Film Theory
A survey of significant trends in classical and contemporary film theory, examining cinema as a medium for aesthetic, psychological, and social analysis.
Summary
Recent recorded grades — Fall 2021: 3.82 GPA, 92.9% A/AB (n=14 letter grades); Spring 2024: 3.63 GPA, 78.9% A/AB (n=19 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.68 GPA, 82.4% A/AB (n=17 letter grades).
What you’ll be able to do
Attain a deep and wide-reaching understanding of the ways in which cinema has been conceptualized by film theorists and practitioners globally, as a distinct aesthetic form with its own medium-specific characteristics
Parse out the interconnections and influences between the work of film theorists and other disciplines and fields including but not limited to philosophy, psychology, semiotics, political theory, and cultural studies
Understand the ways in which ideology, power and hegemony are intertwined with the status of the film object, especially in relation to articulations of gender, race, class, ethnicity and sexuality
Evaluate and analyze the ways in which film theory and praxis approaches aspects of spectatorship and craft
Articulate individual approaches to film theory based on the material
Map the development of the discipline of film studies through an historical understanding of ideas and concepts in the field of film theory
Source: UW Guide
Grade history
↗All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors
Prerequisites
Course mapCOM ARTS 350 or graduate/professional standing
- COMARTS 350
- graduate/professional standing
This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.
Prerequisite text tree
- Any of
- COMARTS 350
- graduate/professional standing
Professors
Spring 2027No instructors recorded for this selection.
Historical instructors & teaching patterns
Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
Calendar & sections
Spring 2027Schedule loads here as you scroll.
| Section | Mode | Enrolled / capacity | Waitlist |
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Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.
Meeting source records
Student experience
the class
Recent recorded grades — Fall 2021: 3.82 GPA, 92.9% A/AB (n=14 letter grades); Spring 2024: 3.63 GPA, 78.9% A/AB (n=19 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.68 GPA, 82.4% A/AB (n=17 letter grades).
difficulty & workload
No workload feedback recorded.
Topics
- Classical vs. contemporary film theory approaches
- Interdisciplinary paradigms: semiotics, psychoanalysis, feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, postmodernism, and cognitive science
- Ontology of cinema, relation to art theories, spectator effects, and formal meaning-making
Skills
- Reading, analyzing, and evaluating central concepts and intellectual history of film writings
- Parsing interconnections and influences between film theory and other disciplines
- Understanding ideology, power, and hegemony in relation to film and social categories
- Mapping the historical development of the discipline of film studies
Grades
Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.
Grade distribution · % of letter grades
Grades over time
Through Fall 2025
More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data
Not enough comparable courses for Spring 2027 in UW–Madison.
Sources & history
Catalog & offerings
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Catalog observation history
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Raw records
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Student reviews
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Grade history
Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.
Explore recorded gradesRecorded 2026-10-14
Model outputs & technical records
LLM outputs across runs
Full model traces
Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.
Model & dataset provenance
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