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.