it was logical that he would eventually weave fiction with history in the serpentine Suspects, from which one can learn more about the iconography of film noir than from many worthy textbooks." He followed this in 1990 with Silver Light, which mixes real and fictional people from the history of the Western; Publishers Weekly notes that the “cast includes Willa Cather, Montgomery Clift, Charles Ives, Judge Roy Bean and numerous characters smuggled in from such movies as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and McCabe and Mrs. Miller.” Thomson has written screenplays, including Fierce Heat, which was to be produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Stephen Frears. Thomson has written books that combine biography and fiction, such as Warren Beatty and Desert Eyes, which combines a biography of Warren Beatty with speculative fiction. Publishers Weekly wrote that "Thomson's analysis of Beatty's work is perceptive" but criticized the "silly futuristic story of a California peopled with earthquake survivors." Champlin called the book "stunning and unprecedented." He has also written a controversial book about Nikole Kidman, which Peter Conrad wrote "slithers from critical observation to subjunctive daydreaming", including ventures into "territory best left to pornography." Lawrence Levi, in The New York Times, called it a "weird and unseemly mash note." In The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, Thomson memorializes his friend Kieran Hickey, a documentary filmmaker. Thomson wrote some of Hickey's films, including Faithful Departed, a short documentary on the Dublin of James Joyce's Ulysses. Thomson credits Hickey with shaping his book: "I do not mean to shift the responsibility. Kieran helped in the research on all editions of this book; he commented and improved it at every page. But his deepest contribution was to the years of talk, the climate of taking pictures seriously, that made me think this book possible. If you feel the urge to talk back to this book, then know that Kieran paved the way." Hickey died in 1993, and Thomson writes that "in a way I feel the movies are over now that he's gone." He has confessed that he prefers writing books to film writing. Thomson lives in San Francisco with his wife and their two sons. On 1 April 2014, the San Francisco International Film Festival announced that Thomson would receive the Mel Novikoff Award at the 57th annual SFIFF. Favorite films Thomson participated in the Sight & Sound poll in 2002 and