Why do people go to the movies? What does it mean to watch a movie? To what extent is the perceived fictional nature of movies different from our daily perception of the real world? In this book, film theory and neuroscience meet to shed new light on cinema masterpieces, and explore the great directors from the classical period to the present. The Empathic Screen is devoted to examining how our natural tendency to simulate our fellow humans' actions affects the experience of watching (and hearing!) films. The authors attempt to build bridges between cognitivist, neuroscientific research, and philosophical traditions that tend to privilege "nurture" over "nature." Cognitivist-oriented film scholars will particularly enjoy the detailed analyses of film scenes. Gallese and Guerra show how these scenes trigger precognitive, embodied simulation through camera movements, close-ups of facial expressions and bodily experiences, editing, sound effects, or a combination of all these techniques. The book's discussion of experimental findings contains technical terminology and diagrams that the authors always summarize in accessible terms. This book represents the growing influence, not just of cognitive film scholarship, but of cognitive science in the humanities.