A series of six programmes in which John Baxter examines the changes in cinema that have occurred over the past 25 years.

Throughout its long history, the cinema has usually had a reluctance to deal directly with the social and political problems of the time. John Baxter considers the cinema's record in a period which included the rise of the New Left, the Vietnam War, the debate on nuclear energy and the growth of demands for racial equality.
Speakers include Stirling Silliphant, Lindsay Anderson, Stanley Kramer, Haskell Wexler, Arthur Penn, Donald Crombie and Paul Schrader.

Interviews in New York by Tom Brooke and in Los Angeles by Carroll Moore