Film Studies Research Guide 

What's Here

Here you can get to information on the film industry and studios. To find materials in the Yale Library, try the following types of searches in Orbis.

Publications about a particular studio (person, company): Subject = warner bros pictures

Publications -- including movies -- by a particular studio (person, company): Author = miramax

Examples of Subject Headings for Searching Orbis

Selected Information Sources

NOTE: This page only lists resources on the film industry in the US. For information on the film industry internationally, see the International Cinema page. Many of those resources also contain information on the US.

Laurel and Hardy in "The Bohemian Girl." From the Crawford Collection, Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives.

Box Office Mojo

Business.com: Film Information

This portal has many sections, such as news, distributors, documentaries, festivals, production, licensing, screenwriting, studios, associations, education & training, employment, and reference resources (including statistics and publications).

Film daily: the daily newspaper of motion pictures

SML Microform Room, Film S3516 [1918 to 1969]

Google: Studios

Hollywood.com

Online entertainment source for the Hollywood movie industry. Includes news, movies, showtimes, celebrities, video/DVD, TV, Broadway, and indie films.

The Hollywood Reporter
SML Stacks, PN1993 H65+ (LC) [1988 to present]
SML Microform Room, Film S3204 [1934 to 1990]
Online sources:

LexisNexis Academic (May 1991 to present)

Factiva (May 1991 to present) (must search manually)

General OneFile (Jun. 2001 to present issue)

Business Source Complete (Apr. 2008 to present)

Hollywood Reporter.com (requires individual subscription for archive access)

LexisNexis Academic

LexisNexis Academic provides the full text of over 200 publications with news and information on the entertainment industry, which you can search through these steps:

1. Click on the Sources tab.
2. Select the Industry radio button.
3. Choose Entertainment & Arts as the industry.
4. Look through the resulting list and check off the box for Entertainment News, All.
5. Click on the red "OK - Continue" button and conduct your search.

Motion Picture Association of America: Reports

Online reports about movie attendance and the movie industry in the US.

Motion-Picture Industry Behind the Scenes

Information on different aspects of film production from special effects to film exhibition and awards.

The Movie Times

Obtain annual box office data starting from 1999; actor and actress box office; and box office comparisons between movies or between stars. (Who's brought in more money, Dakota Fanning or Christopher Walken? The answer may not surprise you....)

Nielsen EDI

Real-time box office data from Nielsen Entertainment.

The Numbers: Box Office Data

Tracks box office numbers of current movie releases. Also has a chart and movie archive.

Online Media Guide

The new historical dictionary of the American film industry. Anthony Slide. Lanham, MD; London: Scarecrow Press, 1998.

SML, Starr Reference PN1993.5 U6 +S539 1998

TVLINK

Numerous links on the film and television industry.  The page is a little hard to interpret at first since it seems to have the title Timelapse.com: The Time-Lapse Stock Footage Library, but the links include categories such as "Motion Picture Studios" and "Production News."

Variety and Daily Variety
SML Microform Room, Film S2206 [1905 to most recent microfilm reel; current issues in the Periodical Reading Room, Section X-9]
Online sources:

LexisNexis Academic Universe: Variety (Jul. 1993 to present) and Daily Variety (Apr. 1992 to present)

Academic OneFile: Variety (Jan. 1997 to present) and Daily Variety (Nov. 2000 to present)

International Index to the Performing Arts Full Text: Variety (Aug. 2000 to present)

Factiva: Daily Variety (Mar. 2004 to present) (must search manually)

Video Distributor Database Search

Location information for the distributors of many types of movies.

World Wide Box Office

Data in US dollars on gross box office receipts. Can limit by date of release, so you can search for the total movie theater receipts to date for a movie released in (say) 1952.

Yahoo: Box Office Reports and Studios and Production Companies