Economics and Film Studies

Economics and film studies is an unusual but genuinely rewarding combination that brings together one of the most formally rigorous social sciences with one of the most culturally significant art forms of the modern era. Economics provides a structured, cumulative, and rigorous foundation in concepts, principles, analysis, and quantitative methods, developing your analytical and decision-making abilities through training in economic modelling and evidence evaluation. Film studies examines cinema as an aesthetic, cultural, and political form, developing the critical vocabulary and historical knowledge to analyse how films work and what they mean in their social and cultural contexts.

At the University of St Andrews, you will engage with the full intellectual depth of both disciplines. The economics strand develops your analytical and quantitative skills through rigorous training in microeconomics, macroeconomics, and econometrics, alongside applied areas that connect economic analysis to real-world questions. The film studies strand engages you with the history of cinema and with film theory, genre, and the politics of representation, developing your close analytical reading of films alongside a broader understanding of the film industry and its relationship to society.

The programme runs over four years and includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to study at a partner institution and encounter different approaches to both economics and cinema in a different cultural context.

Graduates from economics and film studies programmes move into careers in economic analysis, finance, the creative industries, arts and cultural administration, journalism, media, policy, and education. The combination of rigorous quantitative thinking and cultural and aesthetic literacy is unusual and genuinely distinctive. Postgraduate study in economics, film studies, media economics, or cultural policy is a natural route for those who wish to develop their expertise.