How to get a node that is in front of another?

Question

I have this XML:

<movies>
<movie>
    <title>A History of Violence</title>
</movie>
<movie>
    <title>Heat</title>     
</movie>
</movies>

And I want to get the first film, but said that bring me the film that was before Heat.

Answer 1

Good use case preceding:

//movie/title[. = "Heat"]/preceding::movie

Or preceding-sibling:

//movie[title = "Heat"]/preceding-sibling::movie