Film and Media Studies

Film and Media Studies

Columbia University has the distinction of being the first university in the United States to recognize the importance of Film Studies as an academic discipline, back when Victor Freeburg launched the Photoplay Composition class in 1915. Today, we remain committed to a pedagogy that considers the vanguard of change as moving-image media continue to evolve into the present. But we also explore what cinema has been historically as both an American and an international sociocultural phenomenon. Students in our program learn from a world-class faculty while living in one of the leading cities for film research and filmgoing. 

We offer both a BA (major only) and an MA in Film and Media Studies, the latter with a choice of specialization between cinema/media and emergent media.

Above: Professor Robert King discusses experimental film with his Introduction to Film Studies class.

Fall 2024 Admissions Deadline

Information Sessions

Faculty Publications

The Mind Game by Thomas Elsaesser
Framework Journal
Oxford Handbook for Queer Cinema book cover
Pink-Slipped by Jane Gaines
Make My Day by J. Hoberman
Cinema/Politics/Philosophy by Nico Baumbach
European Cinema and Continental Philosophy by Thomas Elsaesser
Cinematic Overtures by Annette Insdorf
Double Negative book cover
Hokum! book cover
Beyond the Screen
oxford handbook of silent cinema