The effects of variable viscosity, variable thermal conductivity and themocapillarity on the flow and heat transfer in a laminar liquid film on a horizontal stretching sheet is analyzed. Using a similarity transformation the governing time dependent boundary layer equations for momentum and thermal energy are reduced to a set of coupled ordinary differential equations. The resulting five-parameter problem is solved numerically for some representative value of the parameters. It is shown that the film thickness increases with the increase in viscosity of the fluid. In other words viscosity resists film thinning. Further it is shown that more heat flows out of the liquid through the stretching surface when conductivity increases with temperature than that for the case when conductivity decreases with temperature. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.