The MA (Hons) in Film Studies is a four-year course run by the Department of Film Studies. Film studies is a dynamic and growing discipline, drawing in students with a variety of interests. Students will critically examine the history of moving images across time and cultures, looking at a diverse range of topics from artists’ film to activist documentary, from early cinema to digital media. Film studies uses a variety of critical, theoretical and historical approaches to examine one of the most significant cultural and artistic forms of the 20th and 21st centuries.
During the first two years, they will take four film studies modules (one per semester). These provide the theoretical, cultural and methodological frameworks they will need for the more specialised and challenging Honours courses.
Alongside film studies, in the first year of the studies, they will be required to study an additional two subjects. In the second year they will usually carry on at least one of these subjects, sometimes two. Find out more about how academic years are organised.
In third and fourth year, they can take either Single Honours or Joint Honours in film studies, taking courses (typically two per semester for Single Honours, or one per semester for Joint Honours) across the next two years. These courses reflect the research expertise of the Department and allow them to develop their own interests within the discipline.
The Honours programme examines a diverse range of film and media theories and practices covering genres, film sound, global cinemas, documentary, and various histories of the moving image. You work closely with the teaching staff and develop excellent intellectual, writing and research skills that are useful in a wide variety of professions.
Specialist subjects they may be able to take include:
- artists' film and video
- cinema in the digital era
- colonial cinema
- film and media history
- film, human rights and activism
- film sound
- ecocinema
- race and representation
- sensory cinema
- world cinemas and global genres (science fiction, comedy, horror etc).
The University of St Andrews operates on a flexible modular degree system by which degrees are obtained through the accumulation of credits.
