Flikipedia A branching dictionary of the moving image

film studies

noun

The academic discipline that studies film as an art form and cultural practice, encompassing its history, theory, criticism, and preservation, and distinguished from journalistic reviewing by its scholarly and analytical methods.

Origin A compound of film and studies, formed on the model of other academic field names; the discipline acquired the label as it became established in universities during the second half of the twentieth century.

  1. Academia An academic discipline devoted to the systematic study of the moving image, drawing on the history, theory, and criticism of film as well as its economic, technological, and cultural contexts. a university department offering degrees in film studies

  2. The body of scholarship produced within that discipline, as distinct from the reviewing found in the popular press.

Branches

Scope

Film studies is the academic discipline concerned with the moving image. It brings together several related pursuits: film history, which traces the medium’s technological and artistic development; film theory, which asks how films produce meaning and how cinema relates to perception, ideology, and the other arts; and film criticism, the interpretation and evaluation of individual works. Many programs also address film preservation, the material care of films as historical artifacts. The field draws methods from the humanities and social sciences, including aesthetics, history, linguistics, and cultural studies, and it treats cinema as an object of sustained, evidence-based inquiry.

Distinction from journalistic reviewing

Scholarly film analysis is commonly distinguished from journalistic reviewing. A review, written for a general readership on a short deadline, typically appraises a newly released film and advises whether it is worth watching. Academic film criticism, by contrast, situates a work within historical, theoretical, and formal contexts, argues from close analysis, cites sources, and is generally subject to peer review. The two overlap — some critics write in both registers — but they differ in purpose, method, and audience.

Development as a discipline

Writing about film as an art form began in the early twentieth century, but film studies emerged as a distinct academic field chiefly after the Second World War and expanded rapidly in universities from the 1960s onward. Its institutionalization was marked by the founding of dedicated departments, scholarly journals, and professional associations, and by the growth of archives and film schools. The discipline has since broadened from a focus on cinema to encompass television, video, and digital media, and it is often housed within or alongside programs in media and communication studies.

See also

  • film theory— The scholarly study of the nature, language, and effects of the moving image, concerned with how films produce meaning and how they relate to perception, ideology, and the other arts.
  • film criticism— The analysis and evaluation of films, spanning journalistic reviewing aimed at guiding audiences and scholarly criticism that interprets works within historical, formal, and theoretical contexts.
  • film history— The chronological development of the moving image as a medium, from the optical toys that preceded projection through the silent, sound, color, and digital eras.
  • film preservation— The archiving, restoration, and long-term protection of films, addressing the chemical instability of film stock and the migration of moving images across photographic and digital carriers so that works remain viewable over time.

Sources

  1. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, “Film Art: An Introduction”
  2. Robert Stam, “Film Theory: An Introduction”
  3. Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS)
  4. Pam Cook (ed.), “The Cinema Book” (British Film Institute)

Last revised: September 18, 2026