Movies under the Influence charts the entangled histories of moviegoing and mind-altering substances from early cinema through the psychedelic 1970s. Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece examines how the parallel trajectories of these two aspects of American culture resulted in them being treated and regulated in similar ways. Rather than looking at drug use within film, she regards cinema and intoxicants as kindred experiences of immersion that have been subject to corresponding forces of ideology and power.

Szczepaniak-Gillece demonstrates how American movie theaters sought to cultivate a dual identity, presenting themselves as both a place of wholesome entertainment and a zone of illicit behavior. Movies under the Influence highlights the legislative, legal, and corporate powers that held sway over theaters, locating the convergence of moviegoing and drug use as a site of mediation and social control.

As much as substances and cinema are points where power intervenes, they are also settings of potential transcendence, and Movies under the Influence maintains this paradox as a necessary component of American film history. This book examines the relationship intoxicants suggest between mass media, spectatorship, and governmental regulation and provides a new angle from which to understand cinema's lasting role in evolving American culture.