The steady flow is considered of a Newtonian fluid, of viscosity µ, between contrarotating cylinders with peripheral speeds U 1 and U 2 . The two-dimensional velocity field is determined correct to O(H 0 /2R) 1/2 , where 2H 0 is the minimum separation of the cylinders and R an 'averaged' cylinder radius. For flooded/moderately starved inlets there are two stagnation-saddle points, located symmetrically about the nip, and separated by quasi-unidirectional flow. These stagnation-saddle points are shown to divide the gap in the ratio U 1 : U 2 and arise at |X| = A where the semi-gap thickness is H(A) and the streamwise pressure gradient is given by dP /dX = µ(U 1 + U 2 )/H 2 (A). Several additional results then follow.(i) The effect of non-dimensional flow rate, λ: A 2 =2 RH 0 (3λ − 1) and so the stagnation-saddle points are absent for λ<1/3, coincident for λ =1/3 and separated for λ>1/3.(ii) The effect of speed ratio, S = U 1 /U 2 : stagnation-saddle points are located on the boundary of recirculating flow and are coincident with its leading edge only for symmetric flows (S = 1). The effect of unequal cylinder speeds is to introduce a displacement that increases to a maximum of O(RH 0 ) 1/2 as S → 0. Five distinct flow patterns are identified between the nip and the downstream meniscus. Three are asymmetric flows with a transfer jet conveying fluid across the recirculation region and arising due to unequal cylinder speeds, unequal cylinder radii, gravity or a combination of these. Two others exhibit no transfer jet and correspond to symmetric (S = 1) or asymmetric (S = 1) flow with two asymmetric effects in balance. Film splitting at the downstream stagnation-saddle point produces uniform films, attached to the cylinders, of thickness H 1 and H 2 , whereprovided the flux in the transfer jet is assumed to be negligible.(iii) The effect of capillary number, Ca:asCa is increased the downstream meniscus advances towards the nip and the stagnation-saddle point either attaches itself to the meniscus or disappears via a saddle-node annihilation according to the flow topology.Theoretical predictions are supported by experimental data and finite element computations.