In 2010, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film was named the greatest book on the cinema by a poll in Sight and Sound; his novel Suspects also received multiple votes.

Thomson has served on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival,[8] and scripted an award-winning documentary, The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind.

Thomson helped to revive interest in the director Michael Powell (along with Emeric Pressburger, one half of the film duo the Archers.)

"[6] In 1985, he published Suspects, a metafictional novel that imagines the secret histories of film noir characters like Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond and Chinatown's Noah Cross.

In 1990, he followed it 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 & Mrs.

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.

He has also written a controversial book about Nicole Kidman, which Peter Conrad wrote "slithers from critical observation to subjunctive daydreaming", including ventures into "territory best left to pornography.

Thomson wrote some of Hickey's films, including Faithful Departed, a short documentary on the Dublin of James Joyce's Ulysses.

In 2002, he prefaced his list with a "Love You, Too" to Sunrise, The Passenger, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, In a Lonely Place, L'Atalante, Madame de..., The Red Shoes, Point Blank, Persona, The Lady Eve, The Awful Truth, The Shop Around the Corner, Rear Window, Meet Me in St. Louis, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Night of the Hunter, The Eclipse, Providence, Belle de Jour, Chinatown, Mulholland Drive and "just about everything by Howard Hawks except the one I will come to, eventually" before naming his top ten.

2002: Blue Velvet, Celine and Julie Go Boating, Citizen Kane, The Conformist, His Girl Friday, A Man Escaped, The Rules of the Game, Pierrot le Fou, That Obscure Object of Desire and Ugetsu Monogatari.

[23][24] 2012: Blue Velvet, Celine and Julie Go Boating, Citizen Kane, The Conformist, Hiroshima mon amour, His Girl Friday, Pierrot le Fou, The Rules of the Game, The Shop Around the Corner and Ugetsu Monogatari.

[25] 2022: The Big Sleep, Celine and Julie Go Boating, Citizen Kane, Fists in the Pocket, Magnolia, A Man Escaped, Pierrot le Fou, The Shop Around the Corner, The Underground Railroad and The Vietnam War.