Film Studies Research Guide 

What's Here

There are many films genres, styles and categories; this page provides guidance on how to find analyses and examples of them, selected reference and web resources for many genres.

• Finding Boks on Film Geres, Styles and Categories
  
• Selected Reference Resources and Web Sites
  

Finding Books on Film Genres, Styles and Categories

The following are examples of Orbis subject headings for books about (and sometimes examples of) films of various genres and types.

• Be aware that books about genres (etc) will receive these subject terms, but the movies themselves might not -- practices are irregular.
• Notice that unlike other topics on cinema, many of these subject headings use the term films, not motion pictures.
• "Genre" is sometimes also used to cover series, such as Star Wars, and films focused on particular characters, like James Bond.
  

A film genre isn't its theme or topic, but there may be overlap.  SEE ALSO Themes, Subjects & Characters.

There is (alas) no genre called "Cult films."

Selected Reference Resources and Web Sites

From the Crawford Collection, Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives.

For additional web sites, please see: Web Portals

General Genre Resources

Films by Genre: 775 categories, styles, trends, and movements defined, with a filmography for each. Daniel Lopez. Jefferson, N.C. ; London: McFarland & Co., 1993.

SML Reference, PN1998 L63X 1993

The Ultimate Movie Thesaurus. Christopher Case. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1996.

SML Reference, PN1998 C323X 1996

Consists of two major sections.  The first is a list of films by title, providing a one-sentence synopsis, its genre(s), and its topics or themes. The second section lists the genres and topics, and the films that provide examples.

Media Resources Center Filmography Search, University of North Carolina

A source for filmographies of many movie genres.

UC Berkeley Media Resources Center Film Genre Bibliography

A source for bibliographies on many movie genres.

Specific Genre Resources

One can locate websites for most film genres through the portals maintained by Google and Yahoo. Many of the websites that they list include filmographies and in some cases bibliographies, reviews and/or articles.  Consequently the following list only includes selected printed materials available at the Yale University Library.

Action

Action Web website dedicated to directors John Woo and Tsui Hark.

B-Movies

B-movie.com includes a catalog of underground, cult, b-movies and indie cinema.

Documentary Films

Encyclopedia of the documentary film. Ian Aitken, editor. SML Reference, PN1995.9.D6 E53X 2006+

Film Noir

Film Noir Filmography
Film Noir Website Portals: Yahoo - Google
Filmsite: Film Noir

Horror

A-Z of horror films. Howard Maxford. SML Reference, PN1995.9 H6 M3245X 1997

Martial Arts

Alive and Kicking: The Kung Fu Film is a Legend (Bright Lights Film Journal Article)

Monster

The Essential Monster Movie Guide. Stephen Jones. (New York: Billboard Books, 2000, c1999). SML Stacks, PN1995.9 M6 J66X 1999

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Encyclopedia of science fiction movies. C.J. Henderson. SML Reference, PN1995.9 S26 H38X 2001+

Silent Film

Silent films, 1877-1996: a critical guide to 646 movies. Robert K. Klepper. SML Reference, PN1995.75 K57X 1999

War

Brassey's guide to war films. Alun Evans. SML, Reference PN1995.9 W3 E78 2000+

Western

Encyclopedia of westerns. Herb Fagen. SML, Reference PN1995.9.W4 F27 2003+