film analysis websites

• Issue Archive
• Stay Connected

The Top Film Criticism Sites: An Annotated Blog Roll

By Paul Brunick in the July-August 2010 Issue

The Self-Styled Siren Classical Hollywood fetishism has found a most enchanting ambassador. Farran Smith Nehme of The Self-Styled Siren turns the articulation of cliché and convention into a sport—no surprise she’s chosen melodrama as her champion underdog and counts Max Ophüls and Douglas Sirk among her favorite directors. A witty, working mother of three (the blog originated during afternoon naptime), the Siren is a unique and refreshing voice in a field often prone to nostalgic vacuity or esoteric one-upmanship. An “Anecdote of the Week” feature showcases her extensive bibliographic endeavors. Her obituaries are the most dependably poetic on the scene. Whether dusting off forgotten gems and industry players or providing fresh analysis on the already canonical, the Siren speaks with the grit, gumption, and savvy of the pre-Code ladies she so admires. Her extensive research is a valuable corollary to the Hollywood Babylon school of salacious folklore; not that the blog is without juice (delicious bon mots care of her beloved George Sanders) or mystery (a reverential moment of silence for Charles Boyer’s “incomparable way with a hat”). The Siren abandoned anonymity upon co-programming a series for TCM, but lifting the veil, in true Merry Widow style, has only furthered the blossoming of her appeal: a recent blogathon hosted in association with the National Film Preservation Foundation has raised $13,500 and counting. Not only is the Siren the best film geek friend you ever had, but she’s an increasingly powerful force.— Brynn White

Strictly Film School No one embodies cinephilia in the Internet age better than the pseudonymous Acquarello (aka Pascual Espiritu), a self-described “NASA flight systems design engineer” who single-handedly creates all the content for Strictly Film School. Unapologetically auteurist in design, Strictly Film School’s biggest draw is its jaw-droppingly extensive Director’s Database that boasts over 500 names, from canonical faves like Chantal Akerman and Pedro Almodóvar to the less known (but no less worthy) Joaquim Pedro de Andrade and Lisandro Alonso—and that’s just scratching the surface of the As. The directory doesn’t offer bios but instead concise capsules whose brevity is belied by their insights. While online platforms offer practically limitless writing space, Acquarello’s economical and precise prose is something to treasure. And for those looking to venture beyond auteurism, Strictly Film School offers the option to browse reviews by genres (of the academic sort: “Neo-Expressionism,” “Cinema Verité”), themes (“Generational Conflict,” “Aging/Obsolescence/Death”), and images (“Chromatic Shifts – State of Consciousness, Existential Realm” being my personal favorite). “Film-Related Reading Notes” on recently browsed print matter and a “Film Fest Journal” tops off this exhaustively (and exhaustingly) comprehensive site. If only real film schools were as informative and passionate as Strictly Film School.— Cullen Gallagher

Diagonal Thoughts In the distant future—when we are nothing more than incorporeal abstractions coded into the algorithmic consciousness of a virtual singularity, or blue-skinned, loin-clothed cybersexing flora and fauna with our FireWire pony tails, or whatever!—I sincerely hope that our post-organic nervous systems will occasionally light up to the archived index of Diagonal Thoughts. Media and culture aficionado Stoffel Debuysere, a member of Belgium’s Courtisane collective and co-programmer of its film and video festival, maintains a dense and diligently curated collection of “notes on seeing and being, sound and image, media and memory.” The site presents fresh, often mind-bending findings drawn from the worlds of neuroscience, philosophy, sociology, computer science, cultural studies, and (of course) the cinema. Collating quotations from innumerable sources, Debuysere is much more than a mere cut-and-paster—the rhetorical patchwork of interviews, articles, and program note snippets have a synthetic brilliance all their own, further gilded with Debuysere’s original observations and erudite commentary. Alongside his interest in new media’s ontological collision with human cognition and perceptual reality is a stalwart passion for old-school avant-garde celluloid (lovingly categorized as “Indeterminate Cinema”); recent “Artists in Focus” have included Guy Sherwin, David Gatten, and Morgan Fisher. Tracking the intersecting vectors of technological and aesthetic evolution, Diagonal Thoughts is nothing less than the cinephile’s survival guide for the 21st century.— Jesse P. Finnegan

Not Coming to a Theater Near You Rumsey Taylor was reared in the hinterlands of rural Kentucky, nurtured by VHS rentals and late-night cable TV. It’s fitting that he would go on to found Not Coming to a Theater Near You, an ambitious online resource for reevaluations of forgotten and fringe cinema. Taylor’s prowess as an editor lies in an innate ability to skirt both irreverent fan-boy pitfalls and highfalutin postgrad navel-gazing; the writing remains doggedly non-academic while retaining a sharp populism and simple elegance often lacking in similar niche sites. Not Coming increased its profile in 2009 by partnering with the NYC revival venue at 92YTribeca, where editors and contributors present public screenings of rare and controversial classics. The site sets itself apart through its assemblage of talented contributors, many of whom are able up-and-comers in New York’s criticism and repertory programming scenes. In addition to reviews, Not Coming offers independent festival coverage, interviews with significant figures in alternative cinema and criticism (filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, animator Don Hertzfeldt, and New Yorker film editor Richard Brody were all recent respondents), as well as comprehensive essays on intriguingly obscure subjects. A recent piece analyzed the rogue cinephilia of underground video mixtapes, most of which are of questionable legal status. It’s rare to find such subjects spotlighted with so much eloquence, and it’s with essays like this that the site really scores.— Benjamin Shapiro

Acidemic Acidemic is to be experienced more than summarized. While founder Erich Kuersten will write on oft-discussed blogosphere subjects—down-and-dirty horror pics, Seventies cinema of both mainstream and marginal varieties—these often serve as launching pads for loose-limbed meditations on cultural mores, youth nostalgia or, well, whatever else he wants to talk about. Kuersten’s runaway-train sentence structure and off-the-cuff humor result in some singular insights. (From an appreciation of 1982’s Conan the Barbarian : “The Thulsa Doom serpent cult in the film was a perfect analogy for the hippie movement, with its focus on converting young people to blood orgies and training them to kill their parents . . . For kids wondering why they weren’t growing up drowned in orgies like their older brothers in the 1970s, [it] was the perfect demonization tool.”) But following the snaking paths of his musings proves quite rewarding, not least for the way he intertwines the analytical with the personal. In a defense of Lindsay Lohan, for instance, Kuersten (who has written about his struggles with alcohol) both calls out the public’s gender bias and then offers the oft-soused starlet some AA-inspired solidarity. Full of freewheeling insights, Acidemic gives seemingly familiar material an idiosyncratic spin.— Matthew Connolly

The Academic Hack At first glance, there’s something intimidating about Michael Sicinski’s website, with its spare design and unadorned capsules of small-print Times New Roman. But as Sicinski’s ever-increasing fan base will attest, appearances can be deceiving. While he may indeed be an academic (he has a background in visual art and teaches university film courses), there’s nothing dry about his writing. Sicinski specializes in avant-garde film—there’s no other critic I know of who can make some of cinema’s most challenging works sound downright inviting—but he writes about Hollywood and art cinema with equal passion, humor, and clarity. His short-form reviews waste not a word; as the father of a young child, he doesn’t have the time to spare. Whether he’s unpacking complicated films with astonishing insight, defending a misunderstood triumph, or tearing down a seemingly unassailable critical favorite, Sicinski’s voice is one of almost scary intelligence—but it’s never haughty or condescending. His writing challenges accepted opinions and inspires reflection and investigation. You can’t ask for much more from a critic.— Matt Noller

Undercurrent Spartan and straightforward, the online magazine Undercurrent gets by without the hard sell—and that’s no small matter. A labor of love founded by Chris Fujiwara in 2006, Undercurrent is a quintessential small magazine, posting only one or two issues a year yet greatly enriching the world of film criticism. The site has done especially sharp and enjoyable work in the single-theme tribute format: a special section on John Ford, an homage to Danièle Huillet. Fujiwara, an occasional Film Comment contributor and author of several perceptive critical studies (on Tourneur, Preminger, and Jerry Lewis), says that he sees the project partly as “a magazine about film criticism.” Under the aegis of FIPRESCI (The International Federation of Film Critics), the journal’s focus and cosmopolitan character seem fitting, but it’s a real credit to Fujiwara’s editorial hand that Undercurrent transcends professional insiderism. Fujiwara, who grew up in Brooklyn and has lived in Tokyo for the past three years, says he seeks to steer the journal toward examination of the critical scenes in countries outside North America and Europe, and spur more thinking on “the theory and practice of criticism, the ways it gets written and read, in practical terms, and what critics’ goals and ideals are.”— Paul Fileri

DVD Beaver With its wealth of screen grabs direct from their DVD or Blu-Ray sources, Gary Tooze’s DVD Beaver is the go-to site for home-cinema perfectionists. From bit-rate analyses and run-time certifications to examinations of aspect ratios and image formatting, Beaver’s orgy of tech specs is a cinephilic wet dream. As the next-generation heir to Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog (see separate entry), Tooze has maintained pressure on home-video distributors to keep raising the bar of image and audio quality. Particularly revealing are side-by-side comparisons of a single title’s competing regional releases, in which the often staggering differences in transfer quality have to be seen to be believed. For such reasons, Beaver is both a major advocate of owning a multi-region player and a consumer-reports resource for sorting through the various models. Though reviews can get lost in the sea of advertising necessary to support the independently owned and operated site, once a user gains a little familiarity with the layout, staying updated is easy (and addictive): from the “What’s New” and “Release Calendar” sections to the conversely complementary “Criterions Going Out of Print” alerts. While the site currently focuses on technical evaluations, Tooze applies his unique analytical voice to auteurist critiques in the “Director’s Chair” section and shows off his genre smarts in the “Definitive Film Noir on DVD” resource page.— Ben Simington

Kino Slang At once a secret history of radical cinema and a secret history of radicals in the cinema, Kino Slang is as much about politics as film. Andy Rector’s selections of text and image capture the moments when history seeps through moving pictures in spite of themselves, revealing for a trembling instant the politics underlying their representation. There’s no preferred “genre” here other than authenticity; posts might combine images and texts from Costa-Gavras with Kenji Mizoguchi or from Jean-Marie Straub with Charles Burnett. As an attempt to excavate the 20th-century political projects that have structured the history of cinema, Kino Slang is often oblique but no less essential for that. Like the flickering images of Chris Marker’s Grin Without a Cat or the tombstones of John Gianvito’s profit motive and the whispering wind , Rector isolates the outliers, those critical voices in the wilderness, and assembles them into a unified trajectory of what might have been—and could be still. Rector’s compilation of discrete cultural moments does more than unearth forgotten episodes of (film) history. More than the sum of its parts, Kino Slang’s posts cumulatively comprise their very own histoire(s) —of cinema, of politics, and of personal artistic commitment.— Dave McDougall

Ludic Despair Northwestern University professor Jeffery Sconce has devoted his career to the scholarly probing of seedy cinematic underbellies: exploitation flicks, televised trash, and various cult phenomena. Sconce’s blog, billed as “An Index of Co-Morbid Symptoms,” skims lurid treasures off the cesspool of mass media with a timeliness that a critical anthology or symposium could never provide. Ludic’s robust, readable, and topical-to-the-week epistles are distinguished by Sconce’s spry intellectual vigor and playfully acerbic (or acerbically playful) curiosity, not to mention his laser-guided insights and pitch-perfect wit. Speculating as to why the incubators of Avatar seemed so compelled to weigh down a would-be romp with the cement shoes of a “message movie,” Sconce hypothesizes: “Perhaps this stems from a sense of guilt—if someone is going to spend this much money on a film, it should do more than simply grind Cool Ranch Doritos into the spectator’s eyes for two hours.” Dusting off all manner off sub-pop pap and B-grade tawdriness from decades past, Ludic also offers analytical treatises on contemporary concerns: a memorandum on our growing fascination with mall cops; a fiery deflation of the “Balloon Boy” media circus; a dialectical account of the death of “the teenager,” prompted by England’s adoption of the anti-loitering gizmo “the mosquito.” No matter the moving-image netherworlds Sconce navigates, the self-evident absurdity (which would be enough for most cultural commentators) is only the starting point—Sconce’s explications may be funny, but they’re far from a joke. And if you’re still waiting for the definitive appraisal of oddball icon Clint Howard, your day has arrived.— Jesse P. Finnegan

Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule In a media environment that rewards snark, however joyless, Dennis Cozzalio is an affable and refreshing voice. A father of two who came of age in the heyday of New Hollywood, Cozzalio’s cinematic reference points run as broad and deep as any salaried movie reviewer; but unlike the professionals, who are often required to waste spleen on films toward which they feel indifferent or hostile, Cozzalio has the luxury of focusing on the movies he actually enjoys. In practice this means that the content is delightfully varied: reviews of new releases, coverage of repertory events in the Los Angeles area, nostalgic looks back at trashy gems that won’t even play on cable. As someone who doesn’t believe in the concept of the guilty pleasure, Cozzalio doesn’t approach the “lowbrow” with caustic irony or overcompensating veneration; the oeuvre of Joe Dante is treated on its own terms. Since Cozzalio has a day job, updates can be sporadic, but uninhibited by space limitations or word count, his posts are lengthy and well-illustrated with images. Most impressive, as any dedicated digi-critic will tell you, is the community of commenters and fellow bloggers that have responded to Cozzalio’s work: their robust and insightful engagement lives up to Wired magazine’s Web utopianism.— Violet Lucca

Some Came Running Glenn Kenny was once a respected critic and editor for Premiere until he became a casualty of capitalism’s war on journalism. Now he finds himself online doing exactly what he wants, no longer beholden to deadlines and column inches. Not that he’s totally happy about that. Kenny has always been ambivalent about the position online criticism holds in the cultural discourse. When he’s at his best, though, he navigates the cyber landscape with the ease of any “digital native” youngster. A regular highlight of his site are the entries on DVD and Blu-Ray releases wherein he scopes out oft-obscure corners of the market for beautiful transfers of forgotten classics. And serious lovers of film criticism can appreciate Kenny’s regular lambasting of his two favorite punching bags, Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeff Wells and the New York Press ’s Armond White.— Evan Davis

Wright On Film Writing with a Bordwellian clarity and analytical rigor that’s perfect for unpacking the components of cinematic form, Benjamin Wright’s site is a fount of smart discourse on modern film aesthetics. Topics range from the character of Michael Mann’s close-ups to speculation on the almost-projects of great directors, but Wright (a graduate student at Carleton University in Ottawa) perhaps shines brightest when discussing his dissertation topic: sound in modern movies. His essays delve into the ways in which technology and industrial economics shape our experience of the oft-ignored aural aspects of the films we see (and hear), always taking care to initiate sonic laypeople with generous explanations of technical terms. It may sound a little (gasp!) academic, but Wright’s thoughtful enthusiasm guides you gracefully through the intricacies of, say, the narrative functions of Jerry Goldsmith’s scores or inside-baseball debates on 5.1 versus 10.2 surround sound systems. Wright has recently been considering the implications of 3-D, particularly with regard to how it might alter the soundscape of feature films. The intelligence and equanimity with which Wright treats this much-discussed topic alone makes Wright on Film a valuable resource. Best of luck with the dissertation, Benjamin, but make sure to keep the posts coming!— Matthew Connolly

Moving Image Source Under the stewardship of editor-in-chief Dennis Lim, Moving Image Source has quickly become one of the most consistently engaging critical voices on the Web, offering a versatile platform for its home institution (Astoria’s Museum of the Moving Image) to explore classic and contemporary cinema in all its international variety. Bridging the gap between serious criticism and scholarship, the journal is noteworthy not only for its consistently insightful prose and wide-ranging subjects—often pegged to important film exhibitions—but for its regular inclusion of video essays, an exciting emergent format that has been pioneered by frequent contributors Kevin B. Lee and Matt Zoller Seitz. In its two years online, the publication has thrived on a cinephilic passion open to many different tastes and approaches, with subjects ranging from the art of cinematography to the aesthetics of early video games, from established filmmakers like Wes Anderson to more obscure figures such as Yasmin Ahmad. In addition to top-notch criticism, the sleekly designed website features an exhaustive but easily navigable list of online resources for cinema-related research, a calendar highlighting the most significant film events around the world, and an audio treasure trove of MOMI’s Pinewood Dialogues with film and TV luminaries.— Andrew Chan

Artforum.com Continuing Artforum ’s tradition of film writing begun in the late Sixties by such luminaries as Annette Michelson and Manny Farber, the film blog at Artforum.com also gives space to a wider range of subjects than the print publication and more reflections from a welcome roster of critical voices including James Quandt, Amy Taubin, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Ed Halter, Nicolas Rapold, Melissa Anderson, Andrew Hultkrans, Michael Joshua Rowin, and more. Artforum’s pristinely designed outpost places the cinema beat alongside a news digest and links to both its “critics’ picks” section and the Scene & Herd diary, which offers a plethora of photos from exhibition openings and parties. New York remains a persistent locus of attention, but current online editor David Velasco says he aims to keep “multiple venues and topics in the mix.” Recent reports have been filed on screenings of Pancho Villa-centered documentaries by Gregorio Rocha and Félix and Edmundo Padilla at L.A.’s REDCAT experimental film theater, and an exhibition of works by Ryan Trecartin, Peter Campus, Sharon Lockhart, and Joachim Koester at The Power Plant contemporary art gallery in Toronto. At its best, Artforum.com reports and reflects the ways in which the world of cinema and the contemporary art scene increasingly commingle and cross-fertilize.— Paul Fileri

Film-Philosophy In the world of online film publications, Film-Philosophy qualifies as a firmly entrenched fixture. Begun as an e-mail list in 1996, this first-generation, U.K.-based enterprise has cultivated a small but focused international readership, helping to renew interest in thinkers who yoke together philosophy and film, from Gilles Deleuze and Stanley Cavell to Henri Bergson and Hugo Münsterberg. Founder and academic Daniel Frampton has since collected his long-gestating reflections in an ambitious 2006 book Filmosophy (a work whose cumbersome title has perhaps unsurprisingly failed to catch on), turning over stewardship of the site to current managing editor David Sorfa. “We have special issues coming up on disgust and on animation,” Sorfa said [in the fall of 2009]. “One theme that runs through many of the recently published articles is the question of what it might mean for films to ‘do’ philosophy themselves (rather than merely act as examples of prior philosophical theses).” That’s a major challenge, and it’s been most recently met by an issue devoted to Claire Denis and her sometime collaborator Jean-Luc Nancy; articles on the Dardenne Brothers’ cinema in relation to thinker Emmanuel Levinas; and a compelling reconsideration by Gal Kirn of the collectively made 1932 German film Kuhle Wampe .— Paul Fileri

Film Journey Film Journey’s extemporized thoughts on long-percolating interests read like the best conversations you ever overheard at the cinematheque. Edited and written (with semi-regular guest contributors) by Doug Cummings, the Los Angeles-based co-founder of Masters of Cinema (see separate entry), Film Journey is less a modest triumph than a triumph of modesty: unaffectedly functional in style, wonkish but never willfully obscure, updated on a schedule that’s leisurely but sustained (Journey has averaged a handful of entries per month for over six years now). Though Cummings’s prosaic, analytical voice has little in common with the freewheeling wordsmithery and bumper-car collisions of ideas that were the signature of his critical idol Manny Farber, it shares with the latter an ability to burrow deep into fine-grained detail and a restless dissatisfaction with intellectual shorthand and orthodox wisdom. Whether re-evaluating old masters like Ozu and Bresson, championing contemporary favorites like Andrew Bujalski and the Dardenne Brothers, highlighting under-praised work in niche periodicals, or getting into the weeds of film festival politics, Cummings continually breaks new ground. That he once had the uncanny experience of discovering his own writing repurposed (without citation) in a sheet of UCLA screening notes is not that surprising—next to his small-scale but refreshingly original insights, the majority of film criticism looks like a rhetorically polished thesaurus-job.— Paul Brunick

The Front Row Hark the overdue emergence of New Yorker film editor Richard Brody, previously only available in capsule-sized bites; his physical-emotional breakdowns of American auteurists’ neglected works and sophisticated, subversive celebrations of Norbit and Jared Hess certainly stood out from the “Goings On About Town” fray. Brody published his landmark opus on Jean-Luc Godard ( Everything Is Cinema ) in the summer of 2008 and his investment in the Nouvelle Vague legacy peppers his daily blog. This bilingual Francophilia is to everyone’s benefit: translations of news items and interviews otherwise unavailable in English and illuminating comparisons of European and American responses appear regularly. The most engaging and sincere species of highbrow intellectual, Brody makes thoughtful, mainstream applications of his interests in cinema symbology and poetics. He offers his readers a philosophical, macrocosmic grasp of film today: its marketers, its creators, and its audiences—including his two teenaged daughters and their responses to films both contemporary and classic. Championship of indie underdogs, weekly video essays on DVD releases, and notifications of must-see TCM broadcasts keep readers abreast of what’s worth seeing now, as filtered through the perspective of a modernist with an infectiously ecstatic faith in the potential of the medium. And for those still worshipping at the altar of Woody Allen, Brody’s got your back.— Brynn White

indieWIRE Flaunting the “independent” banner with business-minded acumen, indieWIRE stands as a prime example of the ways in which commercial online outposts serve up news, information and interactive commentary. The site, which began in 1996 as an e-newsletter co-founded by current editor-in-chief Eugene Hernandez, has grown exponentially. Back in January of 2009, it launched a “re-imagining” of its website to coincide with the Sundance Film Festival’s kickoff, and announced its increasing integration with its new owner, SnagFilms, an online documentary-focused video distribution platform. Now arrayed with the characteristic accoutrements of fashionable journalistic ventures—feeds for news and blog links, rankings of articles, prominent advertising—indieWIRE has further consolidated its status as an alternative to the industry trade paper Variety . In its current incarnation, the site draws together industry players in their own niches, dispersed and networked throughout North America—largely beyond the purview of Hollywood, although Anne Thompson’s blog hardly ventures outside that frame—and also, more centrally, a whole audience that tracks the marketing and commerce of indie cinema. Though Variety no longer reigns supreme as the inside players’ bible of Hollywood dealing, the trade-magazine ethos thrives in more corners than ever, for readerships more general than a studio town ever defined.— Paul Fileri

Video Watchblog Self-proclaimed “Perfectionist of Fantastic Video” Tim Lucas is the creator of Video Watchblog, an outgrowth of his cult magazine Video Watchdog (1990-present; 157 issues to date), which itself originated in a series of columns Lucas published across multiple magazines throughout the Eighties. Recognizing that home media would be the dominant mode of movie-viewing in the future, Lucas’s quietly revolutionary writing is in part responsible for setting the high standards home media must meet today, as well as the emergence of boutique labels, whether they aim to release the definitive edition of a world-cinema classic or reintroduce the public to a forgotten cult gem. Lucas’s approach exhibits an archival commitment to preservation before evaluation: no matter how far outside the canon a title may reside, it first and foremost deserves the highest-possible handling to replicate the director’s original theatrical intentions… then criticism can follow. To these ends, Lucas trained an entire generation of film readers and video renters to manually measure aspect ratios onscreen, hunt down multiple and multi-region releases of the same title, compare alternate run-times and conflicting versions of the same film, and in the process, appreciate the ever-blurring line between exploitation and art house.— Ben Simington

Girish Shambu A professor of management at Buffalo’s Canisius College who had originally trained as an engineer, Shambu is an unlikely candidate for Best Online Critic—but he’s certainly in the running. Shambu’s blog is less a formal collection of essays than a locus of fresh and energetic debate about seriously cinephilic matters. He posts recent observations, thoughts, or concerns, and then prompts his commenters to respond with a related query. The results are some of the most enlightening discussions on film style, theory, and history this side of davekehr.com (Shambu counts among his frequent contributors such heavy-hitters as Adrian Martin and Jonathan Rosenbaum). After all, isn’t the pinnacle of intellectual exchange a fluid, continuous opening-up of ideas rather than a rigid, parochial closing-down?— Evan Davis

CineMetrics Film academics too rarely get involved in the online game (with the obvious exception of David Bordwell) but University of Chicago professor Yuri Tsivian has entered the Internet exchange with a wonderfully unique contribution. CineMetrics is a database that allows everyone from scholars to Joe Cinephiles to generate empirical data about shot lengths and scales in films using user-friendly (and free!) downloadable software. The well-known metric ASL (Average Shot Length) was popularized thanks to Tsivian’s efforts, who built upon Barry Salt and Bordwell’s pioneering work to generate historical and aesthetic conclusions about film style based on hard numerical data. If you ever wanted to let people know how many medium close-ups were used in Patton , or what Anchorman ’s median shot length is, now’s your chance to scratch the statistical itch that’s been driving you crazy!— Evan Davis

Paul Schrader Paul Schrader, well appointed in tailored vest, glares at you through round wire frames on the home page of his new website. With a no-nonsense formality, the visitor is offered three resources: his films, his writings, and his photos. While the filmography and collection of images are predictable fare, the real action goes down in the archives containing his film criticism. Here you’ll find the whole gamut of his hard-to-find film writing, including his recent contributions to Film Comment . By his own account, he owes everything to Pauline Kael, whom he met in New York while taking summer courses at Columbia. He sent her his college-paper movie reviews (written 1965-67 and also included on the site), and she helped him get a gig with the Los Angeles Free Press . During his time there, he wrote such notable reviews as a two-part exploration of Pickpocket , a favorable take on De Palma’s Greetings , a marvelous pan of Easy Rider , and an ode to Boudu Saved from Drowning . Later, for the short-lived Cinema Magazine , he wrote at length about Boetticher and Rossellini, two filmmakers who almost made the grade (alongside the holy trinity of Ozu, Bresson, and Dreyer) in Schrader’s 1972 book Transcendental Style in Film .— Paul Fileri

Observations on Film Art Film scholar David Bordwell is a one-man institution—not only a font of productivity (staple volumes Film Art and Film History , co-written with wife Kristin Thompson, are now in their ninth and third editions, respectively) but a kind of eager, plainspoken ambassador for the field. Moreover, this pillar of the establishment has a blog. And since its launch in September 2006, “Observations on Film Art” certainly stands as the most robust and active online home of any film-studies academic. Posting individual entries in roughly equal measure, Bordwell and Thompson have taken to the online world’s characteristically more relaxed and informal mode of address. What makes their site an essential stop is that both are fine aesthetic observers as well as scholars, and they write the equivalent of full-fledged publishable essays, usually with plentiful and carefully placed frame enlargements. And the writing is anything but ephemeral: Bordwell’s post on “new media and old storytelling’’ was selected for the paperback edition of the Library of America’s American Movie Critics , edited by Phillip Lopate. More recent highlights include a thoughtful appreciation of critic Gilbert Seldes and an analysis of the forgotten possibilities of “the cross” in film blocking.— Paul Fileri

Unexplained Cinema If the blogosphere is a realm that’s predisposed to linguistic profusion, Unexplained Cinema stands out for its beguiling reticence. A companion to his more text-centric Cinema Styles, Greg Ferrara’s blog consists entirely of film stills: moments snatched from their 24 frames-per-second rush and held up to the digital light for closer inspection. Sometimes the images impressionistically sketch out a scene’s mini-arc in a series of telling shots, an act enhanced by the blog’s vertical placement of frames within two centered black lines, transforming your screen into a makeshift strip of celluloid and your scroll bar an impromptu projector. Elsewhere, he’ll trace the emotional trajectory of a performance, with particularly loving attention bestowed upon dignified British actresses in silent turmoil, from Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter to Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie . And Ferrara has a real eye for juxtaposition. A post noting the death of actress Carol Marsh features an image of a pigtailed, bedridden Carol calmly gazing off-screen left, followed by a wild-haired, quite vampiric Carol perched in a tree and leering off-screen right; as a micro-meditation on the dualities of a screen persona, it’s genuinely haunting. As for what it all means, Ferrara enigmatically cedes the floor to his readers/viewers.— Matthew Connolly

Masters of Cinema The passion of the collector knows no bounds. So it’s no surprise to find that websites catering to avid DVD collectors constitute some of the most spirited precincts of online film culture. Launched in 2001, Masters of Cinema is run by an eclectic group hailing from the U.S., Canada, and England: Jan Bielawski, Doug Cummings, R. Dixon Smith, Trond S. Trondsen, and Nick Wrigley. So which masters tie this collective together? Many celebrated auteurs, but from the beginning it seems there was one sanctified quartet: Ozu, Bresson, Tarkovsky, and Dreyer. Check out the eminently useful worldwide DVD release calendar posted on the sharply designed home page and explore five years’ worth of DVD of the Year readers’ polls. Since 2004, the site’s team has collaborated with the British DVD company Eureka to produce a Masters of Cinema curated collection, notable for the sterling care taken with each disc and the inclusion of top-notch book-length liner notes. Communities of dedicated amateurs link and sustain Masters of Cinema as a valuable resource for anyone with access to a multi-region DVD player. It’s an increasingly familiar figure who enters these virtual gathering places: the domestic cinephile, constantly struggling with the ever-present pitfalls and temptations of technophilia, consumer fetishism, and the withdrawal from public space.— Paul Fileri

Dave Kehr The best blogs thrive as online meeting places for discerning enthusiasts—a modest-sounding accomplishment that actually means a great deal. Launched in 2005, Dave Kehr’s website is a sideline to his gig reviewing DVDs at The New York Times . Yet as its tagline, “Reports from the Lost Continent of Cinephilia,” suggests, it also serves as a venue for Kehr to bring his critical intelligence and knowledge to bear far beyond the home-video landscape. The blog’s backbone is formed by entries linking to his weekly column, but the real action occurs in the comments section, where discussions are sparked by Kehr’s remarks on everything from the state of film criticism to the careers of Nagisa Oshima and Sydney Pollack. His reflections on the site tend to circle back to the changing experience of filmgoing today. Kehr observes that the culture of cinephilia “used to be about, for instance, hanging out in the lobby of the Museum of Modern Art and starting a discussion or argument.” But now, he adds, these encounters largely take place “home alone”—usually spurred by a DVD, TCM, or something online. This site, which began as a lark, has become a prime Web destination.— Paul Fileri

Thanks for the Use of the Hall Thanks for the Use of the Hall is the personal blog of Dan Sallitt, a critic and filmmaker whose work includes the independent features Honeymoon (98) and All the Ships at Sea (04). Sallitt has written for print publications across the country (from the L.A. Reader to the Chicago Reader ), contributed pieces to Senses of Cinema, and provided several essays for the British DVD imprint “Masters of Cinema”—but his blog doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to its geographic specificity. TFUH proudly offers “a general discussion . . . and specific recommendations of films playing in the New York City area.” Since its inauguration in May 2007, Sallitt has maintained a slow-but-steady posting schedule. Some months there may be as few as two or three entries, but the thoroughness of Sallitt’s historically informed criticism gives his blog a distinctive lasting value. More importantly, Sallitt provides a personal record of the diverse movies (from repertory screenings to new releases) and venues (from prominent venues like BAMcinématek and the Walter Reade to relative newbies like Maysles Cinema and assorted mini-festivals) that collectively constitute NYC’s film scene.— Cullen Gallagher

Jonathan Rosenbaum In the late Nineties and early Aughts, the Chicago Reader film section was a major hub of cinephilia’s online landscape. Not only did the archive include all of the sharp, highly opinionated capsule reviews that Jonathan Rosenbaum and Dave Kehr had written for the alternative weekly, but it also provided access to one of the most vital bodies of work in film criticism: Rosenbaum’s brilliantly sustained run of essays on contemporary cinema. Now that the long-form pieces have been removed from the site and Rosenbaum has retired from regular reviewing, it is a huge relief to find his writings republished on his personal website. For the most part, JonathanRosenbaum.com showcases the most productive period of his career—his two decades at the Reader —as each month J.R. dredges up a piece from the vaults and generously pads it with a selection of stills. Sifting through the several thousand articles on the site, a reader can’t help but feel nostalgic for the days when Rosenbaum was producing his lucid, erudite prose on a regular basis. But the Internet can be credited with extending his name’s reach among a wider movie-loving readership, and this exhaustive online anthology ensures that we can all continue to learn from his work.— Andrew Chan

Rouge After wandering through the new-media forest of so many hyperactive, cluttered web pages, the spare layout of the Australia-based online film journal Rouge feels like a clearing in a forest—a clean, well-lighted place for an ardently cinephilic readership interested in some of today’s finest long-form critical writing. Since its birth in late 2003, co-editors Helen Bandis, Adrian Martin, and Grant McDonald, along with webmaster Bill Mousoulis, have guided this labor of love (enigmatically named after a 1968 Gérard Fromanger flag painting and Godard collaboration) through 13 issues so far. Free of commercial and institutional strictures, Rouge boasts an enviable international stable of contributors—Jonathan Rosenbaum, Nicole Brenez, Shigehiko Hasumi, Thomas Elsaesser, and William D. Routt, to name a few—and a remarkable commitment to the eclectic and intellectual at its most lively, relevant, and generative. This means publishing the words of filmmakers (Mark Rappaport, Victor Erice, Pedro Costa), lengthy translations (of Raymond Bellour and Serge Daney), and terrific image-by-image analyses of film sequences. In an information environment more and more beholden to the speed of the daily news cycle, there’s something to be said for the value of long-range insight that a little magazine such as Rouge brings to film culture.— Paul Fileri

Supposed Aura Mubarak Ali’s Supposed Aura is screen-grab epistemology, a philosophically inflected attempt to get to the bottom of images, their internal logic and their ability to instruct us about the external world. Tracing subterranean trajectories between non-mainstream narrative and documentary filmmakers (e.g. Hartmut Bitomsky, Marcel Hanoun, Jean-Claude Rousseau), Ali recuperates films that make politics and pedagogy integral to their aesthetics. In montages of textual quotations and screen grabs, Supposed Aura excavates moments in film that reach for truth, exploring the image in its capacity to reveal. A chronicle of lost true things resurrected through poetry and image, Ali helms a project of Dorskian devotion (as in Nathaniel Dorsky, filmmaker and author of Devotional Cinema ). A recent post quoted Jean-Claude Rousseau’s “La beauté n’est jamais fictive”: perhaps the beauty of cinema is in its truth, and vice versa. In its acts of resurrection and commitment, Mubarak Ali’s blog embeds itself in the truths and beauties of the cinema it chronicles. The history of movies is also a movie; Supposed Aura is not just of the cinema but is cinema.— Dave McDougall

World Picture Aimed at the happy few and imbued with sensibilities neither wholly amateur nor professional, World Picture was launched in 2008 by Brian Price, John David Rhodes, and Meghan Sutherland, media scholars and longtime friends split between university towns in Oklahoma and East Sussex, England. Sutherland says that she and her fellow editors began the journal in response to a frustration with the “technological specialization of film and television studies scholarship and with the professionalized styles of writing . . . it tended to produce.” They hope to “cultivate a space [for] more speculative and porous ways of thinking that can cut across the typical genres, styles, and media of thought.” The first issue was entitled “Jargon” and approached, in a manner both critically acute and slyly ruminative, the ways that epithet gets bandied about. Issue two broached the hardly obvious theme of the “Obvious,” while the third considered the slippery issue of “Happiness.” Between the three, you’ll find long interviews with Olivier Assayas and Emmanuel Bourdieu, trenchant essays on Bamako and Adorno, and a charming piece of fiction by Sam Lipsyte called “A Pimple on the Ass of Drew Barrymore Speaks.” Their current issue boasts a bevy of interesting articles wrapped in yet another intriguing title: “Arousal.”— Paul Fileri

Ain’t It Cool News The rise of Harry Knowles’s Ain’t It Cool News parallels the film industry’s increased involvement with San Diego Comic-Con and the rise of Austin’s film scene, from its alternative exhibition circuit (highlighted by SXSW and Knowles’s own Fantastic Fest) to its thriving independent productions. While the former provides Hollywood with focus-group insights into the valuable fanboy demographic and the latter fresh discoveries of up and coming (and thus inexpensive) creative talent, it’s eerie to think that awareness of Knowles alerted Hollywood to the existence of both youthful markets. AICN’s “agents” track down pre-production gossip, aggressively solicit first-look access to promotional materials, sneak in (though by now they’re usually invited) to test screenings—all the while engaging in feverish “What-if…?” speculations. Though the completed movies rarely live up to the pre-release buzz, cinephilia often indulges such pie-in-the-sky speculation. (What if Orson Welles’s later projects had proper backing? etc.) Since AICN operates on the principle that creators of cultural products are beholden on principle to their most rabid fans, it’s unclear how many of the site’s 300,000-plus monthly audience is there for the coverage and reviews themselves and how many are merely gawking at the reader-forums sideshow.— Violet Lucca

The Man Who Viewed Too Much Those bemoaning the death of print criticism might just have Mike D’Angelo to blame. Before all the think pieces and panel discussions—before Web-based criticism was even a thing, really—there was D’Angelo, who, while writing capsules for Entertainment Weekly, was also running a film-nerd discussion group and maintaining his own personal website, The Man Who Viewed Too Much. D’Angelo was one of the first critics to make his name almost exclusively through the Internet, and though many since have traveled down this new-media path, few have come quite so far. For connoisseurs of criticism, D’Angelo’s voice is immediately recognizable for its unique cadence: a blistering mix of erudition and wit that’s at once stimulating and pleasurable, thorny and inviting. As a writer D’Angelo is a true debate-team champion, fiercely intelligent and argumentative, and he’s never less than a blast to read—even (or especially, perhaps) when you disagree with him. D’Angelo went on from Entertainment Weekly to write for Time Out New York and Esquire , and though the economy would eventually deprive him of those gigs, The Man Who Viewed Too Much is still around and he continues to write for print venues—the Las Vegas Weekly , Nashville Scene , and The Onion ’s A.V. Club are all the better for it.— Matt Noller

Mubi (the website formerly known as The Auteurs) The driving force behind The Criterion Collection’s November 2008 website overhaul, The Auteurs combines a film library with a social networking platform and an online journal called The Notebook. The company is the brainchild of founder and CEO Efe Cakarel, a Turkish-born entrepreneur who drew on his experience in business and technology to launch The Auteurs, despite no previous film track record or industry connections. For Cakarel, the value of their growing online catalogue (roughly 1,000 on offer globally) rests on the diversity and quality of its holdings and the thoughtfulness of the programming. The Notebook, meanwhile, provides a top-notch example of the indispensable work that a dedicated news-aggregator can perform in the age of the RSS feed. Run by former GreenCine Daily guru David Hudson (who also blogged briefly for IFC.com), it offers an extensive daily clearing-house of film-related news, criticism, and commentary generated from online and print publications, as well as from personal blogs and lively interactive amateur enclaves on the Web. As a whole, The Auteurs proves a worthy reminder that commerce and culture can be deeply intertwined when film devotees try to figure out how to get their hands on the movies they love.— Paul Fileri

Order of the Exile Jacques Rivette’s cinema has never been easy to track down. Access to his interviews, and the many extraordinary polemics he penned for Cahiers du cinéma in the Fifties and Sixties, has also been limited. Order of the Exile, a website named after a line from Rivette’s 1961 film Paris Belongs to Us , has been trying to rectify this matter. Its intrepid founders, Daniel Stuyck and Ross Wilbanks, say they’ve designed the outpost, hosted by DVD Beaver’s Gary Tooze, with the aim of making more Rivette available in English than ever before. Readers have become contributors, happily driven to transcribe, compile, or translate material, thereby adding to the site’s stripped-down yet well-organized database. Stuyck, meanwhile, takes the time to handle any rights issues that may arise in reprinting previously published material. The holdings of this online collection cut a wide swath, including what is apparently still the only published English translation of Rivette’s key 1961 essay “On Abjection,” concerning the morality of film style; two essential extended interviews with Rivette from 1963 and 1981 (the latter previously untranslated); and even a listing (compiled by a dogged Joseph Coppola) of all of Rivette’s star ratings given to films in Cahiers du cinéma from 1955 to 1966.— Paul Fileri

Cinebeats Cinebeats chronicles “one woman’s love affair with ’60s and ’70s-era cinema.” As this informal mission statement suggests, those looking for hard historical data or deep academic readings should keep moving. Photographer and designer Kimberly Lindbergs’s blog is a charming little fan site that reflects the ethos of the small ’zines where she began her career. That’s not to imply that her project is a slapdash affair; as of March 2010, her sharp postings will be included in Turner Classic Movies’ official blog, Movie Morlocks. Cinebeats, however, is best utilized for its fascinating photographs of Hollywood royalty. Lindbergs has a terrific eye for both composition and charisma, and she’ll snatch up any topical hook to assemble impressive mini-galleries of beloved stars and directors memorialized in press photos and candids. The fawning may wear thin for readers who feel that one can extol the physical virtues of Steve McQueen or Michael Fassbender too much, but it’s through the sheer exuberance of her personality that the site achieves its success. It’s rare to find such unaffected delight and genuine passion laid as bare as they are on Lindbergs’s blog, an enthusiasm made all the more digestible through her straightforwardly elegant Web design.— Benjamin Shapiro

The Seventh Art Print publications these days can barely muster a capsule review for most non-Western films released in the States, and that’s on a good week. Over at The Seventh Art, however, movies elsewhere given the 150-word write-off become the subject of lengthy reflection—the kind that newspapers normally reserve for important stuff like Sex and the City 2 . Even better, the impressively prolific Srikanth Srinivasan matches quantity with quality. Alternating between directorial profiles, reviews of new releases, and reconsiderations of older works, Srinivasan’s posts are erudite yet accessible, displaying astute formal analysis and a deep knowledge of film history (a recent post on Lisandro Alonso persuasively connected his oeuvre to those of Tsai Ming-Liang, Robert Bresson, and the Italian Neorealists). Srinivasan’s expansive view doesn’t ignore U.S. cinema; the blog’s coverage of Inglourious Basterds remains among the most densely packed and satisfying on the Web. But this is a place where “American movies” tend to mean Bush Mama and Los Angeles Plays Itself rather than Avatar and its ilk. That a stinging pan of Cameron’s blockbuster gets roughly half the space of an appreciative look back at Lav Diaz’s filmography is enough to give the most despairing cinephile reason to hope.— Matthew Connolly

The House Next Door Salon writer Matt Zoller Seitz has been in the game a long time. A journalist in Dallas before emigrating to New York, he wrote for the New York Press for a number of years and has made both narrative features and a batch of incisive, illuminating video essays. In 2006, he embarked on a project to exalt what he thought was a misunderstood and unappreciated film, Terrence Malick’s The New World . That project became The House Next Door. Its first entries were extended exegeses and analyses of The New World ’s formal, narrative, and thematic qualities. The website quickly expanded into much more. Now under the stewardship of Time Out New York critic Keith Uhlich (and housed as the official blog of the outstanding online arts mag Slant), THND publishes articles on art cinema, Hollywood blockbusters, television shows, critical dialogues about bona fide classics, in-depth festival coverage, and just about anything else that interests the always perspicacious, ever evolving writing staff of Seitz and Uhlich’s venture. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find an online film magazine as inclusive or expansive as this one. Seitz may have started small, but like the film he championed back then, his opus could not be contained.— Evan Davis

Reverse Shot Despite being based on an open-source content management system instead of smudgy newsprint, the audacity of Reverse Shot lies in its “spirit of ’68” adherence to principles of print journalism. Inheriting a semi-academic critical approach, each quarterly edition has championed a single director or explored an aspect of filmmaking (a single shot, sound, etc.). The retro lack of a comments field (except for on the blog) allows the opinions expressed to endure with authority. But a tone of reasoned partisanship prevails, even if the site’s “Shot/Reverse Shot” dueling reviews have faded away. A “Talkies” series of video interviews with filmmakers continues a string of ambitious digital and real-world experiments: a stint providing indieWIRE with reviews, guest-programming movie series, and even arranging for distribution of the documentary A Lion in the House in 10 cities in 2006.— Violet Lucca

Senses of Cinema A veritable institution in the world of online film journals, the 10-and-a-half-year-old Senses of Cinema continues to be one of the most vigorously diverse sources of scholarly research and commentary on the Web. Just a gander at their latest issue (their 55th!) speaks to the breadth of topics and range of methodologies at work: the complex construction of Louise Brooks’s on and off-screen personae; notions of sexuality and homeland in Michael Lucas’s Middle Eastern porno Men of Israel ; the intersections of cinema and cartography as expressed in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (the Melbourne-based journal has always been a particularly valuable source for writing on Aussie cinema). Factor in their invaluable “Great Directors” series—over 200 lengthy entries currently available, and more to come—and Senses of Cinema deservedly earns its reputation as a mainstay of the digital film-criticism universe.— Matthew Connolly

Scanners In the realm of Internet criticism, there’s been a lot of commentary on the gulf dividing fanboys and academics, but when it comes to unfortunately polarizing tendencies, there’s still another Great Schism: the altar boys and the assholes: humorlessly earnest, mind-numbingly reverent hagiographers and caustically negative, bitchy would-be satirists. Jim Emerson is here to show us a better way. The founding editor-in-chief of RogerEbert.com maintains an addictively enjoyable side project in Scanners, a blog that should appeal to all four of the above demographics and everyone in between. Weighing in on topical debates—from 3-D and hyper-fast editing to the culture of the Academy Awards and (yes) the future of film criticism—Emerson isn’t afraid to call bullshit when he sees it, but he reliably turns every takedown into a constructive “learning moment.” A proud member of Colbert Nation, Emerson’s incisive responses to legacy-media “trend pieces” are an almost weekly reminder that the MSM is not as meaningfully quality-controlled as they pretend. (Jim’s response to Ramin Setoodeh’s infamous can-gay-actors-play-straight? Newsweek essay was the wittiest media critique I’ve read all year.) A formalist at heart, Emerson will spend weeks at a time analyzing isolated aspects of cinematic style: opening shots, close-ups, long-take staging. And he isn’t afraid to revisit his past favorites again and again, obsessively attempting to pin down what it is about certain films ( Chinatown , Fight Club , No Country for Old Men ) that he finds so compulsively watchable. Smart but accessible, cutting but never cruel, and a true believer in critical debate (“I want to try as hard as I can to understand and be understood”), Emerson makes most critics look like self-involved narcissists impotently talking past one another.— Paul Brunick

The Film Comment Podcast: Christine Smallwood on La Captive

Institutional Critique

Love and Its Peculiar Habits

The Film Comment Podcast: Bertrand Bonello on The Beast

Sign up for the Film Comment Letter!

Thoughtful, original film criticism delivered straight to your inbox each week. Enter your email address below to subscribe.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Challengers

Now playing.

Sweet Dreams

Matt zoller seitz.

Disappear Completely

Brian tallerico.

LaRoy, Texas

Robert daniels.

The Long Game

Sasquatch Sunset

Monica castillo.

Simon Abrams

Veselka: The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

Peyton robinson.

Food, Inc. 2

Glenn kenny.

Clint Worthington

The Sympathizer

Nandini balial.

From the blog

Ned Benson, Lucy Boynton, and Justin H. Min Want to Play The Greatest Hits for You

Until It’s Too Late: Bertrand Bonello on The Beast

Which Cannes Film Will Win the Palme d’Or? Let’s Rank Their Chances

O.J. Simpson Dies: The Rise & Fall of A Superstar

Second Sight Drops 4K Releases for Excellent Films by Brandon Cronenberg, Jeremy Saulnier, and Alexandre Aja

Wagner Moura Is Still Holding On To Hope

A Plea for Someone to Save Megalopolis

The End of the World is Going to be Weird on Prime Video’s Quirky, Clever Adaptation of Fallout

The Zellner Brothers Take a Walk in the Woods with Sasquatch Sunset

The Scene That Clint Eastwood Cut to Make Unforgiven a Classic

Ape Shall Not Kill Ape: A Look at the Entire Apes Franchise

​Criterion Celebrates the Films That Forever Shifted Our Perception of Kristen Stewart​

The Estate of George Carlin Destroys AI George Carlin in Victory for Copyright Protection (and Basic Decency)

Review collections.

The Best Netflix Original Movies and Mini-Series

The Best Comedies of 2022

The 2023 Oscar Nominees

The Best Documentaries of 2022

Latest reviews.

It's Only Life After All

Sheila o'malley.

The Old Oak

Girls State

The People's Joker

Mary & George

Cristina escobar.

Kim's Video

Chicken for Linda!

A Bit of Light

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Forgotten username or password ?

• Start a new list…
• Add all films to a list…
• Add all films to watchlist

Add to your films…

Press Tab to complete, Enter to create

A moderator has locked this field.

Add to lists

Take your first step into a larger world…

Sign in or register to get started. We’re your home for logging, rating and reviewing films, your watchlist of titles to see, your source for lists and inspiration, a cast and crew database and an activity stream of passionate film criticism, discussion and discovery.

How Letterboxd works

Tell us what you’ve seen

Get your Letterboxd underway by visiting our Popular section and marking a few films you’ve seen. Click the ‘eye’ on any film poster to tell us you’ve watched it (add a ‘like’ if you liked it and/or a rating). We add all watched titles to your Films tab and then we can show you reviews containing spoilers (usually hidden) and other cool stuff. If you’re Pro we compute detailed stats based on all your watched films (see below ).

Browse your watched films

Now that you’ve added some films, you can find them in the Films tab of your profile. As you add more content, your profile starts to reflect your taste. You can also browse the films of other members, or the community , with Hide watched films activated to find more great films to watch.

If you’ve previously saved film-related activity at IMDb or another service, we can help you import this, too.

Save films to watch later

One of our most-loved features, the Watchlist , lets you keep a list of films you want to see. Start in Most Anticipated and mark a few films you want to see—use the ‘clock’ on a film or review page, or open the options menu on any poster (shown opposite). If you subsequently log or mark a film as watched, we’ll move it from your Watchlist to your Films (and add it to your Diary , if you provide a date—more on that  below ).

Your account, profile and settings

Click your username (at the top of each page) for shortcuts to the main sections of your account. Your Profile , Films , Diary , Watchlist and other pages are here.

You can customize your name, location, website, bio and favorite films in Settings . We use your X / Twitter avatar if you connect your account, or a Gravatar matching the email on your profile.

Note: your profile (and any other content you publish, with the exception of private lists) is visible to others, and to search engines.

Log a film to tell us you watched it on a particular date, and to attach a review, rating and tags. We put all films you log with a date into your Diary , a great reference for when it comes time to compile your year-end list.

You can rate films without logging them too, either on a film or review page, or from the ‘more options’ menu on a poster.

Try logging a film now…

Following and activity

The best way to find members to follow is by reading reviews of films you like, to identify the voices and opinions you dig. Our Members page lists popular accounts.

As you follow more people, we create a personalized Activity stream full of reviews and recommendations from these members (and you’re bound to find new people to follow from the Likes included here). Use the Incoming tab to see who’s interacting with you, and upgrade to Pro to personalize the types of activity you see on each device.

Make and share lists

Lists are a great way to share a collection of related films, or to rank the films of your favorite genre, star, director or franchise. It’s fun to welcome suggestions for your lists from other members.

Start a list on your Lists tab, then add films on the ‘Edit’ screen (or from the ‘more options’ menu on a poster). The first time you make a list public, it’s shared with your followers.

Upgrade for stats + more!

The more films you log on Letterboxd, the more ways we have to analyze your movie-watching habits. Upgrade to a Pro or Patron account and we’ll generate all-time stats based on every film you’ve added to your profile, and annual stats for each year with at least ten films logged.

Stats include overview by week/year, highest rated decades, most watched and highest rated actors and directors, progress against milestone lists, genre, language and country breakdowns, and lots more.

Here’s what you’ll find in our main sections…

If you’re signed in, you’ll see a selection of popular films, reviews and lists from Letterboxd members. As you follow more people, we personalize this page to show what’s popular in your network.

This section shows which films our members are watching and reviewing the most. It’s also your starting point for browsing the whole database, by decade/year, genre, popularity, rating, streaming service and more.

This section shows our most popular lists, and a selection of recently added content. From here you can create a list of your own, browse more popular lists, or browse by the tags applied to each by its creator.

Here you’ll find others whose content is being enjoyed most by our community. Click through to see if you like their style, or locate your real-life Facebook friends that also use Letterboxd.

More tips and tricks

Film actions

On a film or review page, use these controls to tell us you’ve seen (and liked) the film, and how you rated it. Add it to your Watchlist if you plan to see it later. You can also log the film or add it to a list from here.

Tagging films

Adding tags as you log films lets you easily recall them based on any criteria. Tags can be used to encode how, where or with whom you saw a film, or to categorize films by your own genre or content taxonomy.

Reordering lists

To quickly move a film to another position when editing, show List Numbers, then click the number of the entry to move. Type a new position and hit Return. The film will instantly move to that position.

Upgrade to Pro!

Pro accounts unlock additional capabilities: an all-time Stats page and annual Year in Review pages for each year of activity. Filter your activity view, filter film lists by service availability, clone lists and more!

Next up: complete your profile and add some popular films you’ve seen…

Sign in or create an account to get started.

Then grab our apps and see our questions page for more answers.

Import your films

Free to all members. create your own csv file, or import from another service. we support these imdb exports:.

or see our import format documentation

Discover more films

Here’s a selection of our highest rated narrative feature films. the complete list of 250 is maintained by the tireless dave vis. how many have you seen.

or browse our most popular films

Header image from Star Wars (1977)

Select your preferred poster

Upgrade to remove ads.

Letterboxd is an independent service created by a small team, and we rely mostly on the support of our members to maintain our site and apps. Please consider upgrading to a Pro account —for less than a couple bucks a month, you’ll get cool additional features like all-time and annual stats pages ( example ), the ability to select (and filter by) your favorite streaming services, and no ads!

Film Analysis and Interpretation

Film Analysis And Interpretation

From the author, professor mittens:.

There is no “correct” interpretation of any film,  and each film analysis is just based off of my own point of view, so I do not consider these to be the “right answers.” At the same time, I have tried my best to uncover what the films’ creators were trying to communicate, and my methodology is outlined in the “Film Analysis Guide” section of this website, which is linked to in the menu above. Also above are the links to my declaration of Fair Use and my author page, which contains links to my personal website, my YouTube channel, and my Google+ page. Please feel free to add me via Google+ and please feel free to request a film for me to analyze that is not listed on the right. Thank you for visiting, and I hope that I have perhaps changed the way that you view film.

Join Waitlist

Film Analysis

World of Film Analysis: Top Resources for Film Enthusiasts

Feb 12, 2024

Avinash Prabhakaran

Film analysis is a fascinating and essential aspect of the world of cinema. Whether you're a student studying film, a movie buff seeking to deepen your understanding, or a filmmaker looking for inspiration, plenty of resources are available to help you dive into the intricacies of cinematic storytelling. 

In this blog post, we'll explore some of the best resources for film analysis that will enhance your appreciation of the art form and improve your analytical skills.

Books on Film Theory and Analysis

Books are an excellent starting point for those interested in film analysis. Some timeless classics in the field include:

"Film Art: An Introduction" by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson:  This comprehensive text covers the fundamental elements of film analysis, from cinematography to editing and sound.

"The Language of Film" by Robert Edgar-Hunt, John Marland, and Steven Rawle:  This book focuses on the language and grammar of film, making it a great resource for understanding how films convey meaning.

"Understanding Movies" by Louis Giannetti:  A user-friendly introduction to film analysis, this book provides a solid foundation for beginners.

Online Courses and Tutorials

Online platforms like Coursera, edX, and Udemy offer film analysis and theory courses. Top universities and film experts often create these courses. Some popular options include:

"Introduction to Film and Video Analysis" on Coursera:  Taught by Duke University, this course covers the basics of film analysis and is accessible to beginners.

"Film Analysis: A Viewer's Companion" on edX:  Offered by the University of Melbourne, this course explores various film analysis and interpretation aspects.

YouTube Channels:  Several YouTube channels, such as "Every Frame a Painting," "Lessons from the Screenplay," and "Nerdwriter1," break down film analysis in an engaging and accessible way.

Film Analysis Websites and Blogs

There are numerous websites and blogs dedicated to film analysis and criticism. These platforms provide in-depth articles, reviews, and essays that delve into the nuances of specific films or broader cinematic trends. A few notable websites include:

RogerEbert.com:  This website, founded by the renowned film critic Roger Ebert, offers a wealth of film reviews and analyses.

The A.V. Club:  Known for its sharp film reviews and features, The A.V. Club provides insightful commentary on the world of cinema.

Criterion Collection's "Current":  Criterion's website features a section called "Current" that includes essays and interviews related to the films in their collection, making it an excellent resource for cinephiles.

Film Analysis Podcasts

Podcasts can be a great resource if you prefer to listen and learn on the go. Some podcasts focus on dissecting films and discussing their various elements, such as storytelling, cinematography, and sound design. A couple of noteworthy options are:

"The Next Picture Show":  This podcast pairs a recent release with a classic film, fostering discussions that highlight connections and differences between the two.

"Scriptnotes":  While primarily a podcast about screenwriting, "Scriptnotes" often delves into film analysis, providing valuable insights into storytelling and filmmaking.

Film Analysis Software and Tools

For those interested in a more technical approach to film analysis, software tools like Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro can help you dissect films frame by frame. 

Additionally, online databases like IMDb and Letterboxd allow you to access detailed information about films, including cast and crew, user reviews, and ratings.

Film analysis is a captivating journey that deepens your appreciation of cinema and storytelling. 

Whether you prefer reading books, enrolling in courses, exploring websites, listening to podcasts, or using software tools, there are countless resources available to cater to your interests and skill level. 

By immersing yourself in these resources, you'll gain a richer understanding of film and become a more discerning viewer or skilled filmmaker. So, pick your preferred avenue and start exploring the world of film analysis today!

Recommended articles

Unraveling the Secrets of "The Prestige": A Cinematic Analysis

Nov 3, 2023

Exploring the Mind-Bending Reality of "Being John Malkovich"

Nov 24, 2023

10 under-the-radar websites every film buff should know about

These blogs routinely produce some of the most insightful work around

• Newsletter sign up Newsletter

There was a time when critics and cinephiles alike were locked in a debate over whether the internet would destroy smart, challenging film criticism. Fortunately, those days are over: These days, anyone who follows the industry knows that film-focused blogs routinely produce some of the most insightful and engaging work around.

Unfortunately, actually finding that quality work can be a challenge. Film buffs now navigate a critical landscape packed with enough sites, blogs, journals, magazines, and zines to fill up even the most devoted moviegoer's reading schedule.

To help you overcome this tyranny of choice, here are 10 of the best, lesser-known film-centric publications you should be reading:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

1. Slant Magazine

Since founders Ed Gonzalez and Sal Cinquemani opened Slant Magazine more than a decade ago, the site has blossomed into one of the most respected film criticism establishments around. With a staff full of gifted, prickly critics, Slant covers seemingly every new release available as if they're The New York Times . Upon reading their reviews — which are generally published earlier than virtually any other outlet on the web — you'll be at once enlightened and infuriated by their thoughts. The site has grabbed attention for disseminating rather incendiary opinions with authority and, yes, a slant.

Must read: "Imagining Sisyphus Happy: A Groundhog Day Retrospective," by Ali Arikan.

2. The Film Stage

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox

A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com

There are few film-focused sites that exist on the internet that pay their writers and don't cover movie news (trailers, casting announcements, gossip, etc). For most, it's a necessary evil that inexplicably draws in traffic. Founded by Jordan Raup and Daniel Mecca in 2008, the folks at The Film Stage (while not always first to the story) manage to go beyond simply copy and pasting a press release and clicking publish. They offer enjoyable commentary to spice things up and pull fascinating insights out of even mundane topics. Though not exclusively a news site (they publish reviews/essays/etc), The Film Stage is a healthy alternative to something like Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. ( Bonus: they also run an ingenious Twitter account that digs up miscellaneous cinematic artifacts).

Must read: "How Jurassic Park changed the movies," by Leonard Pearce .

3. Cléo

Born out of frustration with "the lack of feminist perspectives in film criticism, as well as female bylines in review sections" Cleo is a quarterly film journal dedicated to exploring feminism in cinema. Founded by Toronto critic Kiva Reardon in 2013, the online magazine has garnered considerable success by examining film, old and new, through a feminist lens. Each issue contains anywhere from six to eight well-written essays. The only problem with the publication is that there's not more of it.

Must read: "Don Jon 's Meaningless Meanings," by Eleni Deacon

4. Reverse Shot

Founded in January of 2003 as a quarterly film journal, Reverse Shot is a publication replete with talented writers of every variety — emerging critics, established journalists, and esteemed scholars — taking an academic approach to criticism. Every essay is sharply written, thoroughly researched, and carefully curated by notoriously rigorous founders/editors Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert. Today, Reverse Shot primarily publishes long-form pieces on art-house/indie new releases, along with dispatches from international film festivals including Cannes, Stockholm, and Panama.

Must read: "25th Hour: Face Value," by David Ehrlich

5. " The Hollywood Prospectus " in Grantland

While a majority of Grantland 's readership travels to the site for its excellent sports analysis, the ESPN affiliate run by Bill Simmons has a wonderful entertainment branch in "The Hollywood Prospectus." This subsection is occupied by some of the best film writers on the internet, including Mark Harris, Wesley Morris, Karina Longworth, and Matt Patches. Simmons and company give writers space to opine about any topic in great detail, and "The Hollywood Prospectus" is consistently filled with long-form journalism and meticulous reporting, always presenting new ideas, films and ideas to their readers.

Must read: "The Song of Solomon," by Wesley Morris

6. To Be Cont'd

Eclectic as the film community may be, there is no site like To Be Cont'D. Founded by young critics Peter Labuza and Andrew Welch in 2013, this up-and-coming outlet consists of two writers having a month-long conversation on a specific topic. There are no weekly reviews. There are no news reports. To Be Cont'D is not interested in contributing to the daily cycle most film sites operate under; as it says in its mission statement, they're "slowing things down." Labuza and Welch have even managed to gather renowned writers like Glenn Kenny ( RogerEbert.com ) and Keith Uhlich ( Time Out New York ) to contribute to their four-week conversations where the authors — in a sort of personal letter format — write to each other about a certain film.

Must read: "Thief," by Nick Usen and Jordan Cronk.

Launched during this year's Sundance film festival, /Bent is the most recent addition to IndieWire 's expansive blog network — and the only blog to seriously (and consistently) consider the LGBT community in film. Founded by IndieWire Senior Writer Peter Knegt, the LGBT-themed subsection of the site is designed to irreverently "look at how queer culture is represented on film and in other media." With a diverse staff of gay men and women, the blog has been successful in staying true to their mission statement. Aside from covering news within the LGBT film community, /Bent publishes an assortment of lists, essays, and festival coverage on everything from Outfest to the role of mothers in Xavier Dolan's films .

Must read: "Does 'The Case Against 8' Make A Case For An Inclusive Queer Rights Movement?" by Joe Ehrman-Dupre

8. Hello Cinema

Both the smallest and youngest site included on this list, Hello Cinema is your one-stop shop for all things Iranian cinema. Written, edited, and run by Tina Hassannia and Amir Soltani, the site produces reviews and news, along with a monthly podcast that discusses everything you should know about Iranian cinema. Both authors behind this project are knowledgeable and well versed in this realm of cinema (Hassannia even has a book on the work of Asghar Farhadi, director of A Separation, that will be published in December by The Critical Press ). While the outlet is in the nascent stages, its focus is clear and worthy of attention. All it needs now is an audience.

Must read: "Review: Baduk , 1992," by Amir Soltani

9. Keyframe

Fandor primarily serves as an art-house version of Netflix, offering viewers an opportunity to watch thousands of undiscovered gems from around the world — but they also publish Keyframe , a terrific digital magazine that examines foreign and independent cinema. Filling the margins with erudite critics and educators, the magazine opines on everything from Werner Herzog's inner landscapes to the influence of cartoonist Nina Paley.

Must read : "In Times Like These: 'Lubitsch Can't Wait'" by Michael Pattinson.

10. The Notebook

Like Fandor, MUBI is a streaming service that pushes people to expand their cinematic horizons, offering users an opportunity to watch smaller, obscure films at a monthly rate. MUBI plays host to one of the strongest digital magazines with The Notebook , which focuses on international cinema and film culture. Founded in 2007 by Daniel Kasman, this space is designed to "guide film lovers searching, lost, or adrift in an overwhelming sea of content." Whether it's an audio-viusal essay on the work of Brian De Palma , or festival coverage from Cannes , it's easy to fall down the rabbit hole of engaging criticism.

Must read: "Narcissists and Close-Ups: Alex Ross Perry's Listen Up Philip " by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Sam Fragoso ( @SamFragoso ) is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in  The Atlantic ,  Vanity Fair ,  Playboy ,  NPR , Grantland , and elsewhere. He's also the founder of Movie Mezzanine . A book of his interviews with emerging filmmakers,  Talk Easy , will be published by The Critical Press in 2016.

Today's Big Question See-through pants and sweat stains draw derision from players and fans alike

By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published 12 April 24

The Explainer How a controversial intelligence gathering law is bringing progressive Democrats and privacy hawk Republicans together

By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published 12 April 24

Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - April 19, 2024

By The Week US Published 12 April 24

• Contact Future's experts
• Terms and Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Advertise With Us

The Week is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site . © Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Movie Reviews & Criticism: Websites

• Find Books & Articles

MOVIE REVIEW QUERY ENGINE

The Internet's largest database of movie reviews for over 100,000 titles. The continually growing site provides a searchable index of all published and available reviews, news, interviews, and other materials associated with specific movies.

The unique combination of reviews, news, and user discussion—all accessed through MRQE’s search portal—allows any user to read and add to the Internet’s most comprehensive collection of opinion about film. MRQE.com is commonly abbreviated as MRQE and pronounced “marquee.”

Movie Reviews from RollingStone.com

Independent film.

• Filmmaker Magazine The magazine of independent film.
• Independent Film Channel The home of offbeat, unexpected comedies.
• Indiewire The leading news, information, and networking site for independent-minded filmmakers, the industry and moviegoers alike.

American Film Institute

• American Film Institute's 100 years... AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies documented AFI's celebration of cinema's centennial. Each special honors a different aspect of excellence in American film.

Internet Resources - Movie Reviews

• Rotten Tomatoes Movies, Movie Reviews, Critic Scores, Showtimes and Movie Trailers - The Ultimate Movie Database!
• IMDB - Internet Movie Database It's a huge collection of movie information. "[At IMDB] we try to catalog every pertinent detail about a movie, from who was in it, to who made it, to trivia about it, to filming locations, and even where you can find reviews and fan sites on the web. We then do our best to present this information in a manner that is easy to search and access."
• Roger Ebert - movie reviews Movie reviews, essays, interviews and the Movie Answer Man from film critic Roger Ebert and contributors.
• Metacritic Movie Reviews, TV Reviews, Game Reviews, and Music Reviews

More film criticism online

• The New York Times: movie reviews & trailers
• Los Angeles Times - Movie & DVD Reviews
• Reelviews.net Online movie reviews by American film critic, James Berardinelli . (*Lots of pop-up advertising)
• The Village Voice - Movies Reviews and news. The nation's first and largest alternative newsweekly, the Voice maintains the same tradition of no-holds-barred reporting and criticism it first embraced when it began publishing more than fifty years ago.
• The Hollywood Reporter - Movies This is the definitive interpretive voice of the entertainment industry.
• Variety.com - Film Film industry news & reviews. Recognized and respected through out the world of show business, Variety is the premier source of entertainment news.
• NPR.org Reviews of new movies, classic and art films, foreign films, and popular movies.
• Film Journal International, Movie Reviews Film Journal Int'l is a trade publication and website covering the motion picture industry, with special emphasis on theatrical exhibition. Film Reviews are from the Hollywood Reporter.
• Filmsite.org An award-winning website for classic film buffs, students, moviegoers and anyone else interested in the great movies of the last century. Detailed plot synopses, review commentary and film reference material are just some of the features available on the site.

Film Awards

• Academy Awards Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
• AFI - Films of the Year American Film Institute
• British Academy of Film Awards British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)
• Directors Guild Awards Directors Guild of America
• Golden Globe Awards From the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
• Independent Spirit Awards Celebrating the best of independent film.
• Razzie Awards The Golden Raspberry (RAZZIE) Awards honors the worst in film.
• Screen Actors Guild Awards The only televised awards shows to exclusively honor performers, it presents thirteen awards for acting in film and television.
• Hawaii International Film Festival - HIFF The Hawai'i Int'l Film Festival is dedicated to the advancement of cultural exchange and media awareness in the Pacific Rim. HIFF's programming has two particular mandates: to be a festival of record for emerging films from Asia and the Pacific, and to present the top festival films from around the world, annually screening films from over 45 countries.
• Next: Find Books & Articles >>
• Last Updated: Jun 15, 2023 9:38 AM
• URL: https://library.honolulu.hawaii.edu/movies

How to Analyse Movies #8: Putting It Into Practice

• Facebook Data not found. Please check your user ID. Twitter You currently have access to a subset of Twitter API v2 endpoints and limited v1.1 endpoints (e.g. media post, oauth) only. If you need access to this endpoint, you may need a different access level. You can learn more here: https://developer.twitter.com/en/portal/product Youtube 1.1K

Interview With Dylan Baker for LAROY, TEXAS

ISA TOP 25 SCREENWRITERS TO WATCH Interview With Thuc Doan Nguyen

Interview With Screenwriter Alessandro Camon For THE LISTENER

NO WAY UP Represents The Democratization Of Bad Underwater Thrillers

MONSTER: The Truth About Youth

MoMI First Look 2024: A Wave of Films That Blend Imagery And Medium

THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT Writer/Director & Cast Interview!

Interview With Liam Neeson Star of IN THE LAND OF SAINTS AND SINNERS

KUNG FU PANDA 4: Enough Wit For One More Kick

BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND Director Trevor Anderson Talks Putting a Twist on the Coming-of-Age  Genre 

LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL: Heeeeeere’s Satan!

SXSW 2024: Interview With Editor Lucas Harger

Manon de Reeper is the founder and CEO of Film…

This is the final chapter to the How To Analyse Movies series. Here’s an overview of all chapters:

• How to Analyse Movies: The Introduction
• How to Analyse Movies: Signs, Codes & Conventions
• How to Analyse Movies: Mise-en-Scène & Editing
• How to Analyse Movies: Considering The Camera
• How to Analyse Movies: Lighting, Sound & Score
• How to Analyse Movies: Story & Genre
• How to Analyse Movies: Iconography & Realisticness

You’re probably left with the question: how the hell do I put all this information into practice? I realise it’s a lot to digest and when I was analysing film for my dissertation, I created a little “beat sheet” for myself.

Copy the following list of questions for whichever movie you want to analyse, to help keep you on track and to prevent you from becoming overwhelmed during watching. Most of this list should be answered while watching the movie. When you’re done, go back and check your answers to see if you missed anything.

Sorry! This article is part of our Premium Content. Please subscribe to unlock our fantastic HOW TO ANALYSE MOVIES series, and thousands of other terrific articles! Go here to become a member. It’s just $25 per year.

Before You Start the Movie

Take notes of the following:

Name of the movie, its year of release. Director, and his/her trademarks you know of. Genre. Three of the lead actors’ names.

Importantly, write down your expectations – you’ll have expectations beforehand because marketing, reviews or even word-of-mouth have shaped them. If it’s an older movie, your expectations will have been shaped because of what you know of the era (et cetera).

While Watching the Movie

Take notes while you’re watching the movie. While it is hard to simply watch the movie and consider all the little elements and still see the bigger whole at first, it’ll get easier when you practice this more often. You’ll get attuned to it! Pause the film while you’re making notes if you’re afraid to miss something.

1.     Performances

What about the performances stands out to you?

2.     Direction

Is the film cohesive? How is the script visualized? Are the actors well-cast, and how is their performance, was proper direction given to them? How is it filmed? Consider all creative elements of the film

3.     Story

Think of flow, construction (acts), beginning and end, moral, et cetera

4.     Genre and Iconography

What elements are used to set the genre of the film?

5.     Mise-en-Scène

What elements do you see in individual shots that add to the story and the overall effect to the film? What purpose and what effect do they have, how were they created? Is a certain element repeated between shots?

6.     Cinematography

What shot types and camera angles are used and to what end, also consider camera movement

7.     Lighting and Sound

What types of lighting are used and to what purpose; what about sound, is there a lot of diegetic sound (or not) and to what purpose?

8.     Score

Does the score fit the film, what does it do for mood?

9.     Editing

Think about continuity, types of cuts, and what their purpose and effect are

0.  Realisticness

How is realisticness achieved?

11.  Signs and Codes

Seeing these require the most practice. Signs are small elements that signify certain meaning. Codes are groups of signs which can create bigger, more significant meaning. You’ll want to keep track of signs throughout the film.

12.  Conventions

Consider conventions used in the film – e.g. that what we take for “normal” in film, but may not actually be normal in reality

After Finishing the Film

Final thoughts.

Make notes of your last thoughts, your feelings, how did the ending impact you, how did the filmmakers achieve this feeling? Did the film meet your expectations?

The Message

Now, after you’ve finished the movie, consider all your notes. What is the intended message of this film? What are you supposed to take away from it? How do the filmmakers achieve it?

That’s a wrap!

That’s it for the How To Analyse Movies series – I hope you’ve learned something, and enjoy watching and exploring the art of film!

Does content like this matter to you?

Become a Member and support film journalism. Unlock access to all of Film Inquiry`s great articles. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about cinema - get access to our private members Network, give back to independent filmmakers, and more.

Manon de Reeper is the founder and CEO of Film Inquiry, and a screenwriter/producer. Her directorial debut, a horror short film, is forthcoming in 2021.

A Beginner’s Guide to National Cinema Theory

No Sympathy For The Shooter: Contrasting TARGETS (1968) & JOKER (2019) In An Era Of Mass Shootings

Wes Anderson & The “Andersonian Style” Of Framing

Doomed Romance: The Beauty Of Unsuccessful Relationships In Cinema

• Write for Us
• Become a Patron
• Comment Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Staff Login

© 2023 Film Inquiry. All Rights Reserved.

Ask Yale Library

My Library Accounts

Find, Request, and Use

Help and Research Support

Visit and Study

Explore Collections

Film Studies Research Guide: Home

• Film Reviews
• Films & Videos
• Screenplays/Filmscripts
• Archives & Institutes
• Critical Approaches & Problems
• Directors, Actors, Writers, etc.
• Filmmaking, Producing, etc.
• Genres, Styles, Categories, Series
• History and/of Film
• International Cinema
• Literature & Film
• Movie Business & Studios
• Music & Sound in Movies
• Social & Other Aspects
• Themes, Subjects & Characters
• Annuals & Directories
• Bibliographies & Filmographies
• Biographies, Credits & Plots
• Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
• Festivals & Awards
• Guides & Companions to Films
• Organizations & Associations

Film Analysis Guide: Film & Media Studies Program

• Film Analysis Guide The Film Analysis Guide is intended to familiarize faculty and students with the vocabulary of film studies and the techniques of cinema. Related links are provided as appropriate.

Related Websites and Guides

• Yale Film and Media Studies Program
• Yale Film Archive
• Yale Film Archive Guide to Film Resources
• Japanese Reference Materials for Japanese Cinema
• Latin American & Spanish Film
• Streaming Video at Yale

About this Guide

This site provides a guide to conducting research in Film & Media Studies at Yale University, highlighting key resources and crucial search strategies. There are many special aspects to doing Film & Media Studies research, including:

• important search terms
• techniques for finding videos, reviews, and screenplays
• cast and crew information

Most of the pages give examples that you can use as models for searches, descriptions of the main resources, and tips on how to use databases.

• Next: Find Books, Articles, Videos & More >>
• Last Updated: Mar 24, 2024 11:29 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.yale.edu/film

Site Navigation

P.O. BOX 208240 New Haven, CT 06250-8240 (203) 432-1775

Yale's Libraries

Bass Library

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Classics Library

Cushing/Whitney Medical Library

Divinity Library

East Asia Library

Gilmore Music Library

Haas Family Arts Library

Lewis Walpole Library

Lillian Goldman Law Library

Marx Science and Social Science Library

Sterling Memorial Library

Yale Center for British Art

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

@YALELIBRARY

Yale Library Instagram

Accessibility       Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion      Giving       Privacy and Data Use      Contact Our Web Team    

© 2022 Yale University Library • All Rights Reserved

• Ask a Librarian

Film Studies

• Associations
• Open Access Journals
• Useful Websites

Subject Guide

Websites about Film

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Home of the Oscar, this site includes a valuable Academy Awards database.
• All Movie Guide - Film Finder Search by film title or name of actor, director, etc. to get plot summaries, short biographies and filmographies.
• BBC-Film A comprehensive site from the British Broadcasting Company, featuring movie reviews and release info, DVD reviews, filmmaking advice, feature articles from BBC News, and information on alternative and short films.
• Best of the Web: Film Festivals A helpful directory of film festivals worldwide.
• Black Film Center & Archive (Indiana University) Focuses on films by and about African Americans. While users must visit the facility to access the archive's collections (only a two-hour drive from Purdue), the website is also useful.
• British Film Institute Includes a "FilmLinks Gateway," a regularly updated, extensive selection of reviewed Web sites on film, organized by category.
• Cinema and Media Studies (Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago) Useful site for linking to film industry and academic centers.
• DocumentaryFilms.net News and original reviews of documentary films and links to official film sites and to other resources of interest to filmmakers.
• Filmmaking.net Provides a database of more than 500 film schools, as well as answers to more than 200 frequently asked filmmaking questions.
• Film Studies at Western University of Western Ontario Canadian film studies. Good site for comparative film studies with links to other useful internet sources.
• Film Studies Center (University of Chicago) Excellent comprehensive site that links to critical and major film studies.
• Film Studies Research Guide (Yale University Library) A resource for in-depth film scholarship, international and multi-lingual in scope.
• Film Studies Resources (University of Iowa)
• Greatest Films Detailed plot synopses, review commentary and film reference material are just some of the features available on the site. The site also contains film analysis, original content, information on the top films and most memorable movie scenes, "Best of..." articles, and the most popular film quotes in all genres of film. Its many resources include a comprehensive overview of film history, a complete survey of the Academy Awards (Oscars), milestones and turning points in the industry, and background and descriptions for hundreds of classic Hollywood/American and other English-language movies from the last one hundred years.
• The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) Film entries include complete cast and crew lists, production details, and technical information, as well as box office information and trivia. The homepage contains movie news, daily polls and quotes, and information on new releases.
• Movie Review Query Engine (MRQE) Reviews of more than 45,000 movies, including reviews from major newspapers, Web sites, and entertainment magazines.
• ScreenSite From the University of Alabama Telecommunication and Film Department, this site facilitates the teaching and research of film/TV/new media and is designed principally for educators and students.
• SimplyScripts Links to several hundred free, downloadable movie scripts, how-to resources for writers, as well as practical information, and a message board where users can discuss and critique each other's work.
• The Ultimate List of Movie Podcasts Highlights podcasts that cover the silver screen and all aspects of filmmaking, acting, screenwriting, and genres of films.
• Women Make Movies A good source of feminist film, their current catalog includes plot synopses and biographical information on the filmmakers. Also offers resources for aspiring filmmakers, with information on funding opportunities, internships, and job opportunities.
• << Previous: Open Access Journals
• Last Updated: Feb 22, 2024 10:59 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.purdue.edu/filmstudies

Reader Question: What are some good movie analysis websites?

Scott Myers

Go Into The Story

Open forum question via comments from Mahmoud:

Do you know any sites that analyze films and talk about the subtextual stuff? In other words, I mean the kind of criticism the analyze a film and tells you why it succeeds or why it failed and what could have been done to avoid that. Do you know any kind of sites that have that kind of criticism?

I wish I had time to do more movie analysis here, but at least check out the “14 Days of Screenplays” series, Versions 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 as you’ll find comments re some great movies there, both mine and GITS readers. There are tons of resources on the web and here are some that I’ve checked out in no particular order: Sense of Cinema Bright Lights Film Journal David Bordwell’s Website on Cinema Metaphilm Film of the Year Criterion Collection Wikipedia has a great list of film periodicals And this list of dozens of film critics including academic ones GITS readers, where do you go to get great movie analysis? UPDATE: In comments Matt Bird reminded me of a great resource, screenwriter Todd Alcott (Antz) who does some fantastic movie analysis. I’ve got him linked in my blogroll, but just to make it easy, here it is: Todd Alcott Thanks again, Matt B, for that reminder. Comment Archive

Written by Scott Myers

More from scott myers and go into the story.

Daily Dialogue —March 1, 2017

Harry: wait a minute ron: you understand why, harry once i make my move, the queen will take me. then you’re free to check the king….

100 Scene-Writing Prompts

At a fundamental level, screenwriting is scene-writing. use these prompts to improve your scene-writing chops., movie analysis: “her”.

Script Download Links

100+ scripts made available by studios and production companies., recommended from medium.

Script To Screen: “Cast Away”

From cast away, written by william broyles, jr...

Cole Haddon

Vinay Patel and the Temple of Doom: What Should We Do About Problematic Art?

The playwright/screenwriter discusses his relationship with the second indiana jones film and how to treat other culturally dated artwork.

Staff Picks

Stories to Help You Level-Up at Work

Self-Improvement 101

Productivity 101

Filmarket Hub

TV Pilot 2023 Screenwriting Contest — WINNER & RUNNERS UP

The filmarket hub platform is delighted to announce the winner and runners-up of its 2023 screenwriting contest for english language tv….

6 Books Recommended by Pedro Pascal I’m Kicking Myself for Not Reading Sooner

Books from spain, russia, and the us.

Story and Plot

The Midpoint

While medium is a monthly blog for me, i publish a free screenwriting lesson every tuesday morning at storyandplot.com..

Kallol Mazumdar

ILLUMINATION

I Went on the Dark Web and Instantly Regretted It

Accessing the forbidden parts of the world wide web, only to realize the depravity of humanity.

Text to speech

The Film Blog

Kung-Fu Panda 4 | Review

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire | Review

Drive-Away Dolls | Review

Dune: Part Two | Review

Wicked Little Letters | Review

Bob Marley: One Love | Review

Madame Web | Review

Contrary to popular belief, and in the face of dwindling commercial receipts, there are still a few terrific superhero films being made. Films like Blue Beetle , for instance. The sort you suspect would have performed much better had they enjoyed release back in the halcyon days of the early 2010s. Madame Web does not exist in this category. When it flops – and it will flop – superhero fatigue ain’t the reason. It is, let’s be very clear, not simply a rubbish comic book flick but a diabolical feature in its own right. There’s either a thrilling behind the scenes story here or Sony put way too much faith in the director of thirty-seven episodes of Doctors .

Argylle | Review

Argylle opens bad. Seriously bad. Dead-on-arrival bad. Offered up is all-star – Dua Lipa! John Cena! Superman! – Grecian espionage but one woefully written, dismally acted and laden with risible special effects. But, wait! What’s this? A story within a story? Now we’re talking. There’s hope yet. Hold on to it. Sure enough, the film that follows improves not merely on the first five minutes but much of its director’s recent work. Matthew Vaughn’s, until now, unstoppable descent into distaste finally desists for Argylle , an overlong but mercifully entertaining romp.

Migration | Review

If there’s one film certain to make an easy billion at the 2024 box office it’s Despicable Me 4 , the latest in Illumination’s six-feature-strong string of massive hits. Minions make money. Lots and lots and lots of it. First though, comes a rarer thing. Migration is Illumination’s first original offering in eight years, sweeping into screens on the back of a girthy run of sequels, remakes and video game adaptations. Visually speaking, the film delights. Directed by French cartoonist Benjamin Renner, Migration is Illumination’s cheapest but most dazzling animation in a decade. In all other respects, it’s a monumental bore.

The official blog of everything in film

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Report this content
• View site in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

Penn State University Libraries

Film credits & plot summaries.

• Databases & E-books
• Historical Resources

Jeff Knapp , Larry and Ellen Foster Communications Librarian

or Your Campus Librarian

• AllMovie - Movies and Films Database - Database of movies, actors/actresses, producers, directors and cast members - Includes detailed plot synopsis, ratings, movie locations, awards, links to cast member pages/bios
• IMDb - The Internet Movie Database - Information about movies & movie industry, tech updates, local showings, trailers, multiple search options
• Rotten Tomatoes - Movie reviews, trailers, forums, news feeds from entertainment industry sources
• MRQE - Movie Review Query Engine - Movie news, forums, reviews of: TV, box office, film festivals
• Film Studies Research Guide [Yale University]
• << Previous: Historical Resources
• Last Updated: Jun 16, 2023 12:20 PM
• URL: https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/filmcredpl

• 1-800-611-FILM

The Best Websites For Filmmakers: Directing, Cinematography, VFX, Screenwriting, And Much More!

Note: Since we first published this list of 37 websites over a year ago, we’ve been inundated with numerous suggestions about sites, podcasts, and other resources we should have included in the list. Below, find the updated version with over 90 suggestions from our readers, students, and esteemed faculty and please let us know what we missed as we will continue to update this list.

There are thousands of websites out there for filmmakers. Some of them are a waste of your time, others offer awesome services and resources. So we asked our film school students to share with us their favorite filmmaking websites. Here is our list, in alphabetical order, of the 37 best websites for filmmakers.

Action-Cut-Print – Peter Marshall’s four decades of film and TV experience, distilled into this ultra-comprehensive treasure trove of filmmaking advice.

Adorama – Adorama publishes fresh and informative articles about photography, technology, music, and other trends.

The American Society of Cinematographers – The professional guild for American Cinematographers, this site is also home to the online version of  American Cinematographer , one of the most trusted cinematography magazines out there, along with providing useful professional information for younger cinematographers.

Anatomy of a Scene  – A wonderful feature hosted on the New York   Times  website, this series of videos showcases directors walking audiences through a particular scene from their films.

Association of Film Commissioners International   – With over 300 Film Commissions on six continents, there’s almost always an AFCI member office nearby to help you navigate local laws, customs and procedures.

Art of the Guillotine   – Online film community for film editors. Connect editors and future editors with ideas and techniques that make films great as well as connect them with each other.

Awardeo   –  While the vast majority of influential film festivals  still occur IRL, online film festivals are a great and easy way to earn recognition and increased visibility for your work, with this site highlighting the best filmmakers on Vimeo.

AWN   –  If you’re involved with animation, 3D, VFX, or simply want to learn more, there aren’t many better places online where you can start your journey as AWN is literally the largest animation-related publishing group on the web..

B&H Photo, Video, and Pro Audio  – Your one-stop-shop for any equipment you may need throughout the filmmaking process.

BAFTA’s Soundcloud   –  The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has a massive backlog of interviews and their Soundcloud is dedicated to opening their archives to the public, with hundreds of recorded interviews with many of the most important names in film and television.

Baseline Intelligence   – This service provides a variety of pre-packaged reports on popular topics for movie producers, independent filmmakers, corporate financiers, and other entertainment entities.

The Beat – Hosted by Premium Beat, this is a blog every filmmaker will want to bookmark. As well as instructional articles covering a wide range of pre- and post-production issues, The Beat regularly posts fascinating thought pieces that will change the way you think about filmmaking.

The Black and the Blue   –  Whether you are looking for advice on how to navigate your first day on set or learn about more advanced skills espoused by other professionals, if you are a camera assistant, this is the site for you.

The Business   – Hosted by Kim Manners, editor-at large at The Hollywood Reporter , this is a great podcast covering the business side of filmmaking where she and another guest break down a certain aspect of the film business.

Casting Networks   –  Are you looking to cast a project or are looking for casting listings? This is a great resource to find audition opportunities or actors and best of all, it’s free!

CheesyCam   – While there is no shortage of online camera review sites, Cheesy Cam is a unique one in that its editor comes from a still photography background, but writes actively on new DSLR cameras, tools, and techniques. A fantastic resource for photographers and cinematographers alike.

Cinema5D   –  Like the above CheesyCam, Cinema5D is another fantastic resource for keeping up on the latest news and reviews surrounding filmmaking technology that stands out from other tech sites.

Cinephilia and Beyond   – A fantastic collection of resources on all things cinema: screenplays, interviews, videos grouped around themes, films or directors.

CorridorDigital – Many of you will be aware of this insanely slick YouTube channel which mashes together viral short ideas with exceptional special effects, but it’s the “how it was made” channel that filmmakers will want to check out for a regular dose of inspiration.

Creative Cow   – An excellent source of info on video production, with a lot of professionals and production experts hanging out in the comments and ready to answer any question you may have.

D4Darious   – A dedicated YouTube channel by an emerging filmmaker who relays his personal filmmaking experience through a series of filmmaking and screenwriting tips for beginners and experts alike.

Done Deal Professional   –  A crucial tool for screenwriters, producers, and filmmakers alike, Done Deal Pro tracks the various script, book, treatment, and pitch sales and options made in Hollywood and abroad, helping those who want to keep track of what material is being set up and the latest trends. The site is also a great resource for getting production forms.

Drop.io   – Use drop.io to privately share your files and collaborate on screenplays, film productions and animations in real time by web, email, phone, mobile, and more.

Detonation Films   – Detonation Films is dedicated to putting the fun back in filmmaking by establishing a new paradigm between digital media and online entertainment. And also by blowing stuff up.

DVcreators   – Advocates for digital video since the early 1990s, this site provides excellent training and resources for digital video makers.

DVXuser   – An online community for filmmaking where you can network and chat with thousands of other filmmakers while also providing plenty of tutorials.

Earth Protect   – With over 2,000 videos online about the environment and environmental issues and solutions, this site will help you to be a more eco-minded filmmaker and show you how to get involved.

ExploreTalent   – Auditions and job listing board for productions and casting calls across the country. The site also contains advice from established actors and celebrities.

Film & TV Pro – Looking for a bit of paying film work on the side while you craft your own magnum opus? This is the site you’ll want to keep an eye on.

Film School Rejects  – While most of the sites on this list are resources for filmmakers, Film School Rejects combines film and TV reviews with broader cultural analysis and fantastically-curated video playlists that will simply help to expand your film vocabulary and knowledge.

Film Riot – Ryan Connolly’s critically acclaimed tutorial site which provides a fresh and funny take on filmmaking how-to’s.

Filmmaker IQ   – As well as technical tutorials and guides on the process of filmmaking, Filmmaker IQ explores the ‘whys’ of filmmaking just as much as the ‘hows’.

Filmmaker Magazine   –  A must-read for indie filmmakers since 1992, this print magazine not only has all of its past issues digitized for you to access online,

Filmmakers Alliance   – Since 1993, this nonprofit organization has utilized community action to help advance independent film and filmmakers while providing mentoring from other users.

Filmspotting   –  A podcast hosted by writers Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen, each episode they tackle a new top five list that reveal the cinematic precedents for certain themes, genres, and aesthetic conventions.

Freesound  – A collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds and music that can be used for a wide range of genres and projects.

FX Guide  – Hosting articles and a large library of podcast episodes of various FX topics, FX Guide is a great site for filmmakers andVFX artists alike to better understand the craft.

Go Into the Story – A highly acclaimed screenwriting blog by Scott Myers (and the official blog of The Black List), dive in for superb writing advice, reader Q&As as well as regular challenges and articles which get right to the heart of the craft.

Google Art Project  – Looking for visual inspiration for your script or a project that you are filming? Google’s Art Project offers endless visual inspiration from around the world and throughout time.

Greenlight My Movie  – If you have a short film, web series, movie pitch, idea for a TV show, or more and do not have representation or a buyer, use Greenlight My Movie to submit and/or pitch your material directly to Hollywood production companies, studios, agencies, and management companies. Also contains solid pieces on screenwriting and where to find funding for your project.

The Hurl Blog – The Hurlbut Visuals blog is one which filmmakers around the world have come to rely on. The scope of the blog is huge, so be sure to select your area of interest via the dropdown category menu.

Hollywood OmniBook  – From agents to extras to screenplays for sale, the Hollywood OmniBook is your one stop source for connecting with Hollywood.

Incompetech – A huge database of exceedingly well-produced, free to use music which many indie filmmakers have come to rely on (and fully searchable by genre, instrumentation and even “feel.”) Maintained by Kevin MacLeod, who we previously declared the nicest guy in the music industry .

Independent Filmmaker Project   – Representing a network of 10,000 storytellers from around the world, the online hub for the Project provides a number of helpful articles and information about filmmaker meet-ups that will help you to network and make the right connections.

Indie Film Hustle   –  Home to the top-ranked filmmaking podcast on iTunes, Indie Film Hustle is a wonderful resource of online tutorials, interviews, and informative articles that will help supplement anything you learn in class at film school, allowing you to continue your studies on your own time.

indieProducer – A social networking site for Hollywood filmmakers that includes useful videos, news about film festivals, and other helpful information to help filmmakers achieve their goals.

IndieTalk  – An excellent platform for indie producers to chat shop and share tips, tricks and tales from the field

IndieWire – Geared towards both indie fans as well as indie filmmakers, this hub for independent film articles is also home to the phenomenal Shadow & Act and Women and Hollywood blogs, which track entertainment news as it relates to African Americans and women, respectively.

IDA  – The International Documentary Association is the ultimate authority on all things related to documentary filmmaking.

IMDb  – The “Internet Movie Datebase” is the go-to source for information on films, actors, producers, and other professionals in the film and television industries. If you are in the industry and don’t have a profile on IMDB, create one!

InkTip  – Find good screenplays and professional writers. Access is free to qualified producers, directors, agents, managers, and name actors.

International Cinematographers Guild Magazine  – While the print version of ICG Magazine has always been a go-to resource for cinematographers, the online version not only includes content from the magazine but also hosts plenty of web-only articles, interviews, and videos covering the various facets of cinematography.

John August  – The accomplished screenwriter behind such modern classics as Go and  Big Fish , August uses his site to provide useful information about screenwriting, from how to deal with slumps to useful product reviews. Also the home of the Scriptnotes Podcast with over 200 episodes covering about every screenwriting topic imaginable.

John Brawley – Incisive musings direct from the mind of a professional director of photography, Brawley’s blog hasn’t been updated in a while but if you’re yet to discover it, there’s a wealth of material in the back catalog to work through (and you’ll be glad you did.)

Learning Video – Formerly Learning DSLR Video, the LV blog is a gift to tech-heads and camera enthusiasts the world over. Dave’s video tutorials and camera kit demos are a great way to get to grip with the many facets of cinematography, particularly when it comes to digital shooting.

Making Of  – A great YouTube channel featuring interviews with both accomplished and up-and-coming actors and filmmakers covering countless topics.

Maltin on Movies  – Leonard Maltin, the legendary film critic and writer of his famous annual movie guide, which recently went out of print, takes to the internet to offer up a podcast that broadcasts his decades of insight and experience to a whole new generation.

Mandy.com  – International TV and film production resources that helps you to find crew members, actors, and more for your production, no matter where you are.

MovieMaker Magazine  – The nation’s leading magazine on the art and business of making movies and the world’s most widely read independent movie magazine.

Noam Kroll – Kroll’s excellent blog on filmmaking and post-production has grown in to something of a beast since it was launched, and now stands as one of the most recommended weekly reads on the topic currently active.

NoFilmSchool  – Regardless of its name, many of our students and faculty champion this website as a great supplement to their film school education while providing fantastic tutorials for beginners.

Philip Bloom – The BAFTA-winning filmmaker’s blog is a great port of call for those who have blockbuster ideas but an indie budget.

The Post Lab – Advice on post-production issues written by independent filmmakers, for independent filmmakers. Even if you think you’ve got it all figured out, The Post Lab frequently reveals brand new ways to address a production or editing problem.

Post Magazine   –  The online outlet for this esteemed print magazine, for three decades Post has been the trusted authority on all topics relating to post-production and is a great resource for VFX artists, digital editors, and anyone looking to learn more about post-production.

Pro Video Coalition   –  A collection of industry specialists’ blogs, Pro Video Coalition is a great resource for video professionals with articles and tutorials covering every aspect of pre-production, production, and post-production.

ProductionHub   – The community search site for film, television, video, live event and digital media production, whether you are looking for work or trying to find crew for a production.

The Production Booth   –  Everyone has a favorite cult movie and this podcast celebrates as many of them as its hosts can. But these aren’t ironic takedowns of “bad” movies, but rather attempts to cast these cult films in a whole new life. Definitely worth a listen.

Red Giant – The visual effects specialists’ blog and tutorials sections form a great starting point in your journey towards better post-production SFX, featuring a nice and easy learning curve along the way.

REDUser   –  A large and extremely helpful forum community of RED users and experts, sharing the latest tips, news, and products from RED Digital Camera .

Roger Deakins – One of the world’s premier cinematographers, Deakin’s website is a must-visit for all aspiring cinematographers. One especially cool feature is that he answers users questions personally.

reTooled – Ever needed tutorial-style advice on Premiere Pro or After Effects, or wanted to streamline your production workflow? reTooled is the place for you.

Script Mag   – One of the largest online communities for writers and filmmakers alike that hosts a large number of how-to articles, interviews, tutorials, and IRL meet-ups for screenwriters to network with their peers.

Shanks FX – A YouTube channel devoted to attaining great special effects in a practical manner. Not only will you learn a few new tricks, but it also serves as inspiration for thinking outside the box.

Shooting People – A great community of passionate filmmakers and a place where many a fine partnership has been forged. The SP blog is also well worth checking out.

Staff Me Up – In need of a sound engineer or DP in your area? Head on over to Staff Me Up and post a gig for free (you can also browse production jobs within your area of expertise, too.)

Stage 32  –  A social network for film, television, and theater professionals to connect with one another and gain access to Stage 32’s impressive back catalog of educational materials.

Student Filmmakers   –  Searchable community of filmmakers—including both new-and-emerging and professional—talents in the film world while also containing many helpful reviews of new technology, techniques, and workflows.

StudioDaily   –  Consisting of useful videos, rich media tutorials, and daily news items, StudioDaily is focused on keeping readers up-to-date on the latest workflow developments, product releases, and emerging products.

The Film Collaborative   – If you’ve completed your film or you’re getting close to it, check out the Film Collaborative for help on how to best distribute your film and find an audience.

Tom Cruise’s Blog   – That’s right, Tom Cruise has put out a surprisingly brilliant list of resources over on his personal blog (or, at least, his team has). Although the list is mainly geared towards actors, there’s plenty of crossover here for filmmakers and producers alike.

The Treatment   – Hosted by the highly esteemed film critic and scholar Elvis Mitchell, each episode of The Treatment features an interview with a different filmmaker, screenwriter, actor, or other creative, though Mitchell himself often steals the spotlight through his own incisive insight.

Twitch   – Unrelated to the livestreaming service of the same name, Twitch is a depository for indie films and the discussion thereof, with an especially strong focus on global cinema.

VFX Soldier   –  Written by a professional (and anonymous) VFX artist, this blog offers an unflinching look into the realities of the VFX industry, for better or worse.

Video Copilot – Want to take your After Effects knowledge to the next level? Video Copilot is the site for you, with plenty of easy-to-follow tutorials and free plug-ins on offer.

Videomaker   – One of the earliest filmmaking magazines still going strong after nearly 30 years, now fully digitized so that you can spend hours pouring through three decades of helpful articles.

Videvo   –  With so many stock footage and motion graphics sites out there, Videvo stands out as its massive library is 100% free to users, providing both budding filmmakers and established filmmakers with a fantastic repository.

Vincent Laforet – Given that LaForet is a Pulitzer Prize-winning fine art photographer, it’s of little surprise that he also treats filmmaking with the same clinical eye. Even better for us, he’s not shy about sharing his methods with the filmmaking and photography crowd looking to soak up some of his knowledge.

Visual Effects Society   –  The premier organization of VFX professionals, the site offers great opportunities to network and members get access to their prolific library of videos and articles.

Wired Design FX   –  Designed for both novice and expert VFX artists, Wired’s series of VFX-focused videos helps to demystify and explain many of the tricks and tools used by professionals, as illustrated using popular movies.

ZapSplat   –  Don’t have a gaffer artist on retainer to create your film’s sound effects? ZapSplat is a free library containing thousands of common sound effects that must might save your production a considerable amount of time and money.

[su_note]Learn more about the Film School at the New York Film Academy by clicking here .[/su_note]

How Do You REALLY Analyze Films? The Keys to Film Analysis

Everyone who has an interest in movies has probably tried to analyze a film at least once. Maybe you analyzed films for your own pleasure or maybe you needed to do it for a university assignment. Either way, you will probably have realized how daunting it can be. You need to take into consideration so many aspects that you might not even know where to start. Nevertheless, if you know what to look for, film analysis can be highly enjoyable and useful for your own screenwriting and filmmaking .

The most important knowledge you need is that film analysis consists of identifying the elements that compose a film and seeing how they are put together to create the story. This is easier said than done. So in this article, we will give a step-by-step description of how to analyze films. What do you need to look out for and how do you put it all together?

Table of Contents

Background information, watch and analyze films, 1. mise-en-scène, 2. lighting, 5. position of camera, rewatch the film and organize.

The first key to film analysis is to have some previous knowledge of the movie you’ll be watching. This might be surprising to read as most people want to watch films without having any previous information on them for fear of coming across spoilers.

However, when it comes to analyzing films, it is important to have some essential knowledge. This is because previous information prepares you for what is to come and helps you to keep an eye out for certain elements. The usual suggestion would be to know what genre the movie is, who acts in it and who directs it. This basic knowledge might not seem much, but it can be crucial to understanding and grappling with the film.

For example, Quentin Tarantino is known for putting repeated personal touches in his movies; a “signature” style. His movies have recognizable features. Consequently, if you previously know that the director is Tarantino, then you know that a movie with gore and quick, witty dialogue is what you will be watching.

By knowing what to expect you will try to look out for certain details that those directors or screenwriters are known for. The same goes for the genre. If you watch a thriller, you will keep an eye out for elements that create suspense.

Once you distinguish these elements and trademarks, you can judge why they are there and if they are correctly and successfully employed. This is all about having a reference point from which to frame your film analysis.

Watching the movie is obviously the first thing you need to do in order to analyze it. However, the way the viewer watches the movie is what is important to note.

If you want to properly analyze films, you need to watch them with a different eye than the normal audience. Regular viewers may watch the movie for entertainment and take aspects like its composition as read. If you want to analyze films, you need to step out of the pure entertainment aspect. Most importantly, question what you are watching.

How is the project made? What elements are there? Is there anything that stands out? Did something make you uncomfortable? These types of questions are what you should be asking when watching a movie. You need a critical eye to analyze films.

Another tip is to write down your thoughts as you watch the movie. If possible, write with pen and paper, not with a laptop or a cell phone. These may be scattershot thoughts that you can form into something more concrete later on. Or you may write more fully-formed sentences as you write.

The most important part of analyzing films is that there needs to be a switch from being in a spectator position to having the mentality of a critic. You need to scrutinize what you are watching, instead of just purely sitting back and taking in what’s in front of you. It’s the switch from being a passive watcher to an active one.

Identify the Elements

You are about to watch the movie; pen and paper are ready. You know that in order to analyze the film you need to identify the elements that compose it. But which elements are there and what do they contribute?

When one analyzes films, the number of elements to identify can be overwhelming. Thus, separating them into categories makes the task manageable. We’ve broken down 11 key elements to watch out for. These aren’t all the elements it’s possible to identify but are possibly the most important when approaching film analysis.

Mise-en-scène is the stage design and arrangement of actors on stage or in film. This means that mise-en-scène is the contents of the frame (the elements) and their organization (how they work with each other).

Mise-en-scène considers the elements of the frame as lighting, costumes, décor, the position of the camera, framing, color, props, and action/performance. These visual elements all bring different information to the screen in diverse ways in order to convey specific messages and tell the story with purpose. Paying attention to this is one of the first steps to good film analysis as it requires taking in all the elements at once, seeing them not as individual elements but ones in harmony.

The way the light shines on the actors and objects makes possible a series of suggestive readings. For example, a shadow on a character makes them feel mysterious.

• In the opening scene of The Godfather , the use of shadows created by a dome light lighting technique creates an enigmatic ambience around Vito Corleone.
• Furthermore, the dim lighting throughout the movie plays into the entire mood of the dark story at hand, where hushed, shady conversations take place in dark backrooms.

The costumes reveal plenty about the character’s background. If they are wearing fancy clothes they are probably well off. If the character wears the same outfit every day that might uncover something about their compulsive personality.

The costume designers can also use costumes to create a metaphor. For example, parents putting their kids into adult clothes suggests their first step into adulthood. Costume also, crucially, proves an indication of the time period. How well the costumes are aligned to the time period is a reflection of how successful it is an element overall.

Costume, typically, is a signal of characterisation. It can be a vital way of subtly revealing key parts of how the characters move through the world. So engaging with how successful it is in doing so can form a key part of analyzing films.

The surroundings of the character can also represent their personality. Film analysis is all about focusing on every detail that appears on the screen. Everything is there for a reason.

For example, in Thelma and Louise , during the opening scene, we see the inside of Thelma’s house, specifically the kitchen. Thelma has covered her walls with coupons and pictures of nice-looking houses. This can be interpreted as Thelma’s lack of money, thus the need for the coupons, and her dreams of living somewhere nicer.

The viewer’s access to the cinematic world depends on the camera’s position. After all, what the camera sees is what we see. Therefore, the position of it involves the audience in different ways and helps create an impression of the character.

• The camera held at a lower angle, looking up at a character, makes them seem powerful and dominant.
• While a close-up, the camera held close to the character’s face, shows the importance of that person in the film.
• If the camera is already in a scene before the character walks in, we have an objective point of view.

The above examples show how the director can position the camera in multiple ways to create different meanings. Again, in a good film, nothing should be accidental, every choice has meaning to the story at hand.

The frame accompanies the position of the camera. It also reveals a selective view of a scene. The framing of a scene chooses what to reveal to the audience.

For example, a character starts out alone in the frame. But a new character, who was there all along, reveals themselves with a slight change of framing. This can help create tension , surprises, and suspense in the film.

Framing is often crucial to dictating the film’s pace and setting the tone of the story via piecing together images in different ways. Whilst you may be used to taking the framing for granted, analyzing films requires focusing acutely on how the composition of each scene helps tell the story.

This is an expressive element that can help the audience interpret a character’s emotions. Color can also have a metaphorical meaning. It creates hidden messages by its incorporation into the décor.

The easiest way to explain it is via the color theory, which shows that for each color different emotions are associated. Thus, the director may decide to utilize certain colors to indirectly push the audience into feeling a certain way.

So understanding what different colors can convey is another string to the bow of film analysis. It’s yet another way of reading what the filmmaker is attempting to get across about the story with the choices they are making.

Keeping an eye out for objects that the characters have is also important when analyzing films. Particular objects can acquire meaning to the audience after their repeated use in the film.

For example, in The Hunger Games , the audience sees a pin with a Mockingbird on it at the beginning of the film.

• At first, it isn’t important. But the appearance of the pin increases until it starts to gain meaning.
• It is of high importance as it appears more often.
• In the end, the audience relates that pin directly to the main character and to the idea of the revolution that occurs in the film.

The performance the actors deliver is the final visual element to consider. How an actor delivers their line, their facial expressions or even how they walk is of high significance to understanding what is happening. It can show the audience how characters feel and how they behave.

Additionally, the actors’ reactions deliver important information to viewers. For example, if a character reacts with fear to something that is off-screen, it creates a sense of alarm.

All these elements when combined create meaning in a film. The audience understands the movie because the elements work with each other and have a certain organization. When analyzing films, identifying these elements and then seeing how they come together to create something more is vital.

However, the above components just relate to what is visible on the screen. For example, let’s take a look at another huge part of film analysis, recognizing the value of sound.  

The obvious association to sound is dialogue. What characters say to each other or what they communicate as an omniscient narrator is the evident use of sound in film. Nevertheless, that is not the only information sound provides. It can also have a metaphorical meaning. For instance, the sound of a clock ticking indicates the passing of time.

Sound is also identifiable as background noises and music. The viewer receives context via the use of background noises. This is especially true when the viewer hears something that is not shown on screen. For instance, the audience sees a kitchen, but they hear seagulls and the sound of waves. This indicates that the house is near a beach.

On the other hand, a film’s soundtrack adds to the film’s atmosphere and can be as memorable as the film itself. Its use helps accompany the action in the film, adding to the excitement. Dunkirk , for instance, is a great example of how a film can use sound to create a suspenseful and propulsive tone, using everything from a background of ticking to an underscore of ambience to a booming orchestral score.

Sound adds to the visual elements in many different ways. It accompanies them to add more information (background noise and dialogue) and to generate atmosphere (music). So when you analyze films, sound is a vital component that you need to identify. Keep your ears as well as your eyes peeled.

Finally, the last crucial element to identify when analyzing films is the plot. This is what the story is about and the nature of how it unfolds. Once the movie is over the viewer will, hopefully, know what story the film is telling. Realizing what the movie deals with can be known before, during or after the film is watched. It does not matter when we understand it.

However, what does matter is having a clear plot where certain components can be easily identified. Ask yourself, does the story have an inciting incident/conflict? Does the protagonist have character development ? Does the film have a climax that reaches a resolution?

The correct plot structure is more important as an element to film analysis than the elements above. Indeed the audio-visual elements, no matter how good they are, can seem superficial if not tied to cohesive and effective plotting.

This is because the plot will allow us to understand what we are looking for with the other elements. In other words, by knowing the plot we will know what the other elements (visual and sound) are trying to transmit to the audience.

• If a movie has a plot that deals with a gruesome murder, the logical assumption is that the elements are used in a manner to move that specific plot forward.
• On the other hand, if we have a funny tale of two friends, we will expect that the elements will not be used to create mystery.

Thus, in film analysis, the plot is an element that helps one understand the other components in a correct manner. These strands must be in conversation with each other convincingly. Film analysis is about, perhaps most of all, identifying how harmonious the plot and audio-visual elements are with one another.

Now, you have all the crucial elements in order to analyze films. What should happen next is the organization of those elements. After watching the film, you should have been able to write down the elements that you saw, how they were used and how they made you feel. If you did not manage this in your first screening of the film, you should rewatch it as many times as needed.

Once that is done, it’s time to put the elements together and see how they work with each other.

• How does the décor work with what the character says? The character has their house painted with happy colors, but does the character mirror those emotions?
• The angle of the camera is low, showing the dominance of a character. Does the lighting accompany that feeling?
• Does the plot have an inciting incident? How is that inciting incident built up by the other elements?

Those types of connections should reveal the film’s meaning. In contrast, the analysis of the film can also reveal the lack of meaning to a film. You can watch the movie, identify the elements, organize them and conclude that the elements are not used correctly. Or you may conclude that the meaning of the movie would be better translated with a different use of the elements.

Conclusions

Film analysis can lead to many conclusions. The viewer can end up praising the creator of the film or being their biggest critic. But either way, good film analysis will rely on the close reading of the film’s many elements of execution and an effective organization of the reading of these elements. This way, whatever the analysis’ conclusion, due diligence has been carried out.

Yet, even though you now have a guide, it is important to note that there is not one definite conclusion to film analysis. Everyone can organize the same elements in multiple ways. Therefore, the same movie can have multiple analyses, each one with its own visions and blind spots.

This is the joy of film analysis in general. Those who analyze films bring their own interpretation and perspective to the film at hand and give the reader of the analysis a new insight. With the right tools, film analysis can add enjoyment to the way we engage with filmmaking . But it also helps those who want to make films themselves by demonstrating the ingredients they need for an effective film.

– What did you think of this article?  Share It ,  Like  It , give it a rating, and let us know your thoughts in the comments box further down…

– Struggling with a script or book? Story analysis is what we do, all day, every day… check out our range of  script coverage  services for writers &  filmmakers .

This article was written by Valentina Vlasich and edited by IS Staff.

Get *ALL* our FREE Resources

Tackle the trickiest areas of screenwriting with our exclusive eBooks. Get all our FREE resources when you join 60,000 filmmakers on our mailing list!

Success! Thanks for signing up, now please check all your email folders incl junk mail!

Something went wrong.

We respect your privacy and take protecting it seriously

1 thought on “How Do You REALLY Analyze Films? The Keys to Film Analysis”

Hello, I would like to extend an invitation to Valentina Vlasich to be interviewed about this above article “How to Really Analyze a Film” on the San Diego Screenwriters’ Podcast. She did a great job and I think this coverage deserves more play. My name is Gail Stewart and I am the producer/host of the show. It currently airs on Apple Podcast, Spotify and on our local social justice network KNSJ 89.1 FM San Diego.

Best regards, Gail Stewart (619) 895-0327

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Book Review

On a Mission from God: The Definitive Story of The Blues Brothers

Love Lies Bleeding

Kung Fu Panda 4

Dune: Part Two

Become a Subscriber to Support AllMovie & Remove Ads

New and upcoming, all movies in theaters.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Adam Wingard

Release Date - Mar 29, 2024

Challengers

Luca Guadagnino

Release Date - Apr 26, 2024

Denis Villeneuve

Release Date - Mar 1, 2024

George Miller

Release Date - May 24, 2023

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Joel Crawford / Mike Mitchell / Ste…

Release Date - Mar 8, 2024

In the Land of Saints and Sinners

Robert Lorenz

Release Date - Mar 15, 2024

Now Playing in Theaters Near You

Check out the latest movies now playing in theaters on AllMovie. Browse showtimes of theaters near you and buy movie tickets.

In Memorium

Louis gossett jr. (1936-2024).

Best known for his powerful performance as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in "An Officer and a Gentleman," which earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and is widely recognized for his role as Fiddler in the groundbreaking miniseries "Roots," as well as the "Iron Eagle" series.

Coming Soon to DVD & Blu-Ray

The Beekeeper

The Taste of Things

Anatomy of a Fall

Staff pick of the day.

Synecdoche, New York

Directed by Charlie Kaufman

Psychological Drama , Showbiz Drama - Rated R - 124 Minutes - 2008

With his stop-motion revelation Anomalisa garnering rave reviews, revisit Charlie Kaufman’s remarkable 2008 directorial debut Synecdoche, New York. The late Philip Seymour Hoffman is brilliant as theater director Caden Cotard, who begins work on the largest, most complex theater piece ever conceived. Synecdoche is a heartbreaking film that defies succinct description. - Daniel Gelb

Advertisement

Supported by

A.I. Made These Movies Sharper. Critics Say It Ruined Them.

Machine-learning technologies are being used in film restoration for new home video releases. But some viewers strongly dislike the results.

• Share full article

By Calum Marsh

In 1998, Geoff Burdick, an executive at James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, was hunched in front of a 12-inch monitor at a postproduction house, carefully preparing “Titanic” for release on LaserDisc and VHS. A state-of-the-art computer process had made it possible for Burdick and his team to scour the film frame by frame, removing tiny imperfections embedded in the original negative: little scratches, flakes of dirt, even water stains that smeared the image. The computer could erase these blemishes using a kind of copy-paste tool, concealing the defects with information from another frame.

Burdick, now a senior vice president at the company, told me that this process “seemed like freaking magic at the time.” And yet the results were not entirely well-received. “There were a lot of people who said that this was the most beautiful VHS they’d ever seen in their life, because we’d gotten rid of all that gobbledygook,” he recalled. “But there were a lot of folks who said, ‘This is not right! You’ve removed all of this stuff! If the negative is scratched, then we should see that scratch.’ People were really hard-core about it.”

In the decades since, home video formats have reached higher and higher resolutions, with VHS and LaserDisc giving way to DVD and Blu-ray, and eventually to ultra high-definition 4K discs, known as Ultra HD Blu-rays. As the picture quality has improved, restoration tools have evolved with them, making it easier than ever for filmmakers to fine-tune their work using computers. Several of Cameron’s films, including “The Abyss,” “True Lies” and “Aliens,” were recently released on Ultra HD Blu-ray in newly restored versions that are clearer and sharper than ever before — the product of painstaking attention from Lightstorm and Cameron himself. “I think they look the best they’ve ever looked,” Burdick said.

But as with the old “Titanic” home video, these restorations have proved controversial, with many viewers objecting strenuously to their pristine new look. What has caught the particular ire of critics is the fact that these versions have been restored, in part, using artificial intelligence. Park Road Post Production, the New Zealand company owned by the filmmaker Peter Jackson, helped clean up Cameron’s films using some of the same proprietary machine-learning software used on Jackson’s documentaries “The Beatles: Get Back” and “They Shall Not Grow Old.” The images in Cameron’s classic blockbusters were refined in a way that many felt looked strange and unnatural.

The level of detail is eye-popping. Water looks crystalline; colors are bright and vivid, while blacks are deep and inky. Some surfaces, however, do look a little glossy, with a buffed sheen that appears almost lacquered. It can be hard to pinpoint what is changed. But there does seem to be a difference, and depending on the viewer, it can feel slightly uncanny.

“It just looks weird, in ways that I have difficulty describing,” the journalist Chris Person said of these releases. “It’s plasticine, smooth, embossed at the edges. Skin texture doesn’t look correct. It all looks a little unreal.”

Person is among a number of viewers who are skeptical of the need to use A.I. to “enhance” the appearance of films that seemed to look fine to begin with. Although he said that there were “legitimate use cases” for A.I. in restoration, such as when a film’s original negative has been lost or badly damaged, he suspected that with something like “True Lies,” they were “using it just because they can.”

The recent Cameron releases, and particularly “True Lies,” have become the subject of intense scrutiny and fervent debate online. Home video reviewers have described it as an overly sanitized presentation, with one faulting its “ routinely odd-looking images ” and another arguing that it appears “ almost artificial .” Web forums are teeming with complaints , often vicious, while social media posts criticizing it have spread widely.

Dan Best, the general manager at Park Road Post, acknowledged the debate around remastering movies. “The thing is, technology is changing,” he added. “People are viewing things at a lot higher resolutions at the moment. Therefore, a lot of recent films are being enhanced for these new viewing platforms.” Traditional home video releases were adequate for the days of tube TVs and 1080p video, in other words. But in the era of OLED screens and 4K smart TVs, restorations need a little more to meet increasingly high standards.

Burdick, who has been dealing with this kind of criticism since the “Titanic” days, seemed resigned to the fact that “you can’t please everybody at the end of the day,” though he accepted that the response to these Ultra HD Blu-rays was especially heated. The dissenters, he argued, were mainly just disappointed that “Aliens,” “True Lies” and “The Abyss” no longer look like they did in the VHS or DVD eras.

“People love these movies, which I think is great,” he said. “And they take that love to heart. So when the movie suddenly doesn’t look like they remember it looking, or the way they think they remember it looking, or it just doesn’t look the way they think it should, they get upset. What can you do?”

It doesn’t help that there is a stigma around the technology: Dissenters not only bristle at the appearance of these restorations — they are also unhappy that it is A.I. being used to make them appear that way.

But, Burdick said, that disapproval is based partly on misconception: “People hear, ‘Oh, they’re using A.I.,’ and they’re thinking about pirate ships and the cup of coffee,” — a reference to a recent viral video of a miniature ship sailing in a coffee mug, all generated with A.I. — “and they’re like, ‘What are you doing to it?’ But nobody is doing that to these movies,” he explained. “It’s not the same A.I., conceptually. It’s more like, this piece of negative looks kind of cruddy, and we can use some software to improve it, carefully.”

Best, at Park Road, said that this kind of A.I. upscaling was “definitely not the same” as the kind of generative A.I. used in apps like Midjourney or ChatGPT. Generative A.I. is a type of machine learning model that creates information, including images and videos, from users’ prompts. A.I. upscaling is subtler and less intrusive, using machine learning to refine an image without inventing new material from scratch. Generative A.I. could, say, add more aliens to “Aliens.” A.I. upscaling just adds more pixels, polishing the pre-existing images.

Eric Yang, the founder of the A.I. upscaling company Topaz Labs, said that one of the main differences between A.I. upscaling and generative A.I. was fidelity to the original source: With upscaling, “the enhancement that you get does not measurably change the meaning or the content of the image.” Nevertheless, he said that misunderstandings about the technology have given the whole enterprise a certain ignominy.

“People try not to talk about it,” he said. “Nobody likes to say that their film was A.I. upscaled or that a certain release had A.I. applied to it.”

The reluctance to admit to using A.I. is understandable given some recent controversies. In 2021, the filmmaker Morgan Neville came under fire when it was revealed that his documentary “Roadrunner” used A.I. software to create a deepfaked version of Anthony Bourdain’s voice for narration ; last month, the horror film “Late Night with the Devil” was criticized for using A.I.-generated imagery , with some critics going so far as to call for the film’s boycott .

Although “Get Back” and “We Shall Not Grow Old,” which involved footage from World War I, made extensive use of the same A.I. processes, they did not receive as much criticism. That’s partly because of the condition of the source material: Both films took damaged archival images and appeared to reverse the deterioration, and in one case, to also colorize it. By contrast, the recent Cameron restorations were based on new 4K scans of the original negative, none of which needed extensive repair of that kind.

“It’s not a question of the negative being damaged,” Burdick conceded. “But back on the set, maybe you picked the shot that had the most spectacular performance, but the focus puller was a bit off, so it’s a bit soft. There could be a million reasons why it’s not perfect. So now there’s an opportunity to just go in and improve it.” The A.I. can artificially refocus an out-of-focus image, as well as make other creative tweaks. “You don’t want to crank the knob all the way because then it’ll look like garbage,” Burdick said. “But if we can make it look a little better, we might as well.”

For viewers like Person, the problem is what those minor enhancements entail: That uncanny smoothness, though perhaps more in focus, can look oddly fake. “I don’t want to sound anal, but it really is egregious,” Person said. “It’s the same thing as TV motion smoothing — they say it’s better, so you feel like you’re the one person cursed with vision who can see that it looks bad.”

Explore Our Coverage of Artificial Intelligence

News  and Analysis

U.S. clinics are starting to offer patients a new service: having their mammograms read not just by a radiologist, but also by an A.I. model .

OpenAI unveiled Voice Engine , an A.I. technology that can recreate a person’s voice from a 15-second recording.

Amazon said it had added $2.75 billion to its investment in Anthropic , an A.I. start-up that competes with companies like OpenAI and Google.

The Age of A.I.

A.I. tools can replace much of Wall Street’s entry-level white-collar work , raising tough questions about the future of finance.

The boom in A.I. technology has put a more sophisticated spin on a kind of gig work that doesn’t require leaving the house: training A.I, models .

Teen girls are confronting an epidemic of deepfake nudes in schools  across the United States, as middle and high school students have used A.I. to fabricate explicit images of female classmates.

A.I. is peering into restaurant garbage pails  and crunching grocery-store data to try to figure out how to send less uneaten food into dumpsters.

David Autor, an M.I.T. economist and tech skeptic, argues that A.I. is fundamentally different  from past waves of computerization.

Economists doubt that A.I. is already visible in productivity data . Big companies, however, talk often about adopting it to improve efficiency.

In October 7, Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit) carries out a forensic analysis of the events of October 7, 2023, the day that transformed the politics of the Middle East. By examining hours of footage from CCTV, dashcams, personal phones and headcams of dead Hamas fighters, the I-Unit reveals widespread human rights abuses by Hamas fighters and others who followed them through the fence from Gaza into Israel. But the investigation also found that many of the worst stories that came out in the days following the attack were false. October 7 is a deep dive into events that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, the significance of which will reverberate for decades.

24 Mar 2024

October 7: Forensic analysis shows Hamas abuses, many false Israeli claims