Abstract This chapter aims to discuss the creation of time in cinema from an embodied cognitive perspective. Drawing on principles of Cognitive linguistics, we first discuss briefly how our ordinary thinking about time is informed by spatial knowledge. Knowing how space shapes temporal thought, we subsequently show how filmmakers may cue this spatio-temporal logic in the direction of two opposing models of time-creation in cinema: one model in which cinematic creativity serves the purpose of optimal narrative clarity, and another model in which creativity resolves around the opposite goal of spatio-temporal ambiguity. We illustrate both models through various case-examples drawn from classical narrative cinema and modern and postmodern art cinema, respectively.