Humanities Research Guide

Social Justice Film Resources

Below are resources to help you locate and analyze films for your social justice film project in Prof Butler's class. 

Free films online

• Films for Action has assembled a wide variety of socially-minded documentaries and shows them for free on their site. This is a link to their "Wall of Films" which shows a selection of their feature films, but you can also browse by topic. Note that not all films are feature-length so keep an eye on the length and choose accordingly. 

Resources and selected readings

• Writing Center at Chapel Hill: Film Analysis provides a brief definition of film analysis compared to literary analysis, provides an introduction to common types of film analysis, and offers strategies and resources for approaching assignments.
• Movie Reviews from the New York Times is a searchable collection of the film reviews from the New York Times newspaper. Limit 10 free articles a month.
• The Internet Movie Script Database provides full-text access to thousands of scripts from major movies.

Online journals, magazines and other examples of analysis and critique

• The library's databases provide access to several major film studies journals including Film Comment, Journal of Popular Film & Television, Film Criticism, Velvet Light Trap, and Cinema Journal. Browse and search individual titles, or search all of the library databases through Academic Search Elite (check student email for login info)
• Images is a quarterly journal that publishes articles about movies, television, videos, and other popular visual arts. 
• Alternate Takes is a website with collected reviews and analysis written by critics, academics, and students of cinema for a broad readership. Films are reviewed on a dual system: first a film review and then a more in-depth "alternate take" on the film. Search or browse reviews.