This essay explores the mutually beneficial business collaborations between tobacco companies and major movie studios from the late 1920s to the 1940s. Smoking in movies is associated with adolescent and young adult smoking initiation. Public health efforts to eliminate smoking from youth-accessible films have been resisted by defenders of the status quo, who associate tobacco imagery in “classic” films with artistry and nostalgia. Both the entertainment and tobacco industries have recognized the high value of promoting tobacco through entertainment media. Each company hired aggressive product placement firms to represent their interests in Hollywood. These companies placed tobacco products and signage in positive situations that would encourage viewers to use tobacco and prevent the brands from being used in negative situations. Efforts were also made to place favorable articles related to actors' use of the product in the national press and to encourage professional photographers to take photos of actors smoking specific brands. The cigar industry began to develop connections with the entertainment industry starting in the 1980s, and paid product placements have been made in both films and television. This effort has not always required cash payments from the tobacco industry to the entertainment industry, suggesting that simply seeking cash profits could cause other important ties between the tobacco industry and the entertainment industry to be lost. entertainment. So, the tobacco industry understood the value of placing and encouraging tobacco use in films and how to do it. Although the industry claims to have put an end to the practice, smoking in movies increased during the 1990s and remains a public health problem. influence Hollywood. The power of cinema to promote the “social acceptability” and desirability of tobacco use, particularly among young people, is a continuing incentive for the tobacco industry to use this medium. The increase in tobacco use and the continued appearance of specific brands in films since 1990 may reflect the continued activities of the tobacco industry, despite the industry's voluntary restrictions on such practices. It may be that, as with the provisions of the industry's voluntary advertising code that nominally limit print marketing to children, the industry will find ways to circumvent its own rules. Until something is done to reduce and eliminate pro-tobacco images in films, films will remain one of the most powerful forces in the world promoting tobacco and serving the financial interests of the tobacco industry.