Film Studies with Year Abroad

Film Studies is a discipline that examines cinema as art, as industry, and as a cultural and historical record. It asks why films look the way they do, how they create meaning, what social and political forces have shaped their production and reception, and what they reveal about the societies and moments in which they were made. The discipline moves between formal analysis of the image and sound and broader cultural, economic, and ideological questions, giving you a nuanced and critical understanding of one of the most pervasive cultural forms of the past century and a half.

At the University of Southampton, this four-year, full-time programme includes a year abroad at a partner institution, extending your engagement with film into a different national and cultural context. You will study film history from the earliest projected images through to contemporary digital cinema, developing the analytical tools to engage with Hollywood blockbusters, European art cinema, and world film traditions with equal rigour and insight. The programme places Southampton's strong humanities research culture at the service of your film education, and the year abroad deepens your understanding of how visual arts function across cultural boundaries.

You will learn to read films closely while also situating them within the commercial, political, and cultural contexts that produced and distributed them.

Graduates of Film Studies with Year Abroad pursue careers in film and television production, criticism and journalism, arts administration, education, broadcasting, cultural policy, and the creative industries more broadly. The critical and analytical skills the degree develops are also valued in publishing, communications, public relations, and any role that requires close attention to how images and narratives work. Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in film studies, media, cultural studies, or a related field, and others move into screenwriting and filmmaking practice.