Guides: CIMS 101: World Film History to 1945: Overview

Streaming

Where can I stream it now?

Useful apps for Cinema & Media Studies

IMDb, the Internet Movie Database, for filmographies, casts, credits, showtimes, reviews, and watchlists for film and TV.
Letterboxd, a social network for film people with watchlists and reviews.
JustWatch or ReelGood, streaming search and watchlists.

Not available to stream? It happens.
Search for the DVD

Search Franklin for films and TV, streaming or as a DVD. The physical DVD copy is sometimes the only option for access.

DVDs can offer bonus essays, booklets, interviews, and extra content.

DVDs

Search for a film: Franklin
To check out a DVD, write down the DVD number and request it at the Circulation Desk.

Van Pelt has DVDs of films that are rarely or not available from streaming services.

Request a Film

Want us to buy a film? Email us your suggestion.

Researching a Particular Film?

Film Index International - Coverage of U.S. and international films--European, Asian, Latin American, African, including scholarly and academic work, unlike Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
American Film Institute Catalog - American film information for the years 1893-1972

Cinema Studies Databases

MLA International Bibliography
Covers literature, languages, folklore, and linguistics. Includes English and foreign languages.
EBSCO MegaFILE
General, multidisciplinary periodical database, covering all scholarly disciplines, with many general and popular magazines, and news sources. Includes bibliographic citations with indexing and abstracts for more than 16,000 periodicals.
FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals
FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals is published by the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) and contains several databases: the International Index to Film Periodicals, the International Index to Television Periodicals, the List of Periodicals Indexed, the Treasures from the Film Archives, the FIAF Affiliates Publications and the Film and TV Documentation Collections.
Film Literature Index (FLI)
Contains citations to articles, film reviews and book reviews on film, tv, and video published between 1976-2001.
Communication Source

Sage Publications
Covers citations from Cinema Studies journals, including Animation; Media, Culture & Society; New Media & Society; Television & New Media. To search for articles, change search box from "ALL Sage" to "Journals."

Through the Camera Lens: The Moving Picture World and the Silent Cinema Era, 1907-1927
From Archives Unbound

InformaWorld - Taylor & Francis Journals Complete
Coverage of select journals in Cinema Studies. Includes: Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television; History of Photography; Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media; Media History; Visual Anthropology.

HeinOnline
Legal research database containing full-text PDF articles. Includes Entertainment and Communications Law journals, such as UCLA Entertainment Law Review
and Hastings Communication & Entertainment Law Journal.

Primary Sources

Media History Digital Library - Archive of classic media publications covering the histories of film, broadcasting and sound. Features both film industry papers and fan magazines.
Moving Picture World - An influential early trade journal for the American film industry
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive - Covers Variety (1905-2000) and consumer and fan magazines such as Picturegoer (1911-1960) and American Film (1975-1992).
Victorians on Film: Entertainment, Innovation & Everyday Life - Showcasing the British Film Institute’s Victorian Film Collection and the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection, this material provides a glimpse into the lives of the late Victorians and Edwardians captured between 1895 and 1913 by some of Britain’s earliest film pioneers and innovators.
Hollywood, Moral Censorship, and the Motion Picture Production Code, 1927-1968 - MPAA Production Code Administration Files covering self-regulation and censorship in the motion picture industry.

Variety

Variety - A major Hollywood industry trade magazine, Variety includes box office statistics and more.

Subject Guide

Charles Cobine

he/him

Contact:

Van Pelt Library 205

215-746-5830

Subjects: Cinema & Media Studies, German Studies

Background Information

Oxford Bibliographies Online
Under Browse by Subject, select Cinema & Media Studies. There are overviews here on such topics as Censorship, Film Theory Before 1945, and Women in Film.

Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies
Defines terms and concepts in film theory and criticism, film movements and genres, film industry organizations and practices and technical terms.

CIMS 101: World Film History to 1945: Overview