Film Studies Courses
Study online & in London

London is one of the world’s great cinematic cities. It is a city that has been captured on film since the advent of moving pictures. It is also a city whose own story has been profoundly shaped by film. This course will tell the history of London’s depiction onscreen, and how that depiction has impacted on the city itself over the course of twentieth and twenty-first centuries.







Dr Alexander Sergeant is an award-winning film historian and theorist. His varied research interests include the history of popular culture, particularly within the US, and the intersection between film and philosophy. He is the author of Encountering the Impossible: The Fantastic in Hollywood Fantasy Cinema (2021), and co-editor ofFantasy/Animation: Connections Between Media, Mediums & Genres (2018). He is the co-founder of the popular website Fantasy-Animation.org and co-host of the Fantasy/Animation podcast.

For anyone growing up in or living through the 1970s there were plenty of series on TV to watch, despite the limited numbers of channels available at the time. Enduring classics such as Doctor Who, which began in the 1960s and continues to this day, to crime dramas such as The Sweeney and its follow-up Minder, not to mention The Professionals and The New Avengers, to comedies like Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Goodies, The Good Life, To the Manor Born and Fawlty Towers, as well as science fiction dramas such as Blake’s 7 and Space 1999, the 70s was a rich decade in terms of television production. So, if you want to forget the oil crisis, power cuts, the 3-day week and the ‘winter of discontent’, but remember Punk, Ska and a whole host of what are now seen as ‘cult’ TV programmes, then put on your donkey jacket and your beige flares, mount your Raleigh chopper bicycle (sadly I was only allowed a ‘Jeep’) and join me for four weeks of 70s nostalgia.

Hitchcock's most successful film, and, arguably, the horror thriller, Psycho (1960) has enthralled audiences and critics ever since its release sixty-five years ago. Through an in-depth, scene by scene analysis of the film, we will explore its structure, one designed to challenge both audiences and the conventions of narrative filmmaking, its critical and cultural impact, and its enduring appeal.

Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), sees the director exploring a familiar theme: the 'romantic couple' tested by suspenseful events. But unlike his glossy 1950s hits, Hitchcock opts for muted visuals and performances in an unflinching examination of femininity under threat and masculine cruelty, framed by a dystopian revenge of nature narrative. Explore the master's last great film, scene by scene.

Who was Number 6?, Why did he resign?, Who was Number 1? – Patrick McGoohan the highest paid actor on British television had grown tired with the espionage series Danger Man (1960-67) and with the writer George Markstein created a new project – The Prisoner (1967-68). Over 17 episodes, with its mixture of surrealism, paranoia, pop art and spy thriller, The Prisoner defined the term “Cult Television”. From its inception to the present day, The Prisoner continues to intrigue and raise debate among television viewers.

During the 1960s British cinema re-established itself as a leading producer of films, including realist dramas such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), and action and adventure fantasies with the highly popular James Bond films. This course explores these developments through a range of critical approaches and considers the way in which they contributed to a revitalised British cinema.

When it hit UK TV screens in October 1990, David Lynch’s Twin Peaks was more than just another US television series, it was as one critic describes it, ‘a seismic event in popular culture’ (Tobias 2020). In an era when TV aired live it was a must-see series with fevered pre-episode speculation and critical post-broadcast discussion characterising viewers’ engagement with this cult phenomenon. The mystery over who killed Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) preoccupied TV viewers across the autumn and winter of 1990. For me it was the first live series that I watched from start to finish.