Film Reviews

A film review is an evaluative oral or written judgment about the quality of a movie, based upon various assumptions, facts, biases, etc. Professional film reviewers are known as critics; a film review usually includes a brief synopsis (avoiding spoilers, usually), a balanced notation of both the film's pros and cons, quotable wording, and some judgments. More extensive, in-depth film evaluations are called analytical essays.

Indexes

An index is a specialized database that organizes information about the locations of articles in journals/magazines, reports and newspapers; and book chapters, papers in conference proceedings, and book reviews. Indexes provide the complete bibliographic citation of an article, including the title of the article, author, name of the journal, volume number, the pages of the journal in which the article can be found, and a short summary, or abstract, of the article. Some indexes are in book form, and some are electronic databases. Some eletronic databases do NOT provide the complete text of articles. For tips on how to effectively search databases, and how to find journals that are not available on-line, contact your librarian, or consult How to Find Materials in the Waidner-Spahr Library.

Print:

Retrospective Index to Film Periodicals, 1930-1971
REF PN1993 .B38 1975

Film Review Index
REF PN1995 .F513

Selected Film Criticism (1896-1960)
REF PN1995. S426 1982

The New York Times Film Reviews (1913-2000)
REF PN1995. N4

Electronic:

Film Literature Index (Preview Version)
The Film Literature Index (FLI) annually indexes 150 film and television periodicals from 30 countries. The periodicals range from the scholarly to the popular. More than 2,000 subject headings provide detailed analysis of the articles. The FLI Online contains approximately 700,000 citations to articles, film reviews and book reviews published between 1976-2001.

The best way to start searching for a review of a film in the following databases is to type the title of the work as a keyword, and add "review" to the search as another keyword. Searching this way is likely to exclude works that are not critical reviews of the film.

Art & Humanities Search
Index to leading international arts and humanities journals and related social science and science information. Includes citation searching.
   . Coverage Range: 1980 to present

 

Humanities Full Text
Covers journal articles in the humanities, archaeology, art, classics, film, folklore, history, journalism and communications, linguistics, literature, music, performing arts, and religion.
. Coverage Range: Indexing 1984+, Abstracting 1984+, "select" Full Text 1994+

 

Humanities and Social Sciences Retrospective
A bibliographic database that cites articles from English-language periodicals. Coverage includes a wide range of interdisciplinary fields covered in a broad array of humanities and social sciences journals.
  . Coverage Range: 1907 to 1984

 

JSTOR
An interdisciplinary archive of over 600 journals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
  . Coverage Range: Historical & current publications up to 1-5 years from current date

 

Project Muse
Search journals published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
. Coverage Range: Historical and current

ProQuest
ProQuest is a good index to use in the beginning stages of your research project. It is an index that covers major journals in many subjects in which Dickinson College offers a major. It offers access to thousands of periodicals and newspapers, many of which are supplied full-text. ProQuest supplies both scholarly and non-scholarly resources.
   . Coverage Range: Historical and current

 

Reader's Guide Full Text
Index of articles published in approximately 175 popular magazines, news magazines, and other general interest periodicals.
. Coverage Range: Indexing 1983+, Abstracting1984+ and "select" Full Text 1994+

Journals & Periodicals

The following periodicals deal exclusively with film reviews.

Print (found on the lower level of the library):

Film Criticism
Holdings from 1986 to 1995.

Film Comment
Holdings from 1990 to present.

Electronic:

Film Criticism
Holdings from 1995 to 2004.

Film Comment
Holdings from 01/01/1988 to present.