Film Studies MPhil/PhD (option of joint PhD with Hong Kong University or National University of Singapore)

Overview

The Film Studies Department is one of the the leading centres for the study of cinema in London. We have internationally recognised research strengths in the following areas: European cinema, American cinema (mainstream and avant-garde), world cinema (especially East Asian), cultural approaches, and film theory.  We also offer the option of a joint PhD with Hong Kong University or the National University of Singapore.

• Department of Film  – jointly ranked 4th in the UK with Music (REF 2021). 100% of  research impact and research environment was rated either ‘world leading (4*) or ‘internationally excellent (3*).

• Current number of academic staff: 17.

• Current number of research students: 45.

Recent publications:

• Paris in the Cinema: Beyond the Flaneur (2018)
• Global Ciname Networks (2018)
• Lewd Looks: American Sexploitation Cinema in the 1960s (2017)
• After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video Art in Circulation (2017)
• The Hollywood Meme: Transnational Adaptations in World Cinema (2016)
• Queer Cinema in the World (2016)
• Cinema Approaching Reality: Locating Chinese Film Theory (2015)
• Spectacle in 'Classical' Cinemas: Musicality and Historicity in the 1930s (2015)
• Digital Shift: The Cultural Logic of Punctuation (2015)
• Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art (2014)
• Brigitte Bardot (2014)
• The Soul of Film Theory (2013)
• The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture (2013)
• Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles (2012)
• Heritage Film: Nation, Genre and Representation (2012)
• Taking Place: Location and the Moving Image (2011)
• Optic Antics: The Cinema of Ken Jacobs (2011)
• Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (2011)
• Nino Rota: Music, Film and Feeling (2010)
• Beyond the Subtitle: Remapping European Art Cinema (2009)
• Michael Haneke's Cinema (2009)

• Cult Bollywood Cinema
• Depth across Film and New Media
• Experimental documentary
• Extraterritorial Film Heritage
• The Accessibility of the Avant-Garde: American Experimental Cinema
• Stardom and Ethnicity in Contemporary French Cinema
• Religion and Film
• Moving Image Installation
• Cinema, Architecture, and 1968
• Chinese-language Cinemas and Film Theories
• Cinephilia in times of crisis: Defining Cinemas Role in Modern Spain
• Global Queer Cinema
• Chinese Road Movies
• Girlhood/Shôjo Culture
• New Film Modernism
• Circulating Cinema: the moving image archive as Anglo-German contact zone
• Southeast Asian cinema and decolonisation
• Film and Imagination
• The Hollywood Production Code and the practices of criticism and history
• Screen spectacle
• Abraham Lincoln in the American cinema
• Comparative Film Theories (European and Chinese)
• Colonial and Postcolonial Hong Kong Cinema
• Buddhism and Film/Media Theories
• Chinese-language and Sinophone Independent cinemas
• Aesthetic Strike: Cinemas of Exhaustion

To study at King's, it is essential that you can communicate effectively in English and are able to do so in an academic environment. You are usually required to provide certification of your competence in English before starting your studies.

• register on the King's Apply Portal
• complete our online application form