Information for BA Film Studies students 2025

Welcome to Film and Television Studies at Warwick!

We are absolutely delighted that you have chosen Warwick as your preferred place of study, and we look forward to welcoming you to the University in September. Below you will find some information about what you will be studying in your first year at Warwick, along with some possible preparatory reading suggested by the tutors who teach the first term Year 1 modules.

When you join Film and Television Studies this Autumn, you will be a member of a first-year cohort who are following one of two degrees: Film and Literature and Film Studies. All first years follow four core modules in Film History, Film and Television Analysis, Film and Television Criticism and Film Theory, plus some additional modules. In the case of the BA in Film Studies, your additional modules will be Theories for Film Studies and Visual Cultures in the first term and The Business of Film and Screen Technologies in the second term.

The reading list below will give degree-specific preparation, but there are a couple of general points which I thought it might be useful to explain as well. Although we know that around half of you will have studied Film or Media Studies at A Level, our first-year film modules do not presume any existing familiarity with the history of cinema or key approaches to the study of the subject. At the same time, because we study a dramatically broader range of films and topics, and because we practice very different modes of study than is possible on any A-Level syllabus, if you have studied film before you will not find that the first year at Warwick simply duplicates the teaching you’ve already experienced.

With regard to the reading lists, I’d also like to reinforce the fact that degree-level study involves a lot more independent reading than you will be accustomed to doing at A Level. Each film module typically involves the viewing of at least one new film per week and there will also be compulsory supplementary critical reading which you are expected to undertake for the weekly seminars. It would be to your real benefit to undertake some preparatory reading (and viewing) over the summer.

Please also check these webpages for more information and advice about the induction process and the timetable for Welcome Week and the first week of the Autumn over the coming weeks.

We do really look forward to welcoming you to Film and Television Studies in September.

With warm wishes,

Dr Rick Wallace

Director of Film and Television Studies

Summer Reading Lists for Autumn Term Modules

For all of the core first-year film modules, an important priority should be to extend the range of your film viewing. Try to see as much as you possibly can of all types of film. Make the most of any streaming sites you have access to, along with films shown on television or in your local cinema. It would be especially useful for you to seek out films from parts of the world and periods in film history that you are unfamiliar with.

When you arrive at Warwick, you will be able to find copies or online editions of all the reading material listed below through the University Library. In the meantime, you can find preview versions of many of them through sites such as Google Books, Open Library and publishers’ websites.

Film History

This module is designed to introduce you to the study of the history of film and the study of the relationships between history and film. It will look at key film schools and movements in world cinema history from its first decades and through the twentieth century. The module will provide a survey of a range of national cinemas and situate them in relation to specific historical moments in the history of cinema. It will explore some of the factors in the global success of Hollywood cinema in the first half of the twentieth century and examine some of the ‘new waves’ and ‘new cinemas’ which have sprouted up across the globe since the post-World War Two war period. By exploring how cinematic movements are constituted and conceptualised in critical, aesthetic and political discourses, the module will aim to reflect on questions of canon formation, critical practice, the political impact of cinema, circuits of transnationalism, and modes of film production.

Suggested reading:

David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, twelfth edition (McGraw-Hill, 2020, or earlier editions). This is a useful guide to the terminology of film analysis; it has a comprehensive glossary of terms with which you should familiarise yourself as soon as possible. You can find excerpts from the book on David Bordwell’s website.

Tom Brown and James Walters (eds), Film Moments (British Film Institute, 2010). A fascinating anthology of readings of key moments from a broad spectrum of films. Readers in the UK can find an excerpt from the book on the publisher’s website.

Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience: An Introduction, sixth edition (Bedford/St Martin’s, 2021, or earlier editions). A useful survey book that is best consulted in relation to Bordwell and Thompson.

John Gibbs, Mise-en-Scène: Film Style and Interpretation (Wallflower, 2002). A lucid and informative introduction to this key topic for the module.

V.F. Perkins, Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies (Penguin Books, 1972; De Capo Edition, 1993). An early and very influential book in film studies, written by a founding member of Film and Television Studies at Warwick.

Jonathan Bignell, An Introduction to Television Studies, fourth edition (Routledge, 2023, or earlier editions). A very useful introductory text on television studies. Readers in the UK can find an excerpt from the book on the publisher’s website.

Milly Buonanno, The Age of Television: Experiences and Theories (Intellect, 2008). A good critical and historical survey of many of the key transformations in television and television studies.

John Corner, Critical Ideas in Television Studies (Clarendon Press, 2009). A very useful introduction to key theoretical frameworks in television studies.

Karen Lury, Interpreting Television (Hodder Arnold, 2005). An excellent introduction to the textual study of television.

Theories for Film Studies

The aim of this module is to introduce you to theoretical ways of thinking about film, giving you a foundational understanding of what theory is and why it is useful for film scholars. You will learn some of the major theoretical approaches that underpin and inform contemporary film studies. These approaches were originally developed in other subject areas, such as Philosophy and Psychology, and were later taken up within our discipline. We will be reading cinema through a range of these frameworks, encouraging close analysis of theoretical and critical issues in relation to specific film case studies. You will take another module (called Film Theory) in the Spring Term, which primarily focuses on theoretical debates around the moving image.

Below are some suggested readings that could be useful preparation for the module, as well as some theoretical texts that would be helpful throughout your undergraduate studies.

Suggested reading:

Richard Rushton and Gary Bettinson ‘Introduction: What Is Film Theory?’, in What is Film Theory, ed. by Richard Rushton and Gary Bettinson (Open University Press, 2010), pp. 1-14. This will be the assigned reading in Week 1. It offers a short overview of film theory. Pay attention to what they say about theories that emerged first in other disciplines. This will be useful for Week 1 of the module.

Jean-Luc Comolli and Paul Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’, Screen, 12:1 (1971), pp. 27–38. This will be the assigned reading in Week 2.

Sue Thornham, ‘Introduction’, in Feminist Film Theory (Edinburgh University Press, 1999), pp. 1-7. We study feminist theory in Week 4 of the module.

Jackie Stacey, ‘Queer Theory and New Queer Cinema’, in The Cinema Book, ed. by Pam Cook, third edition (British Film Institute, 2007), pp. 505-507. We study Queer Theory in the second half of the module. This is a neat, short summary, with some great film recommendations.

Robert Stam and Louise Spence, ‘Colonialism, Racism and Representation’ (1983), in The Film Studies Reader, ed. by Joanne Hollows, Peter Hutchings and Mark Jancovich (Arnold, 2000), pp. 315-322.

The following books might act as helpful theoretical reference material throughout your undergraduate journey:

John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson (eds), The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (Oxford University Press, 1998).

Amy Villarejo, Film Studies: The Basics, third edition (Routledge, 2022, or earlier editions).

Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener, Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses, second edition (Routledge, 2015).

Visual Cultures

This module aims to give first year students in Film Studies an introduction to a range of different visual cultures and, in particular, to proximate media forms and questions of medium specificity. We will examine a wide variety of visual media over the course of the module, including (but not limited to): still photography, comics, online videos, video games. We will complicate ideas of medium specificity by identifying some of the ways in which these different media interact with one another, and consider the cross-pollination of these forms with film and television. We will also explore theories of convergence and transmedia storytelling alongside more recent concepts that have been developed to understand complex interactions that are evident between media and texts in the contemporary media landscape.