Film Studies is a department in which the motion picture is explored in a unified manner, combining the liberal arts tradition of cultural, historical, and formal analysis with filmmaking at beginning and advanced levels. The requirements for admission include a minimum overall academic average of B (85.0) and the successful completion by the middle of the sophomore year of designated entry-level courses FILM304 and FILM310.  A minimum grade of B+ must be earned in each of these courses. To fulfill the major, the student must also complete satisfactorily the additional required courses listed below as Group I, as well as a minimum of six other courses to be selected from Group II. (Note that electives in Group III count toward graduation but not toward fulfillment of the major.)  Please see our departmental Web site for further information regarding the specifics of our major: www.wesleyan.edu/filmstudies/ 

Please be aware that cross-listed courses must be counted in all departments in which they are listed.

Course offerings vary from year to year and not all courses are available in every year. With prior approval by the department chair, a limited number of film history/theory courses from other institutions may be transferred to the Wesleyan major. Students may become involved in the Film Studies Department in ways other than class enrollment. Film Studies runs the Wesleyan Cinema Archives, and its majors run the Wesleyan Film Series. The department does not offer group or individual tutorials other than senior thesis projects, but uncredited opportunities to work on individual senior films are available. Consult the chairman of Film Studies for further details.

Gateway Classes (Minimum grade of B+ must be earned in each class.)

• *FILM304 History of World Cinema to the 1960s
• *FILM310 Introduction to Film Analysis

Group I Additional Required Courses After Entry into the Major

• FILM414 Senior Seminar
• FILM450 Sight and Sound Workshop (or approved equivalent)

Group II Electives

• FILM306 Understanding Television: Industrial System, Cultural Form, and Everyday Life
• FILM308 The Musical Film
• FILM309 Film Noir
• FILM313 Early Cinema and the Silent Feature
• FILM314 Directorial Style: Classic American Film Comedy
• FILM320 The New German Cinema
• FILM322 Alfred Hitchcock
• FILM341 The Cinema of Horror
• FILM342 Cinema of Adventure and Action
• FILM343 History of the American Film Industry in the Studio Era
• FILM344 Color in the Cinema
• FILM346 Contemporary East Asian Cinema
• FILM347 Melodrama and the Woman's Picture
• FILM348 Postwar American Independent Cinema
• FILM349 Television: The Domestic Medium
• FILM350 Contemporary International Art Cinema
• FILM351 Classical Film Theory
• FILM365 Kino: Russia at the Movies

Group III (Count toward graduation but not the major)

• FILM363 Making Anthropological Video and Visual Anthropology
• FILM454 Screenwriting
• FILM456/457 Advanced Filmmaking (fall/spring)
• FILM409/410 Senior Thesis Tutorial (fall/spring)

*FILM304 and FILM310 must be completed before admission to the major.