Magazine
Archive
The whole archive in one place. Each section can be collapsed with the arrow.
▸Periodicals · 53
Current journals · open access · 12
Active, open-access film journals. Copyright means they can’t be embedded here, so these cards link out to each journal’s official site.
Open access
Secuencias
Revista de historia del cine
Academic journal of film history, with thematic dossiers and reviews.
Open access
Fotocinema
Revista científica de cine y fotografía
Open-access scholarly journal devoted to film and photography.
Open access
L’Atalante
Revista de estudios cinematográficos
Film studies bridging theory and practice.
Open access
Archivos de la Filmoteca
Revista de estudios históricos sobre la imagen
Historical studies on the moving image and film heritage.
Open access
La Fuga
Revista de cine
Chilean journal of film criticism and thought, freely accessible.
Open access
Offscreen
Film journal
Canadian journal of film criticism and essays, open access.
Open access
Senses of Cinema
Online film journal
Long-running online journal of essays and auteur film criticism.
Open access
Reverse Shot
Revista de crítica de cine
Distinctive American film criticism, now published by the Museum of the Moving Image.
Open access
NECSUS
European Journal of Media Studies
European open-access journal of media studies on film, television and new media.
Open access
Alphaville
Journal of Film and Screen Media
Irish open-access scholarly journal on film and screen media.
Open access
Desistfilm
Revista de crítica y pensamiento de cine
Peruvian bilingual journal of film criticism and thought, freely accessible.
Open access
Frames Cinema Journal
Film and moving image studies
British university open-access journal on film and the moving image.
▸Library · 8
Public-domain film readings: theory, history and manuals from cinema’s early days, to read right here.
Public domain
Writing the Photoplay
Public domain
Motion Picture Making and Exhibiting
Public domain
The Art of the Moving Picture
Public domain
The Photoplay: A Psychological Study
Public domain
How Motion Pictures Are Made
Public domain
Behind the Motion-Picture Screen
Public domain
Opportunities in the Motion Picture Industry
Public domain
A Million and One Nights: A History of the Motion Picture
▸Glossary · 66
- American shot
- A framing from head to knees, popularised by the Western.
- Anamorphic
- A system that squeezes a wide image onto the negative and expands it on projection.
- Aspect ratio
- The ratio between the image's width and height (4:3, 16:9, 2.39:1…).
- Backlight
- Light placed behind the subject, outlining it against the background.
- Breaking the fourth wall
- When a character looks at or addresses the viewer directly.
- Chroma key
- A technique replacing a uniform color background with another image.
- Close-up
- A tight framing, usually of the face, that emphasizes emotion or a detail.
- Color grading
- Adjusting color and contrast in post-production to set the visual tone.
- Continuity
- Visual and action consistency between adjacent shots so the cut goes unnoticed.
- Cross-cutting
- Alternating between two simultaneous actions in different places.
- Crossing the line
- Breaking the 180-degree rule, abruptly flipping the spatial layout.
- Cut
- The instant change from one shot to another; editing's basic transition.
- Cutaway
- A brief shot inserted to cover the main action or add context.
- Day for night
- Shooting in daylight and darkening the image to simulate night.
- Deep focus
- A technique keeping both foreground and background in sharp focus.
- Diegesis
- The world of the fiction; the diegetic is what happens within that world.
- Diegetic sound
- Sound whose source exists within the fiction and the characters can hear.
- Dissolve
- A transition in which one image gradually melts into the next.
- Dolly zoom
- A simultaneous opposing track and zoom: the background warps while the subject stays fixed (the Vertigo effect).
- Dutch angle
- A tilted framing that conveys tension or unease.
- Editing / montage
- The selection and ordering of shots; where film builds its meaning and rhythm.
- Ellipsis
- Omission of a stretch of time or action that the viewer fills in.
- Establishing shot
- An opening shot that establishes a scene's place and context.
- Extreme long shot
- A very wide framing where the landscape dominates the human figure.
- Fade
- An appearance from (or vanishing into) black that opens or closes a sequence.
- Flashback
- A jump back in narrative time (analepsis).
- Flashforward
- A jump forward in narrative time (prolepsis).
- Foley
- Everyday sound effects recorded in a studio in sync with the image.
- Found footage
- Fiction presented as real footage recorded by the characters.
- Frame
- Each of the still images that, projected in succession, create movement.
- Framing
- The decision of what enters the frame and how it is composed.
- High / low angle
- Camera placed above or below the subject, altering their power or fragility.
- High-key lighting
- Even, bright lighting with few shadows.
- Jump cut
- A cut between near-identical shots that produces an abrupt jump in time.
- Leitmotif
- A musical theme tied to a character, place or idea that recurs through the film.
- Long take
- A single, extended take that resolves a whole scene without a cut.
- Low-key lighting
- High-contrast lighting with deep shadows, typical of film noir.
- MacGuffin
- An object or goal that drives the plot, though it matters little in itself.
- Match cut
- A cut between two shots linked by a similar shape, movement or idea.
- Medium shot
- A framing showing a character from the waist up.
- Mise-en-scène
- Everything arranged before the camera: set, light, costume, performance and framing.
- Non-diegetic sound
- Sound outside the fiction's world, like background music or narration.
- Off-screen space
- What exists outside the frame and the film implies without showing.
- Overhead shot
- Camera placed directly above the scene, looking down.
- Pan
- A horizontal rotation of the camera on its axis, without moving.
- POV shot
- A framing that adopts a character's physical point of view.
- Rotoscoping
- Drawing or animating by tracing over previously filmed footage.
- Rule of thirds
- A compositional guide placing elements on a grid of thirds.
- Score
- A film's combined music, voices and effects; strictly, its original music.
- Shot
- A continuously filmed image fragment without cuts; the basic unit of editing.
- Shot / reverse shot
- Alternation of opposing shots, the standard way to film dialogue.
- Slow motion
- Shooting at more frames per second to dilate on-screen time.
- Split screen
- Dividing the frame into two or more simultaneous images.
- Steadicam
- A stabilizing rig that allows fluid handheld moving shots.
- Stop motion
- Frame-by-frame animation of real objects moved by hand.
- Storyboard
- A comic-like set of drawings planning the shots before filming.
- Superimposition
- Overlaying two images within the same frame.
- The 180-degree rule
- A convention keeping the camera on one side of an imaginary line so the characters' positions stay clear.
- Three-point lighting
- The classic scheme of key, fill and back light.
- Tilt
- A vertical rotation of the camera on its axis, up or down.
- Tracking shot
- A physical movement of the camera on rails or wheels during the take.
- Voice-over
- A voice whose source is not in the image, often narrating or interior.
- Wide shot
- A broad framing that places characters within their setting.
- Wide-angle lens
- A wide-angle lens that exaggerates depth and perspective.
- Wipe
- A transition in which one shot pushes the previous one across the frame.
- Zoom
- An optical move in or out by changing focal length, without moving the camera.
▸Timeline
The great movements and eras that have shaped cinema, from the Lumière brothers to the present.
- 1895–1927
Silent era
From cinema's birth to the arrival of sound: the visual language is almost entirely invented in these three decades.
- 1919–1931
German Expressionism
Painted shadows, warped sets and tormented souls: cinema as a painting of the subconscious.
- 1924–1930
Soviet montage
Eisenstein and his contemporaries turn the cut into an ideological and emotional weapon.
- 1930–1960
Classical Hollywood
The studio system and its genres perfect a clockwork narrative cinema that still dominates popular culture.
- 1945–1952
Italian Neorealism
Camera to the street, non-professional actors and the postwar as subject: reality bursts into fiction.
- 1958–1968
French New Wave
Young critics pick up the camera and reinvent cinema's grammar with freedom and irony.
- 1962–1982
New German Cinema
Fassbinder, Herzog and Wenders rebuild an auteur cinema on the moral ruins of the postwar.
- 1967–1980
New Hollywood
A Europe-influenced generation renews American cinema with authorial ambition and adult themes.
- 1990–presente
New Asian cinema
Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Iran or Thailand: the cinemas that have redefined contemporary arthouse film.
▸Awards
The films honoured by the major prizes: the Academy Award, the Cannes Palme d’Or and the Goya.
Academy Award for Best Picture
| Year | Film | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | One Battle After Another | Paul Thomas Anderson |
| 2025 | Anora | Sean Baker |
| 2024 | Oppenheimer | Christopher Nolan |
| 2023 | Everything Everywhere All at Once | Dan Kwan |
| 2022 | CODA | Siân Héder |
| 2021 | Nomadland | Chloé Zhao |
| 2020 | Parasite | Bong Joon-ho |
| 2019 | Green Book | Peter Farrelly |
| 2018 | The Shape of Water | Guillermo del Toro |
| 2017 | Moonlight | Barry Jenkins |
| 2016 | Spotlight | Tom McCarthy |
| 2015 | Birdman | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
| 2014 | 12 Years a Slave | Steve McQueen |
| 2013 | Argo | Ben Affleck |
| 2012 | The Artist | Michel Hazanavicius |
| 2011 | The King's Speech | Tom Hooper |
| 2010 | The Hurt Locker | Kathryn Bigelow |
| 2009 | Slumdog Millionaire | Loveleen Tandan |
| 2008 | No Country for Old Men | Joel Coen |
| 2007 | The Departed | Martin Scorsese |
| 2006 | Crash | Paul Haggis |
| 2005 | Million Dollar Baby | Clint Eastwood |
| 2004 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King | Peter Jackson |
| 2003 | Chicago | Rob Marshall |
| 2002 | A Beautiful Mind | Ron Howard |
| 2001 | Gladiator | Ridley Scott |
| 2000 | American Beauty | Sam Mendes |
| 1999 | Shakespeare in Love | John Madden |
| 1998 | Titanic | James Cameron |
| 1997 | The English Patient | Anthony Minghella |
| 1996 | Braveheart | Mel Gibson |
| 1994 | Schindler's List | Steven Spielberg |
| 1993 | Unforgiven | Clint Eastwood |
| 1992 | The Silence of the Lambs | Jonathan Demme |
| 1991 | Dances with Wolves | Kevin Costner |
| 1990 | Driving Miss Daisy | Bruce Beresford |
| 1989 | Rain Man | Barry Levinson |
| 1988 | The Last Emperor | Bernardo Bertolucci |
| 1987 | Platoon | Oliver Stone |
| 1986 | Out of Africa | Sydney Pollack |
| 1985 | Amadeus | Miloš Forman |
| 1984 | Terms of Endearment | James L. Brooks |
| 1983 | Gandhi | Richard Attenborough |
| 1982 | Chariots of Fire | Hugh Hudson |
| 1981 | Ordinary People | Robert Redford |
| 1980 | Kramer vs. Kramer | Robert Benton |
| 1979 | The Deer Hunter | Michael Cimino |
| 1978 | Annie Hall | Woody Allen |
| 1977 | Rocky | John G. Avildsen |
| 1976 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Miloš Forman |
| 1975 | The Godfather Part II | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 1974 | The Sting | George Roy Hill |
| 1973 | The Godfather | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 1972 | The French Connection | William Friedkin |
| 1971 | Patton | Franklin J. Schaffner |
| 1970 | Midnight Cowboy | John Schlesinger |
| 1969 | Oliver! | Carol Reed |
| 1968 | In the Heat of the Night | Norman Jewison |
| 1967 | A Man for All Seasons | Fred Zinnemann |
| 1966 | The Sound of Music | Robert Wise |
| 1965 | My Fair Lady | George Cukor |
| 1964 | Tom Jones | Tony Richardson |
| 1963 | Lawrence of Arabia | David Lean |
| 1962 | West Side Story | Robert Wise |
| 1961 | The Apartment | Billy Wilder |
| 1960 | Ben-Hur | William Wyler |
| 1959 | Gigi | Vincente Minnelli |
| 1958 | The Bridge on the River Kwai | David Lean |
| 1957 | Around the World in 80 Days | Michael Anderson |
| 1956 | Marty | Delbert Mann |
| 1955 | On the Waterfront | Elia Kazan |
| 1954 | From Here to Eternity | Fred Zinnemann |
| 1953 | The Greatest Show on Earth | Cecil B. DeMille |
| 1952 | An American in Paris | Vincente Minnelli |
| 1951 | All About Eve | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 1950 | All the King's Men | Robert Rossen |
| 1949 | Hamlet | Laurence Olivier |
| 1948 | Gentleman's Agreement | Elia Kazan |
| 1947 | The Best Years of Our Lives | William Wyler |
| 1946 | The Lost Weekend | Billy Wilder |
| 1945 | Going My Way | Leo McCarey |
| 1944 | Casablanca | Michael Curtiz |
| 1943 | Mrs. Miniver | William Wyler |
| 1942 | How Green Was My Valley | John Ford |
| 1941 | Rebecca | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 1940 | Gone with the Wind | Victor Fleming |
| 1939 | You Can't Take It With You | Frank Capra |
| 1938 | The Life of Emile Zola | William Dieterle |
| 1937 | The Great Ziegfeld | Robert Z. Leonard |
| 1936 | Mutiny on the Bounty | Frank Lloyd |
| 1935 | It Happened One Night | Frank Capra |
| 1934 | Cavalcade | Frank Lloyd |
| 1932 | Grand Hotel | Edmund Goulding |
| 1931 | Cimarron | Wesley Ruggles |
| 1930 | All Quiet on the Western Front | Lewis Milestone |
| 1930 | The Broadway Melody | Harry Beaumont |
| 1929 | Wings | Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast |
Palme d'Or · Cannes Film Festival
| Year | Film | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Fjord | Cristian Mungiu |
| 2025 | It Was Just an Accident | Jafar Panahi |
| 2024 | Anora | Sean Baker |
| 2023 | Anatomy of a Fall | Justine Triet |
| 2022 | Triangle of Sadness | Ruben Östlund |
| 2021 | Titane | Julia Ducournau |
| 2019 | Parasite | Bong Joon-ho |
| 2018 | Shoplifters | Hirokazu Koreeda |
| 2017 | The Square | Ruben Östlund |
| 2016 | I, Daniel Blake | Ken Loach |
| 2015 | Dheepan | Jacques Audiard |
| 2014 | Winter Sleep | Nuri Bilge Ceylan |
| 2013 | Blue Is the Warmest Colour | Abdellatif Kechiche |
| 2012 | Amour | Michael Haneke |
| 2011 | The Tree of Life | Terrence Malick |
| 2010 | Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives | Apichatpong Weerasethakul |
| 2009 | The White Ribbon | Michael Haneke |
| 2008 | The Class | Laurent Cantet |
| 2007 | 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days | Cristian Mungiu |
| 2006 | The Wind That Shakes the Barley | Ken Loach |
| 2005 | The Child | Jean-Pierre Dardenne |
| 2004 | Fahrenheit 9/11 | Michael Moore |
| 2003 | Elephant | Gus Van Sant |
| 2002 | The Pianist | Roman Polanski |
| 2001 | The Son's Room | Nanni Moretti |
| 2000 | Dancer in the Dark | Lars von Trier |
| 1999 | Rosetta | Jean-Pierre Dardenne |
| 1998 | Eternity and a Day | Thodoros Angelopoulos |
| 1997 | Taste of Cherry | Abbas Kiarostami |
| 1997 | The Eel | Shohei Imamura |
| 1996 | Secrets & Lies | Mike Leigh |
| 1995 | Underground | Emir Kusturica |
| 1994 | Pulp Fiction | Quentin Tarantino |
| 1993 | Farewell My Concubine | Chen Kaige |
| 1993 | The Piano | Jane Campion |
| 1992 | The Best Intentions | Bille August |
| 1991 | Barton Fink | Joel Coen |
| 1990 | Wild at Heart | David Lynch |
| 1989 | Sex, Lies, and Videotape | Steven Soderbergh |
| 1988 | Pelle the Conqueror | Bille August |
| 1987 | Under the Sun of Satan | Maurice Pialat |
| 1986 | The Mission | Roland Joffé |
| 1985 | When Father Was Away on Business | Emir Kusturica |
| 1984 | Paris, Texas | Wim Wenders |
| 1983 | The Ballad of Narayama | Shohei Imamura |
| 1982 | Missing | Costa-Gavras |
| 1982 | Yol | Yılmaz Güney |
| 1981 | Man of Iron | Andrzej Wajda |
| 1980 | All That Jazz | Bob Fosse |
| 1980 | Kagemusha | Akira Kurosawa |
| 1979 | Apocalypse Now | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 1979 | The Tin Drum | Volker Schlöndorff |
| 1978 | The Tree of Wooden Clogs | Ermanno Olmi |
| 1977 | Padre Padrone | Paolo Taviani |
| 1976 | Taxi Driver | Martin Scorsese |
| 1975 | Chronicle of the Years of Fire | Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina |
| 1974 | The Conversation | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 1973 | The Hireling | Alan Bridges |
| 1972 | The Mattei Affair | Francesco Rosi |
| 1972 | The Working Class Goes to Heaven | Elio Petri |
| 1971 | The Go-Between | Joseph Losey |
| 1970 | MASH | Robert Altman |
| 1969 | If.... | Lindsay Anderson |
| 1967 | Blowup | Michelangelo Antonioni |
| 1966 | A Man and a Woman | Claude Lelouch |
| 1966 | The Birds, the Bees and the Italians | Pietro Germi |
| 1965 | El knack... y cómo lograrlo | Richard Lester |
| 1964 | The Umbrellas of Cherbourg | Jacques Demy |
| 1963 | The Leopard | Luchino Visconti |
| 1962 | O Pagador de Promessas | Anselmo Duarte |
| 1961 | The Long Absence | Henri Colpi |
| 1961 | Viridiana | Luis Buñuel |
| 1960 | La Dolce Vita | Federico Fellini |
| 1959 | Black Orpheus | Marcel Camus |
| 1958 | The Cranes Are Flying | Mikhail Kalatozov |
| 1957 | Friendly Persuasion | William Wyler |
| 1956 | The Silent World | Jacques Cousteau |
| 1955 | Marty | Delbert Mann |
| 1953 | The Wages of Fear | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| 1952 | Othello | Orson Welles |
| 1952 | Two Cents Worth of Hope | Renato Castellani |
| 1951 | Miss Julie | Alf Sjöberg |
Goya Award for Best Film
| Year | Film | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Los domingos | Alauda Ruiz de Azúa |
| 2025 | El 47 | Marcel Barrena |
| 2025 | La infiltrada | Arantxa Echevarría |
| 2024 | La sociedad de la nieve | Juan Antonio Bayona |
| 2023 | As bestas | Rodrigo Sorogoyen |
| 2022 | El buen patrón | Fernando León de Aranoa |
| 2021 | Las niñas | Pilar Palomero |
| 2020 | Dolor y gloria | Pedro Almodóvar |
| 2019 | Campeones | Javier Fesser |
| 2018 | La librería | Isabel Coixet |
| 2017 | Tarde para la ira | Raúl Arévalo |
| 2016 | Truman | Cesc Gay |
| 2015 | La isla mínima | Alberto Rodríguez |
| 2014 | Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados | David Trueba |
| 2013 | Blancanieves | Pablo Berger |
| 2012 | No habrá paz para los malvados | Enrique Urbizu |
| 2011 | Pan negro | Agustí Villaronga |
| 2010 | Celda 211 | Daniel Monzón |
| 2009 | Camino | Javier Fesser |
| 2008 | La soledad | Jaime Rosales |
| 2007 | Volver | Pedro Almodóvar |
| 2006 | La vida secreta de las palabras | Isabel Coixet |
| 2005 | Mar adentro | Alejandro Amenábar |
| 2004 | Te doy mis ojos | Icíar Bollaín |
| 2003 | Los lunes al sol | Fernando León de Aranoa |
| 2002 | Los otros | Alejandro Amenábar |
| 2001 | El Bola | Achero Mañas |
| 2000 | Todo sobre mi madre | Pedro Almodóvar |
| 1999 | La niña de tus ojos | Fernando Trueba |
| 1998 | La buena estrella | Ricardo Franco |
| 1997 | Tesis | Alejandro Amenábar |
| 1996 | Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto | Agustín Díaz Yanes |
| 1995 | Días contados | Imanol Uribe |
| 1994 | Todos a la cárcel | Luis García Berlanga |
| 1993 | Belle Époque | Fernando Trueba |
| 1992 | Amantes | Vicente Aranda |
| 1991 | ¡Ay, Carmela! | Carlos Saura |
| 1990 | El sueño del mono loco | Fernando Trueba |
| 1989 | Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios | Pedro Almodóvar |
| 1988 | El bosque animado | José Luis Cuerda |
| 1987 | El viaje a ninguna parte | Fernando Fernán Gómez |