More than any other art form, the cinema developed within a national framework until World War II. Numerous parallels can thus be drawn between cinematography and the development of the modern nation. What significance does this hold for us in the era of global networks? Jean-Michel Frodon traces the history of the major national cinemas during the first half of the century, before going on to study how those nations and their film industries developed during the second half of the century. He ends with a question: Despite the trend towards globalisation, are nations and their film industries capable of resisting the systems of representation and the changes in the world that characterise the end of the millennium? La Projection Nationale is a political history of the world’s major film industries. Jean-Michel Frodon is a film critic and historian. After working for the weekly news magazine Le Point, he is now a journalist on Le Monde. He has been on the editorial board of the Cahiers de Médiologie since they were founded. He is the author of L’Âge Moderne du Cinéma Français (Flammarion, 1995).