CU-Boulder’s Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts is the only destination at CU for an immersive, thorough, and expansive education in the areas of Motion Picture and Television narrative, animation, experimental, and documentary filmmaking.
Our alumni have gone on to widely successful careers in film and television including shows like South Park, Glee, American Horror Story, Survivor, Blindspot, The L Word, and Heist. In recent years, their names are credited in films like Gone Girl, The Bling Ring, La La Land, Promising Young Woman, The Batman, Creed III, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Renfield, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, Top Gun: Maverick, Barbie, and Joker: Folie à Deux. Recent credits include groundbreaking hits and award-winning television shows like Mad Men, WandaVision, Fargo, Russian Doll, Poker Face, and Only Murders in the Building among many others.
Alumni from CU-CINE are members of the American Cinema Editors (A.C.E.), the Producers Guild of America (P.G.A.), the Writers Guild of America (W.G.A.), and multiple branches of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) including the Motion Picture Costumers, the Set Decorators Society of America, and the International Cinematographers Guild. Alumni of this Department have been recipients of Emmys, Tonys, Peabody Awards, three Student Academy Awards, and multiple other honors. They also have been nominated for Oscars, Emmys, ACE Eddies and many other professional, industry, and guild-based recognitions. Yet others have pursued careers in film festivals, film and media archiving, preservation, game design, talent agencies, sports media, trade publications, journalism, law, education, academia, and many other successful careers outside the entertainment industries.
See more of our Alumni's paths
Our department caters to movie and narrative TV lovers and makers, as well as the artistically inclined experimenter seeking to discover the unlimited possibilities of the Moving Image Arts on film, animation, and digital media. The immersive curriculum for our BA (studio and critical studies), and BFA (cinema arts) tracks highlights the importance of understanding cinema (its artistic and commercial sides) within the contexts of film history, aesthetics, national and international movements and genres, and the works of some of cinema’s most groundbreaking and influential filmmakers: from Alfred Hitchcock to Agnès Varda, from Stanley Kubrick to Jane Campion, from Alice Guy-Blaché to Akira Kurosawa, from Oscar Micheaux to Ousmane Sembène.
CU CINE is the place to be for the cinephile and explorer of movies, television, and visual arts, with the artistic edge and the critical thinking advantage of a liberal arts education within the flagship College of Arts & Sciences.
Degree Information
The Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts offers degrees in filmmaking (BFA) as well as a critical studies (BA); the BFA is focused on the art of independent filmmaking, and the BA emphasizes the critical study of film as an art form. The Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts offers an interdisciplinary MFA degree with the Department of Art and Art History. The Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts hopes to begin a critical studies MA track within the next few years. International film is an important component of our critical studies and we offer a wide range of courses in this area.
Cinema Studies Tours
Interested in visiting the Department of Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts? We offer in person tours during our regular office hours, Monday - Friday 9-5. For more information and to schedule a tour, email us at filmoffice@colorado.edu.
