The Film Experience
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this survey of film analysis and criticism, moving from silent-era cinema through classic Hollywood genres such as musicals, thrillers, and westerns, into European and Japanese art cinema. Students study directors including Griffith, Chaplin, Keaton, Capra, Hawks, Hitchcock, Altman, Renoir, DeSica, and Kurosawa, comparing films across decades and national traditions to build skills in close visual analysis and interpretation. The course also introduces theoretical questions about spectatorship, asking how viewers construct meaning from editing, framing, and narrative structure. Materials include a full syllabus, film screening lists, and assignments developed for MIT's undergraduate curriculum, freely available through OCW with no certificate offered. It suits anyone wanting a structured introduction to reading films as texts rather than simply watching them, grounded in specific directors and movements rather than abstract theory alone.