Christian Metz (French) is best known for the application of Ferdinand de Saussure's theories of Semiotics to film.

His most well-known contribution to film criticism lies in applying both Sigmund Freud's psychology and Lacan's mirror theory to the cinema, proposing that the reason film is popular as an art form lies in its ability to both be an imperfect reflection of reality and as a method to delve into the unconscious dream state.

Works

• Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema (ISBN 0226521303)
• The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema (ISBN 0253203805)
• Language and Cinema (ISBN 9027926824)