Film Studies Course Listing

Below are our course offerings. Beyond this, please also see our Film Studies Courses, not all of which are offered in a given year.

Please consult the University Calendar for the official Film Studies Calendar listings. Our department also offers English and Creative Writing courses.

Film Studies Courses 2025-2026

See Bear Tracks for scheduling of the courses listed below.

Fall 2025

FS 100 LEC A1, A2, A3, A4, A5: Introduction to Film Study

Introduction to basic formal concepts in film analysis including mise-en scène, cinematographic properties, editing, and sound, as well as narrative qualities.

FS 201 LEC A1: Introduction to Film History I
L. Czach

The history of film has often been told as a narrative of classic films made by 'genius' directors. Yet, a truer history of the medium encompasses all kinds of material that was recorded on film-- from home movies to educational films to feature-length. Although this course will focus primarily on the development of the narrative film it will question the traditional narrative of film as a sequence of masterwork films made by great filmmakers. We will examine the development of film from its beginning in the late 19th century up to 1950 as both an art form as well as a commercial product, and much that falls between. We will learn about key film movements, genres, development of film technique, but also some of the lesser-known figures, movements, and films that have been sidelined by traditional film histories. 

FS 203 LEC A1: Television from Broadcasting to Screen Cultures
Staff

Many people argue that television has been “revolutionized” in an age of technological convergence and streaming services. Yet there remains continuity amidst the radical shifts within the television industries. This course introduces students to the history of television broadcasting and the transition to a post-network era. It also provides an overview of the foundational theories of television criticism and issues of representation of race, gender, class, and sexuality in televisual storytelling.

FS 320 LEC A1: French New Wave
M. Leeder

The New Wave (La Nouvelle Vague) of French Cinema is among the most famous film movement of the twentieth century, and has become almost synonymous with the notion of “artistic” cinema. The films made during this period in France have become influential, but even more so it is the notion of director-driven filmmaking, the “auteur” ideal, that has profoundly changed the way that cinema is made and considered around the world.

In this class we will trace this movement from its beginnings in the post-WWII period in France, the development of theories at the magazine Cahiers du cinema, the influence of André Bazin, and the range of experiments and approaches that came to define this revolutionary cinema. We will view films by Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Chris Marker, Agnes Varda and Alain Resnais, among others.

FS 368 LEC A1: Central and East-European Film
B. Varga

The course will explore major themes, trends and auteurs in Central and Eastern European
cinemas during and after socialism.

Indicative Reading: Imre, Anikó, ed. A companion to Eastern European cinemas.
Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

FS 399 LEC A1: Special Topics in Film Studies
Action Cinema
T. Romao

A survey of the main approaches to the study of action cinema.

FS 399 LEC A2: Special Topics in Film Studies
Film and Politics
B. Capper

What is the relation between film and politics? How do films shape or influence politics and how, in turn, do the political contexts in which films are made shape their representations and meanings? This course will pursue these questions by looking at films across histories, geographies, genres, and forms. We will consider how cinema has reinforced, critiqued, and disrupted ideologies across the political spectrum; how films have represented key political issues such as capitalism, colonialism and decolonization, democracy, identity, globalization, crime, war, genocide, and climate crisis; and what role films have played in constituting the very meaning of “politics” and “the political.” We will watch a wide selection of films, from mainstream cinema to underground film, while engaging with readings from cinema studies and critical and political theory.

FS 407 LEC A2: Topics in Film History
Women and the Silent Screen
L. Czach

The silent period of film history is often considered a golden age for women’s participation in filmmaking. Not only were women in front of the screen as actors, but they also played a major role behind the scenes as directors, camera operators, writers, editors, and producers. Women also worked in theatres as ticket takers, ushers, coat check girls, projectionists, theatre managers, and were courted as an audience. This course will examine women’s contributions to silent film production examining the many roles that women occupied including screen stars such as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Greta Garbo, Anna May Wong and Josephine Baker; screenwriters Adela Rogers St. Johns, Frances Marion and Elinor Glyn; directors Alice Guy Blaché, Nell Shipman, and Lois Weber, amongst others. We will also examine various cinematic stereotypes that emerged during the silent era such as the vamp and the flapper.

FS 415 LEC A1: Global Television and Screen Cultures
S. Tinic

Classical theories of international television and movie distribution tended to focus on assumptions of Hollywood’s dominance over global audience markets. However, our contemporary media environment is marked by multi-directional flows of popular entertainment that contradict “cultural imperialism” arguments. This course focuses on theories of cultural globalization as they apply to television and new screen cultures. Topics include global TV formats, domestic adaptations, transnational co-productions, and the increasing importance of diasporic audiences.

Winter 2026

FS 100 LEC B1, B2, B3, B4: Introduction to Film Study

Introduction to basic formal concepts in film analysis including mise-en scène, cinematographic properties, editing, and sound, as well as narrative qualities.

FS 202 LEC B1: Introduction to Film History II
T. Romao

A survey of world cinema from 1950 to present, with emphasis on major historical developments and important individual films.

FS 215 LEC B1: Introduction to Film Theory
B. Capper

This course provides a general survey of major currents and debates in film theory, including Bazin's writings on the ontology of the film image; Eisenstein's theory of montage; semiotic approaches to film as a language; Marxist, feminist, and psychoanalytic concepts of film spectatorship; the intersections of cinematic realism and ideology; Deleuzian accounts of cinematic time and movement; critical race theory and cinema; theories of decolonial, anti-colonial, and global cinemas; and theoretical engagements with digital cinema and the question of indexicality. Readings will be accompanied by studies in key cinematic texts, genres, and movements that have galvanized film-theoretical debates. 

FS 319 LEC B1: Film Noir
T. Romao

A study of the stylistic, thematic, and ideological features of the American film genre known as film noir.

FS 330 LEC B1: Documentary Film
T. Hubbard

Theory and history of the documentary film, covering a wide variety of documentary film movements, the role and importance of the National Film Board of Canada, and recent developments in the field.

FS 340 LEC B1: Making Television: Production Cultures
S. Tinic

A complex series of negotiations and struggles among competing interests lies behind the half-hour comedies and one-hour dramas that continue to dominate the television landscape. This course explores the cultural and industrial dimensions of the “conventional wisdoms” that television professionals rely on in an increasingly competitive industry. Topics include: casting decisions, studio expectations, formulas/genres, target audiences, channel branding, marketing and promotion, the rise of the show-runner, and the culture of the writers’ room.

FS 399 LEC B1: Special Topics in Film Studies
Teen Film
M. Leeder

This course studies that vague, shifting conception of “youth” and how it has been presented in cinema from roughly the 50s until today. It explores how Hollywood, international and independent cinema draw on the teenage audience while constructing a complex relationship of gender, sex and youth. It also explores the interactions between the teen film and other genres, like horror, romance, sports and action. Amy Heckerling, the director of classics like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Clueless (1995), serves as a case study as a specialist in the teen movie.

FS 412 LEC B1: Topics in Film Studies
Screening Socialism
B. Varga

The course aims to understand and examine the (post)socialist cultural-political experiences
of East-Central Europe: understanding (post)socialism through films and understanding films
through (post)socialism. We will discuss how socialism was represented in films and series
before and after the political changes.

Indicative Reading: 

• Imre, Anikó. TV Socialism. Duke University Press, 2016.
• Pehe, Veronika. Velvet Retro: Postsocialist Nostalgia and the Politics of Heroism in Czech 
  Popular Culture. Vol. 2. Berghahn Books, 2020.

FS 412 LEC B2: Topics in Film Studies
Cinemas of Revolution and Rebellion
B. Capper

This advanced seminar will take a historical and theoretical approach to global cinemas of revolution and rebellion. We will explore how cinema has shaped, visualized, and participated in a range of revolutions and rebellions from the 1920s to the present, including but not limited to Soviet, Chinese, and Cuban communism; anti-colonial and decolonial struggles; demands for prison abolition; and movements for women’s and sexual liberation. We will ask: What is the relation between cinematic form and revolutionary politics? What role have films played in political organization and mobilization? And how has cinema been a site for imagining, contesting, and reconceiving the very idea of “revolution,” particularly in relation to questions of race, gender, labour, and nation? Throughout, film screenings will be paired with readings in critical and political theory, as well as film history and theory.

Previous Offerings

2024-25 Fall and Winter Film Studies Courses
2023-24 Fall and Winter Film Studies Courses

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