Penn State University Libraries - Film Studies: History and Criticism

Criticism of films, directors, actors, or genres is generally more substantive and more complex than film reviews. Film criticism is written for an academic audience, and often situates its analysis within larger scholarly concepts and discussions.

The following list of databases is available to anyone working in the library. Outside the library, they are available to researchers with a Penn State Access Account.

• MLA International Bibliography (Modern Language Association)
  • Subject index of scholarly journals in literature, dramatic arts (including film, radio, television, theatre)
  • International scope
  • Coverage 1926 - current
    
  • More than 2 million citations in 60 languages
    
• Film Literature Index, 1976-2001 (Indiana University)
  • Indexes film, television, video articles
  • Coverage 1976-2001
  • Over 150 periodicals, 30 countries
  • Scholarly and popular periodicals
    
• Film Literature Index, 1973-2004 [CAT]
  
• Film/TV Documentation Collections
  • Detailed entries on documentation collections of the world's foremost film archives, libraries, and educational institutions
  • Entries include contact and access information
  • Index to manuscript and special collections
• Film & Television Literature Index (1987-to date)
  • Bibliographic database of television and film
    
  • 380 publications with cover-to-cover indexing
  • 300 publications with selected coverage
  • full text for over 120 journals, 100 books
  • 1990-to date with selective coverage back 50 years
• Academic Search Complete
  • Multi-disciplinary database with full-text periodicals, trade publications and peer-reviewed journals
  • Includes monographs (books), reports, and conference proceedings
  • Many articles in PDF format