment Focus

I once took a book out of the library and was annoyed to find a previous reader has underlined every line in pencil. It seemed so indiscriminate. Reading David Thomson’s A Sudden Flicker of Light, I finally understood the urge. There are so many revelations, so many insights, that a highlighter pen would have given the whole book a radioactive glow

John Bleasdale, Sight and Sound

A Sudden Flicker of Light hurtles around conceptual corners, pinballing between genres and eras inside a single chapter. The phrasing is arch and self-aware, full of sharp cuts but he’s also excellent on condensed, full-colour biographies … There will always be a level of hand-wringing around what we consume and its implications. Thomson at least has the good grace to make the conversation an entertainment in itself

Hillary Adam White, Irish Independent

Thomson’s commentary on films is so filled with rich insights, connections and asides that it is easy to enter his imaginary world, in which film is as vivid and revealing as any reality… Lively and perceptive

Mark Glancy, Literary Review

After a lifetime of helpless thraldom to beautiful people in the dark, Thomson has written a spirited jeremiad against the influence of the movies on us and on politics

Stephen Smith, Financial Times

What animates A Sudden Flicker of Light is not the sheer love of film that he has so often expressed, but newly severe doubts, even moral nausea, about the effect cinema has had on us all over the past century in loosening our grasp on reality

David Sexton, Evening Standard

As an intellectual thought experiment and an exercise in radical self-scrutiny, the book is utterly compelling… Even as Thomson questions the passion that has defined his life, he reaffirms it – and infectiously so

Matt D’Ancona, The New World

David Thomson, who knows more about cinema than anyone alive, is like a good Catholic: his doubts about the medium are as strong as his faith. Does cinema matter anymore? In the ubiquitous saturation of formulaic stories and familiar images, is real originality still possible? And would anyone notice? No-one is better qualified than Thomson to survey the history of cinema with wit and insight - and the bonus is a striking judgement on every page

David Hare