In this study the author challenges both cognitivist-historicist accounts of cinema and conventional film-theory. Arguing that the reading of Lacan operative in the 1970s and 1980s was particularly reductive, he asserts that there is another Lacan in reference to whom film theory, cultural studies and critical thought as such can be transformed and revitalized. He supports this argument with readings of Tarkovsky (Stalker, Nostalghia), Kieslowski (the Three Colours Trilogy) and Lynch (Lost Highways), demonstrating how their work can be saved from obscurantist analysis by Lacanian interpretation.