Film Studies Research Guide 

What's Here

Films can be about history, films have a history, films affect history, and history affects films. This page give pointers to finding resources on each of these.

• Find books in Orbis
• Find articles
• Selected reference sources

To find resources on the history of the US and other countries, see the list of History Subject Guides.

Find Books on History and/of Film

Here are some examples of subject headings that you can use to search Orbis:

• Historical films
  
  • Historical films are films about historical events or people
  
  
• Motion pictures and history
  
  • Books on how films affect history
  
  
• History in motion pictures
  • Works on historical themes in films that are not historical films ... like Forrest Gump
    
    
• China--In motion pictures
  • Books on how the location is portrayed in films
    
    
• Depressions--1929--United States--Drama
  • "Drama" is used for films as well as plays and TV shows about a topic
    
    
• Motion pictures--History
  • Books about the history of films and filmmaking
    
    
• Motion pictures--United States--History
  • Books about the history of films and filmmaking specifically in the US
    
    
• Motion picture industry--United States--History
  • Books about the history of the American film industry

See the appropriate history subject guides for help in finding subject headings about a country's history.

Find Articles

For articles about history in movies or the history of film, refer to the Articles page.

But you should also check the history databases, since historians study the role of films in history as well as how history is represented in films -- and their articles may appear in journals that the film databases don't cover.

Here are the two key history databases.  Be sure to check the History Subject Guides for more comprehensive lists of resources.

America: History & Life

America: History and Life covers the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. To find articles on movies, use the Subject heading Films.

Historical Abstracts

Historical Abstracts covers history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada). To find articles on movies, use the Subject heading Films.

Selected Reference Sources

Cinema year by year, 1894-2003. Ed. Robyn Karney. London; New York: DK Publishing, 2003.

SML Reference, PN1993.5 A1 C56 2003 (LC)+

The Columbia companion to American history on film. Ed. Peter C. Rollins. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

SML Reference, PN1995.9 U64 C65 2003

Earlycinema.com

An introduction to the first decade of motion pictures.

Encyclopedia of early cinema. Ed. Richard Abel. London; New York: Routledge, 2005.

SML Reference, PN1993.45 .E53X 2005

Greatest Films (FilmSite)

The Hollywood Ten