Film archaeology is influenced by Michel Foucault’s archaeological method of returning to the so-called origin of a subject to understand how it became possible at that point in time to ‘think that’. We use this method to explore the intertwined emergence of cinema and autism in the early twentieth century and trace their pivotal moments of transformation throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century.

We explore the role of film at the turn of the twentieth century in establishing neurology and psychiatry as scientific subjects. Film’s perceived objectivity in documenting bodies, and particularly body movements, in a clinical setting helped to professionalise the interpretation and diagnosis of psychological conditions. We explore the silent films of early neurological practitioners, the mid-century work of psychiatrists focused on child development, and the rise of documentary and autoethnographic film with the neurodiversity movement. We trace correspondences between the fascination with body language in films made in clinical contexts with a similar fascination with body language in mainstream cinema.