Film Studies: Find Articles

Film Studies is the oldest discipline within the larger fields of communication and media studies. Serious books, articles, and reports about the movies date back to the early 20th century and since the 1970s the field has expanded rapidly.

Film Studies gives scholars, researchers, and students great scope to explore many questions. As a field of study, it sits at the crossroads of many other disciplines, including, the visual, literary, and popular arts, modern history, economics, sociology, psychology, journalism, world issues, gender and sexuality, and global cultures.

Why Study Film?

Film Studies, like other forms of media and visual education, equips students with transferable skills, useful for many aspects of life. Ours is a visual culture and thus acquiring film-studies skills can be enormously helpful in all kinds of work.
The cinema has been, and remains, an enormously influential medium in our culture and society—it shapes behaviour and some of our most basic social norms. For most of us, going to the movies teaches us how to kiss, how to be bold or energetic, how to say you’re sorry, how to convince, how to fit in, how to be cool.

The cinema also provides for many people the basic knowledge about other cultures and societies. Ideas that we have about others—some of them accurate, some biased, usually come from film and TV. Thus, through film and TV, we not only get entertained, we pick up many of our ideas and opinions. Film has become a powerful medium responsible for much good, but also, in the wrong hands, a dangerous tool. In addition, the film and TV industries constitute major economic sectors in our economy. They employ millions of people and wield both political and economic power.

Finally, Film Studies is fun. It’s a serious discipline, but the objects of our work can be wildly entertaining, informative and challenging. The study of cinema provides endless opportunities for developing creative ideas.

For world cinema specifically, visit the BBC and Culture Grams databases.

Journals in Print

Variety
The leading trade magazine in the U.S. entertainment industry, covering film, television, music, theatre, with analysis, reviews, news, etc.

The Hollywood Reporter
Major news reports on Hollywood film and television

Journals available Online