Film studies

Film Studies Courses
Study online & in London

Enjoy a fresh look at big screen classics, ground-breaking titles and cult favourites featuring a cast of iconic names, former stars and the men and women who called the shots.

Check out our blog post on our new Cultureplex Ciné-Club, where once a week, for 12 weeks (and throughout the academic year in terms 2 and 3), we will watch and discuss film.

Study in-person, or online from the comfort of home, with classes that allow you to participate in discussions with fellow adult students and share your passion for Film as part of a learning community. We offer daytime, evening and weekend courses, both short and long. Our tutors are experts in their fields and experienced educators. Tutors share their knowledge and passion for Film through presentations, screenings, interactive discussion, analysis, and other activities.

Many students return to take more courses, telling us they enjoy being part of our City Lit literary community. Our popular courses often sell out quickly, so we invite you to browse and book your place now.

Courses available both in-person and online

We offer a range of long and short courses allowing you to choose between online and in-person learning. All our courses are live, interactive, and taught by expert tutors. No matter how you prefer to learn, we've got the class for you. See our guide to online learning for more information about accessing our live online courses.

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  1. Film studies taster
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 10 Dec 2023 (and 7 other dates)

    Location on this date:  Online

    Tutors:  Paul Sutton
    This taster of forthcoming film courses at City Lit in 2024 offers you the chance to think about which ones to take while also providing an opportunity to explore some of the key areas in film studies more generally.



    Learn how to evaluate and discuss films while enjoying a working example of a City Lit film studies class.



    We will view clips from a wide variety of films, exploring themes and technique in British, European and modern American cinema. There will be a chance to review term two film courses at City Lit (January - July 2024).



    This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.
    Full fee £10.00
  2. The Bicycle Thieves at 75
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 8 Oct 2023

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Graham Rinaldi
    In the inaugural 1952 Sight and Sound greatest film of all time poll, Vittorio De Sica’s neo-realist The Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette) was voted in first place. Seventy-five years after its initial release, we will celebrate and analyse the film’s enduring popularity with both audiences and critics alike.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  3. Exploring art cinema
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 8 Oct 2023

    Location on this date:  Online

    Tutors:  Jon Wisbey
    Establishing itself in the immediate post-war period, initially in Europe and later in world cinemas, art cinema is characterised by distinctive film styles and narrative structures that set it apart from popular forms of cinematic practice and representation. This course will consider its origins and development, its key films and filmmakers, and critical accounts of the concept art of cinema.



    This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  4. Love in the time of cinema
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 22 Oct 2023

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Paul Sutton
    André Bazin famously asserted that, ‘the cinema more than any other art is particularly bound up with love’. Join us for this one-day course and explore the extent to which Bazin’s remark may be seen to be true. We will look at how love is represented across the history of film and explore the ubiquity of love at first sight in classical Hollywood cinema. We will consider the extent to which romance, primarily heterosexual, has been a structuring narrative device in popular cinema, while also considering films that explore same sex romance. We will look at a range of genres, including, of course, the rom-com, or romantic comedy. We will also think about love of the cinema itself – cinephilia – as a possible reason for our regular and continued return to this frequently most powerful of experiences. We will consider work by directors such as Jean Genet, Douglas Sirk, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pedro Almodovar, and others, as well as looking at specific films such as My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and Groundhog Day (1993).
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  5. David Lynch: lost highway to Hollywood
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 29 Oct 2023

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  John Wischmeyer
    There is still a time and place for film noir in David Lynch’s dark films. No filmmaker is more unique. He gets his own adjective, ‘Lynchian’: films of an eerie, surrealist, dreamlike quality. He looks every inch the auteur, working and painting in a studio just above Mulholland Drive, a recluse whose boyhood was in 1950s America, who came of age with James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and its co-star, Dennis Hopper, who continued to live as a recluse on the wrong side of town 30 years later in Blue Velvet (1986), a virtual remake. “A film or painting has its own sort of language. It’s not right to try to say the same thing in words. The language of film is the language it was put into, and it doesn’t translate. It’s not a word thing. It would reduce it, make it smaller. Film is a magic act, and magicians don’t tell how they did it.” He hates behind-the-scenes footage or making-of films. “People do it for sales, for money, but the film is the thing and should be protected. I never was a movie buff. I like to make movies. I like to work. I don’t really like to go out.” (See separate but related courses on Once Upon a Time in New Hollywood, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, and the Coen brothers).
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  6. An introduction to Japanese anime: history, genres and authors
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 26 Nov 2023

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Cristina Massaccesi
    What is anime? What are the artistic and narrative features that make these films so instantly recognizable? This one-day film course will provide an overview of the history of Japanese animation cinema, its inextricable links with manga and its multi-faceted and varied productions that range from children’s films to genres such as cyberpunk and yaoi. During the course, we will watch and discuss clips from a variety of production companies and directors, such as Haya Miyazaki, the Studio Ghibli and Katsuhiro Otomo.
    Full fee £59.00
  7. The Coen brothers: road trips through Hollywood
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 21 Jan 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  John Wischmeyer
    The Coens’ Blood Simple (1984) was a new kind of film noir set in Texas. A career later they returned to post-Civil War Texas to re-make True Grit (2010). This map of their USA trips through Raising Arizona (1987), then mainstreams to Fargo (1996), but somehow never far from Hollywood and its genres: Barton Fink (1991), O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000), or Hail, Caesar (2016). If their America was No Country For Old Men (2007), then where art they now? (See separate but related courses on Once Upon a Time in New Hollywood, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, and David Lynch).
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  8. Aliens, mutants and paranoia: American sci-fi cinema of the 1950s
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 28 Jan 2024

    Location on this date:  Online

    Tutors:  Jon Wisbey
    Science fiction (SF) cinema of the 1950s drew on the social, political and technological concerns of the period, producing a rich body of films that reflect these themes. Looking at a range of American SF films of the period, this course considers the ways in which these films accommodate such issues, their function as popular, genre cinema, their production contexts, and the way that critics have understood them.



    This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.
    Full fee £59.00
  9. Francis Ford Coppola: the 'Movie Brat' who changed Hollywood
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 18 Feb 2024

    Location on this date:  Online

    Tutors:  John Wischmeyer
    The Godfather (1972) defined an era of cult filmmaking and redefined the gangster genre. It had been turned down by Arthur Penn, Otto Preminger, Elia Kazan, and Fred Zinnemann—but they weren’t 31 and in debt. Coppola was the oldest of the ‘movie brats’ and had just hit a cultural nerve by comparing Michael Corleone to President Nixon just before Watergate broke, which led him to The Conversation (1974). He was the hottest young director in Hollywood. The Godfather not only changed his career but also the structure of Hollywood itself. No other American classic so repays repeated viewings. What would he—and Hollywood—do next? Well, he started his own Studio, Zoetrope, with Michael Powell as an adviser. (See separate but related courses on Once Upon a Time New Hollywood, Robert Altman, David Lynch and the Coen brothers).
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  10. Public enemies, screen heroes: the gangster film
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 3 Mar 2024

    Location on this date:  Online

    Tutors:  Jon Wisbey
    Although primarily associated with American cinema, the gangster film is also a major genre in British and French cinema. Explore gangster cinema in each of these three production contexts, looking at themes such as the representation of the gangster, violence, masculinity and style - particular that of the film noir - while considering the ways in which it has evolved at key historical moments.



    This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  11. Melodrama, fantasy and realism: British cinema in the 1940s
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 17 Mar 2024

    Location on this date:  Online

    Tutors:  Jon Wisbey
    The 1940s saw major developments in British films and filmmaking matched by record numbers of cinema-goers and lively critical debate. Explore this 'golden age' of British cinema through films such as Millions Like Us, Brief Encounter and The Red Shoes, and themes including national cinema, realism, melodrama and fantasy, while assessing its critical reception and impact on British film culture.



    This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  12. Masters of cinema: Steve McQueen
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 24 Mar 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Paul Sutton
    This course will explore the work of the Turner prize winning artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen. Awarded an Oscar in 2014 for his film, 12 Years a Slave, McQueen has been producing politically and racially committed artworks and films since the early 1990s. His most recent project, the five film Small Axe (2020) was broadcast on the BBC amid increasing recognition that racial prejudice for Britain’s ethnic minorities remains as prevalent today as it was half a century ago. This course will examine McQueen’s work as a response to and an engagement with these experiences.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  13. The New Wave, realism and genre: British Cinema in the 1960s
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 16 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Online

    Tutors:  Jon Wisbey
    During the 1960s British cinema re-established itself as a leading producer of films, including realist, contemporary dramas such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), and action and adventure fantasies with the popular James Bond films. This course explores these developments through a number of lines of approach and the way in which they contributed to a revitalised British cinema.



    This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.
    Full fee £59.00
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