Textual analysis is one of the oldest methods in Film Studies but also one of the most contested. It has been widely critiqued as a method, with approaches from theory, contextualisation, production and reception studies challenging its validity. Yet the practice of it persists, in the use of examples in scholarly work, in teaching and in reviewing in the media, and, not least, in everyday discourse. What forms does the critique take and how strong are their cases? Why does textual analysis persist? Should it? In what form? These questions will be addressed, taking ­examples from films (specifically Rocco e i suoi fratelli, 1960, and Trouble Man, 1972), although the issue of textual analysis runs across all the arts and humanities and indeed across all human knowledge.