2025/26 Cinema Studies (CIN) undergraduate courses will take place in person except for two online synchronous courses: CIN240H1F - The Western, and CIN412H1F - The End in Cinema.
Group A: Foundations
CIN105Y1Y - Introduction to Film StudyIntroduction to film analysis; concepts of film style and narrative. Topics include: documentary, avant-garde, genres, authorship, ideology, and representation. Students must enrol in the Lecture (LEC), one Tutorial (TUT) and one Practicum (PRA). Please see Timetable Builder for the schedule of Tutorials. Day and Time: Lectures on Tuesday 12:00 - 13:00; Practicums on Wednesday 10:00 - 13:00 or 13:00 - 16:00 |
CIN201Y1Y - Film Cultures IEmergence of cinema from its start until the dismantling of the studio system and an emergent internationalism in the early 1960s. Examines the practices and theories underlying the development of cinema as a mass medium in the 20th century. Students must enrol in the Lecture (LEC) and one Tutorial (TUT). Please see Timetable Builder for the schedule of Tutorials. Day and time: Lectures on Tuesday 12:00 - 13:00, Thursday 10:00 - 13:00 |
CIN301Y1Y - Film Cultures IIExamines film theory and practice from the 1950s onward, and the impact of media change on earlier film cultures and aesthetics. Students must enrol in the Lecture (LEC) and one Tutorial (TUT). Please see Timetable Builder for the schedule of Tutorials. Day and time: Lecture on Monday 15:00 - 16:00, Thursday 13:00 - 16:00 |
Group B: Genre and Modes
CIN210H1F - Horror FilmHorror film as a genre, focusing on three types of international horror: the un-dead, body horror, and the supernatural. The genre's popular appeal, affective power, unique means of producing pleasure, and current global resurgence will be emphasized. Topics include: the aesthetics of gore and violence, technologies of fear, J-Horror, new French extremity, cult fandom and paracinema, and media convergence. Students must enrol in the Lecture (LEC) and one Tutorial (TUT). When the 2025/26 Timetable is released, please see Timetable Builder for the schedule of Tutorials. Day and Time: Lecture on Tuesday 9:00 - 12:00 |
CIN211H1S - Science Fiction FilmThis course is the study of science fiction films in their cultural and political contexts and the genre's narrative and conceptual components. The goal of the course is to familiarize students with science fiction films as popular genre texts, emphasizing the period between 1950 and the present. Students must enrol in the Lecture (LEC) and one Tutorial (TUT). When the 2025/26 Timetable is released, please see Timetable Builder for the schedule of Tutorials. Day and time: Lecture on Tuesday 9:00 - 12:00 |
CIN212H1F - Cinema and Sensation I: Action/SpectacleAction movies cement the dominance of commercial cinema, and they largely define the contemporary era of the blockbuster and CGI effects. This course examines the narrative modes and the extremes that action scenes reach, and it explores the commercial and social function of the genre. The course also traces Action's historic reach and global diversity to include its significant precursors and transnational forms that Action cinema takes on. Students must enrol in the Lecture (LEC) and one Tutorial (TUT). When the 2025/26 Timetable is released, please see Timetable Builder for the schedule of Tutorials. Day and time: Lecture on Tuesday 13:00 - 16:00 |
CIN220H1S - The Cinematic CityMore information to come. Day and time: Thursday 10:00 - 14:00 |
CIN312Y1Y - Documentary FilmThis course introduces students to the history and theory of documentary film. It studies the origins and development of several distinctive types of nonfiction filmmaking such as cinéma vérité, direct cinema, the essay film, the portrait film, rockumentary, and mockumentary (among others), while at the same time situating such production in its political-economic, institutional, and international contexts. The course also investigates documentary film, video, and television production in terms of its variable epistemological claims; its frequently contentious relation to realism; its paradoxical involvement with reenactment and fabrication; its particular modes of address to a variety of publics; and the ethics and politics of its work as propagandist and/or activist. Throughout this course, we attempt to understand historical changes in the global production and reception of nonfiction media, and we conclude with a survey of present-day digital technologies (new devices for image and sound recording, emergent platforms for sharing audiovisual artifacts, etc.) and ongoing disruptions to established conceptions of documentary production, distribution, and reception. Day and time: Wednesday 17:00 - 20:00, Thursday 18:00 - 20:00 |
CIN315H1F - Sound and AnimationThis course aims to unsettle the privileging of the visual and of live action cinema in film and media studies. The founding impetus of the class is to counter the marginalization of two intertwined issues – animation and sound – in our field. This course takes seriously the suggestion of various scholars that animation is central rather than peripheral to film history and the rise of digital media. Reversing the usual dominance of live action over animation, Tom Gunning suggests that “all cinema can be approached as animation.” As Rebecca Coyle emphasizes, both sound and animation are difficult to analyze because neither can be captured by a freeze-frame: sound events depend on duration and movement, just as animation depends on “what occurs between frames.” Day and time: Wednesday 13:00 - 17:00 |
CIN320H1S - Sports MoviesMore information to come. Day and time: Monday and Wednesday 9:00 - 11:00 |
CIN321H1F - Special Topics in Genre and Modes IIMore information to come. Day and time: Monday 9:00 - 13:00 |
CIN322H1S - Cult CinemaThis course examines "cult" and "exploitation" cinema. It examines the growing popularity of cult/exploitation films as an emerging cinematic subculture that valorizes disreputable or "trash" cinema. A number of sub-genres within exploitation film, including teen films, educational/instructional films, sexploitation, and Blaxploitation, will be explored. The social politics of appropriating texts through ironic reading strategies will also be considered. Day and time: Friday 9:00 - 13:00 |
CIN410H1F - Cinema and LabourMore information to come. Pre-enrolment balloting for 400-Level seminars will start in late May to early June, opening roughly five weeks before the July enrolment period begins. More information on balloting procedures, the balloting form and the submission deadline can be found in Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms. Day and time: Thursday and Friday 11:00 - 13:00 |
CIN412H1F - The End in CinemaThis course is a senior seminar intended to take a research and discussion format to explore two jaggedly aligned concerns: the formal properties involved in ending film and literary narratives and the thematic role played in the Western imagination of apocalypse (the concept of the end of time/history). In contemporary cinema and TV apocalyptic motifs predominate and have taken on a nearly controlling force in several genres, notably horror and science fiction, and apocalyptic motifs have spun quasi-generic forms of their own, like the “Zombie Apocalypse” (e.g., World War Z; 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead) and ecological catastrophe movies (e.g., The Day After Tomorrow), as well as planet killing asteroids (e.g., Armageddon, Deep Impact). The course shuttles from formal narrative concerns to thematic and political issues. The course seeks ways to imbricate them by taking a quite prejudicial selection of films to explore these concerns. In addition to apocalyptic films, we will also deal with the more recent discussion of “post-apocalypse.” Pre-enrolment balloting for 400-Level seminars will start in late May to early June, opening roughly five weeks before the July enrolment period begins. More information on balloting procedures, the balloting form and the submission deadline can be found in Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms. Day and time: Tuesday and Wednesday 18:00 - 20:00 |
Group C: Social and Cultural Practices
CIN230H1 - The Business of FilmCinema as a commercial enterprise. Production, distribution, and exhibition in the political economy of North American film culture. The Business of Film will be offered twice in 2025/26; once in the Fall 2025 term (CIN230H1F) and once in the Winter 2026 term (CIN230H1S). Day and time: Friday 14:00 - 17:00 |
CIN240H1F - The WesternThe Western’s symbolic potency has never disappeared even as the genre’s popularity has waned; we see remnants of its iconography in television, music videos, and advertisements. CIN240H1F - The Western will explore the fraught relationship between Western films and North American history, the genre’s global popularity, and its social conscience. We will examine concepts such as mythology, nationhood, freedom, necessity, (so-called) civilization, nature, genocide, and settler colonialism within a genre that is constantly shifting in relation to its socio-political moment. This course will offer students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the trajectory of the Western genre, get to know important critiques of it, and learn its potential for nuance and complexity. Day and Time: Online Synchronous class on Tuesday 18:00 - 20:00, asynchronous screenings. |
CIN330Y1Y - Feminist Approaches to CinemaGender politics of feminist film culture since the 1970s. Topics include: apparatus theory and its legacy, models of spectatorship, feminist historiography, the cinematic (re)production of identity, the relationship between social movements and cinema, "postfeminism." Day and Time: Tuesday and Thursday 11:00 - 13:00 |
CIN337H1F - Black CinemaThis course explores the cultural, aesthetic, technological, and political category of “Black cinema.” Across the diaspora, Black cinema is an artistic praxis that utilizes techniques like improvisation and collaboration in order to make and remake the cinematic archive. The films and filmmakers in this category intervene in cinematic histories by responding to exclusionary narratives, technologies, and critical discourse by imagining alternative stories, spaces, and temporalities. Thus, these films help articulate both the pervasiveness of anti-blackness in our visual culture and help us understand the difference (film) aesthetics can make (Chun, 2019). Our goal is to 1) develop a critical language to discuss Black cinema (its techniques, its aims, and its political contexts) and 2) articulate research questions, methods, and arguments that consider what is happening inside and outside the frame in these films. Day and Time: Monday 17:00 - 21:00 |
CIN340H1F - Cinemas of SolidarityThis course investigates ways that lens-based media, film festivals, and art institutions have historically reinvigorated traditions of militancy and solidarity, and the role of media technologies in shaping the cultural production—or probing the possibility of—international, interclass, interracial, intergenerational, and interspecies forms of solidarity today. Day and Time: Friday 10:00 - 14:00 |
CIN341H1F - Trans Cinema and MediaWho are the subjects of trans studies? What are interests of trans cinema? To what extent is trans not only an identity, and what might it mean to think of trans cinema as offering a methodology, or pedagogy of becoming? This course introduces and explores the representation of trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming identities, experiences, and narratives in cinema and media. Through an interdisciplinary lens, we will critically consider films, television, documentaries, digital media, and social media content, while exploring the historical, social, and cultural contexts of transgender representation. We will examine both mainstream media and works from independent filmmakers, alongside the contributions of trans artists, to assess how trans people are depicted, who gets to tell their stories, and how these portrayals affect the larger sociopolitical discourses around transgender identity. The course will provide tools for critical media literacy and engage students in thoughtful discussions about the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, and class as they are reflected in and shaped by media. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in creative projects, discussions, and research that contribute to the ongoing conversation surrounding transgender representation in media. Trans Cinema and Media will familiarize students with the history of the field of trans studies, its convergence with the study of cinema, genealogies of trans terms, and differing disciplinary approaches within trans studies to questions of power, gender, race, and sexuality. Day and time: Tuesday 13:00 - 17:00 |
CIN431H1S - Hip-hop Cinema and Visual CultureHip-hop is an interesting cultural form because it is hard to define, but we know it when we see it… we also know when something isn’t hip-hop (see the iced-out Bee in the Cheerios commercial or that iconic “hip-hop dance”). The preeminent hip-hop scholar Tricia Rose begins her iconic book Black Noise by defining hip-hop as “a black cultural expression that prioritizes black voices from the margins of urban America.” Like Rose, we will begin with the enduring question, “what is hip-hop?” To answer that question, this course will provide a survey of contemporary hip-hop cinema and visual culture (fashion, music videos, album art, etc.). We will address the entanglement of race, gender, sexuality, and technology in hip-hop. As the course proceeds, we will nuance and refine our research questions. Our primary objective will be identifying the cultural logics that make hip-hop, make sense. Our focus will be hip-hop, identity, and visuality in a North American context; however, we will also explore issues of authenticity, commercialization, gender and sexuality, and appropriation in the global exchange of black American expressive culture. Each week will focus on questions/points of tension in hip-hop popular and scholarly discourse. Pre-enrolment balloting for 400-Level seminars will start in late May to early June, opening roughly five weeks before the July enrolment period begins. More information on balloting procedures, the balloting form and the submission deadline can be found in Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms. Day and time: Tuesday and Thursday 13:00 - 15:00 |
CIN432H1F - The Textuality of the Cinematic BodyIn this course we will examine the body in cinema: the way it is constructed, circulated, and read as text and the way it produces meaningful and affective encounters between films and spectators. In the process, we will consider the role of the body in a variety of genres, including musicals, pornography, and horror, and across multiple modes, from the experimental to the mainstream, in order to explore a wide array of inscriptive practices that serve to represent the body as a whole or to privilege certain constituent parts. One of the most exciting aspects of this endeavor will be its interdisciplinary nature. In addition to cinema studies scholarship, we will be also reading material from several other disciplines (including philosophy, psychology, and literary studies) on a wide array of topics, such as the performance of gender, the spectacle of race, the expressivity of gesture, and incommunicability of sensation. As a result, we will gain insight into not only the relationship between embodiment and cinema, but also, more generally, the ways that concepts such as surface and depth, materiality and meaning, appearance and essence are defined both against and through each other within visual culture at large. Pre-enrolment balloting for 400-Level seminars will start in late May to early June, opening roughly five weeks before the July enrolment period begins. More information on balloting procedures, the balloting form and the submission deadline can be found in Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms. Day and time: Monday and Wednesday 13:00 - 15:00 |
CIN440H1S - Non-Binary Media: Trans Genres, Trans FormsWho are the subjects of trans studies? To what extent might we consider transness and gender non-conformity not only as categories of identity, but as alternative forms of knowledge production, as an (ante)aesthetic tradition, and/or as a methodology offering theories of being and becoming Human? This advanced seminar meets genre theory and cultural criticism from Black, queer, and trans studies with experimental cinematic and media texts that challenge discrete classifications of race, gender, sexuality, narrative/fiction & documentary/non-fiction storytelling. Films by Ja'Tovia Gary, Tourmaline, Angelo Minax, Chase Joynt, Marlon Riggs, Arthur Jafa and others will be considered alongside the work of critical theorists such as Christina Sharpe, Rizvana Bradley, Kadji Amin, Cáel Keegan, Eva Hayward, Frank Wilderson, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Fred Moten, C. Riley Snorton, and Alexander Weheliye, to name a few. Pre-enrolment balloting for 400-Level seminars will start in late May to early June, opening roughly five weeks before the July enrolment period begins. More information on balloting procedures, the balloting form and the submission deadline can be found in Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms. Day and time: Tuesday 15:00 - 17:00, Wednesday 13:00 - 15:00 |
Group D: Theory and Criticism
CIN260H1S - The Hollywood RenaissanceHollywood filmmaking in the early-1970s has been characterized in contradictory ways. On the one hand, it is often described as an American “art cinema” of formal innovation, experimentation, independent production techniques, and maverick directors. On the other hand, critics point to the industry’s absorption by multimedia conglomerates during this period, its eventual focus on big budget filmmaking, and its growing affiliation with advertising as evidence of Hollywood’s uninterrupted dedication to profit-making. According to this view, very little about Hollywood actually changed in the 1970s. CIN260H1S THE HOLLYWOOD RENAISSANCE surveys this pivotal decade in Hollywood history (1967–1976) by highlighting its many innovations, while at the same time recognizing its deeper continuities with the old Hollywood studio system. We begin with an examination of Hollywood’s late-1960s Renaissance, its reconfiguration of a deficient movie industry, and its effort to align new cinematic forms with emergent social and political perspectives. We then turn to Hollywood filmmaking in the early-1970s: its stylistic novelty; its deliberate revision of the so-called “classical” genres; and the studios’ paradoxical emphasis on auteurs within a rapidly changing production culture. We conclude with a brief consideration of the Hollywood Renaissance’s significant post-1970s legacy and its contentious position as popular cinema. Day and time: Tuesdays 13:00 - 17:00 |
CIN352H1F - Issues in Film Authorship I: The Coen brothers and Paul Thomas AndersonThis course will consider the Coens and Paul Thomas Aunderson not only in terms of their respective authorial programs—the former pair’s pathological commitment to themes of recidivism and recurrence; the latter’s fixation on literal and figurative monuments dwarfing the men who make them; the starring roles of sex, violence, and rock and roll (or at least folk music) in both ouevres —and their relationships to the film and cultural histories they knowingly evoke (and rewrite in their images) but also with a nod to what was and remains at stake in proposing such filmmakers as not only auteurs but as ruling and influential figureheads in the American cinema. The fascination (and, heaven forfend, entertainment value) watching gifted formalists wringing intricate variations on their pet themes should be acknowledged, but also juxtaposed against the relative sociological narrowness of these filmmakers’ visions and the problems of representation (or non-representation) swirling around their cinema; a case could be made that when it comes to the Coens and Anderson, the real “issues of authorship” are less a matter of surface virtues than inherent vices. Day and time: Wednesday 9:00 - 13:00 |
CIN365H1S - Nonfiction Video PracticeThis course is designed to introduce students to the basics of creative video production, with an emphasis on documentary and nonfiction film and video. Students will be introduced to the theory and practice of documentary filmmaking, including the creative, ethical, conceptual, and practical dimensions of artistic moving-image production. This is a hands-on course that will include off-site practical workshops and in-course group critique. Students are expected to have some prior technical knowledge of video recording and video editing, as technical skill-building will fall outside the purview of this course. We will explore the diverse approaches adopted by nonfiction filmmakers and video artists in order to consider what constitutes a cinematic practice. Students will work on creative assignments individually and in groups, coming up with conceptual ideas, creative treatments, and artistic methods for translating their ideas and questions into non-fiction moving image media. Day and time: Tuesday and Wednesday 9:00 - 11:00 |
CIN369H1F - Critical Writing on FilmThe practice of film criticism: studies of examples of journalistic and scholarly critical writing, practical sessions of process writing, and collaborative editing. Course includes regular film screenings. This course is offered biannually. Day and time: Monday and Tuesday 9:00 - 11:00 |
CIN451H1S - Film and PhenomenologyAs a strand of philosophy, phenomenology locates meaning and value in the ebb and flow of lived (human) experience. Perception and embodiment become crucial vehicles for exploring the mind-body connection and the relationship between subjective experience and objective world. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s writings will serve as point of departure for exploring the ensuing evolving relationship between phenomenological thinking and film, including how vectors of difference, e.g. gender, sexuality, race, and religion, have been taken up in the phenomenological writings of de Beauvoir, Young, and Butler. We then turn to scholars such as Sobchak, Chamarette, Marks, Richmond, and others who have theorized perception and film viewing from an embodied perspective, including how the camera and wider cinematic apparatus engage in sense-making that itself may be understood as a phenomenology, as reflecting on the bodily experience of perception. Weekly screenings of visual media from disparate historical eras, national contexts, and genres and modes will help us visualize the issues under investigation Pre-enrolment balloting for 400-Level seminars will start in late May to early June, opening roughly five weeks before the July enrolment period begins. More information on balloting procedures, the balloting form and the submission deadline can be found in Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms. Day and time: Monday 17:00 - 19:00, Tuesday 11:00 - 13:00 |
CIN460H1F - Beauty of the CutA focused study on the esthetics of editing, through theoretical texts and screenings. This course will consider how cut and splice can have a part in beauty (or its negation) as Kant, Adorno, Genette, Aristotle, and others understand the concept. Debates over medium specificity will be revisited from a contemporary perspective. The course aims to enrich knowledge of the philosophy of art and of the art of montage. Editing may turn out to be less central than Eisenstein claimed, but the cut's importance can lie precisely in its marginality. Screenings survey outstanding examples of editing across the full range of cinema: Méliès, avant-garde collage, classical Hollywood, direct cinema documentary, art cinema, and pop montage or action sequences. Some titles will be screened on 16mm to appreciate how the celluloid cut affects the senses. Pre-enrolment balloting for 400-Level seminars will start in late May to early June, opening roughly five weeks before the July enrolment period begins. More information on balloting procedures, the balloting form and the submission deadline can be found in Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms. Day and time: Monday and Wednesday 9:00 - 11:00 |
Group E: History and Nation
CIN370H1S - Canadian Cinemas: Experiments in NonfictionThis course explores ideas of space, place and the nation-state across Canada’s nonfiction film history, from early treatment of colonization and European settlement, into today’s globalized political economy, sovereignty struggles, and continued re-invention of the nation. Day and time: Wednesday 13:00 - 15:00, Thursday 9:00 - 11:00 |
CIN378H1S - British Black CinemaIndustrial, economic, ideological, and aesthetic dimensions of the American studio era. Day and time: Monday 13:00 - 15:00, Wednesday 11:00 - 13:00 |
CIN381H1S - Philippine CinemaMore information to come. Day and time: Tuesday 13:00 - 17:00 |
CIN471H1S - Local Film CulturesThis course will explore the socio-cultural history of filmmaking and moviegoing in Toronto, from the emergence of film societies and screening series, to the formation of film festivals and film and video cooperatives, to the changing ways people are now interacting with cinema. We will explore how local film cultures have changed and expanded, and will consider how local and international events and movements impact the way that people watch and make movies. Students will be exposed to historical film research using archives and newspaper databases. Pre-enrolment balloting for 400-Level seminars will start in late May to early June, opening roughly five weeks before the July enrolment period begins. More information on balloting procedures, the balloting form and the submission deadline can be found in Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms. Day and time: Thursday 10:00 - 13:00 |
Group F: Independent Studies
CIN490Y1Y - Independent Studies in CinemaIndependent research projects devised by students and supervised by Cinema Studies faculty. Open to advanced Specialist and Major students in the Cinema Studies Program. Submit applications to the Undergraduate Program Office: Fall 2025 courses by May 1, 2025, Winter 2026 courses by November 1, 2025, Summer 2026 courses by April 1, 2026. See Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms for the application form. Not eligible for CR/NCR option. Prerequisite: At least 10 full-course equivalents, including CIN105Y1, CIN201Y1, CIN301Y1. |
CIN491H1F - Independent Studies in CinemaIndependent research projects devised by students and supervised by Cinema Studies faculty. Open to advanced Specialist and Major students in the Cinema Studies Program. Submit applications to the Undergraduate Program Office: Fall 2025 courses by May 1, 2025, Winter 2026 courses by November 1, 2025, Summer 2026 courses by April 1, 2026. See Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms for the application form. Not eligible for CR/NCR option. Prerequisite: At least 10 full-course equivalents, including CIN105Y1, CIN201Y1, CIN301Y1. |
CIN492H1S - Independent Studies in CinemaIndependent research projects devised by students and supervised by Cinema Studies faculty. Open to advanced Specialist and Major students in the Cinema Studies Program. Submit applications to the Undergraduate Program Office: Fall 2025 courses by May 1, 2025, Winter 2026 courses by November 1, 2025, Summer 2026 courses by April 1, 2026. See Cinema Studies Undergraduate Forms for the application form. Not eligible for CR/NCR option. Prerequisite: At least 10 full-course equivalents, including CIN105Y1, CIN201Y1, CIN301Y1. |
Group G: Cross-Listed
Please contact the home department if you have any questions about Cross-Listed courses.
First Year Foundations
CIN196H1F - Story Worlds and the CinemaFilms create story worlds, imaginary environments in which characters live and act, and where events, large and small, transpire. Some story worlds are elaborate, fanciful constructs (think of Disney’s animated films). Others stay close to reality (think of “docudramas”). But across the spectrum, all of them are framed by and provided with rules of time and space, of believable or impossible. This course offers an examination of selected story worlds from several periods of film history. Emphasis falls on the expansive story worlds of contemporary corporately-run media-franchise “universes,” like the cross-media “DC Universe.” Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option. Day and Time: Tuesday and Thursday 13:00 - 15:00 |
CIN197H1S - School DazeThis first-year foundation course is a survey of sound film (with a brief selection of silent shorts) on the topic of how popular cinemas have represented going to school. Looking at one film and one scholarly text a week, the course will offer an introduction to the close reading of film texts, reading and writing film criticism, and the fundamentals of film history. By engaging with only one film/reading per week, the course emphasizes depth over breadth. Texts for the course may include excerpts from Corrigan’s A Short Guide to Writing About Film, Sturken and Cartwright’s Practices of Looking, Staiger’s Interpreting Films, and Prince’s Movies and Meaning, along with selected criticism on the movies screened. Those films may include Zero for Conduct, Aparajito, Tom Brown’s School Days, Tea and Sympathy, If, Rock and Roll High School, Mean Girls, School Daze, Blackboard Jungle, or Lady Bird. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option. Day and time: Tuesday and Wednesday 17:00 - 19:00 |