Why do we watch the same movies over and over again? For some, this gives them the opportunity to return to the past, for others - to realize the present, and sometimes they just want to repeat the emotional experience that was experienced many years ago. Old cinema makes us see how the world around us has changed and how we ourselves have changed in this world. Film critic and essayist Boris Lokshin reviews a variety of films: recognized masterpieces of world cinema, cult Soviet films, as well as once famous and now almost forgotten hits of mass culture - from “The Conformist” and “Flights in Dreams and in Reality” to “Emmanuelle” . Refusing dry film analysis, the author talks about these films in a lively and vivid language, building amazing chains between past and present, personal and general, funny and tragic, and most importantly, makes the reader see these films in a completely new light.