How to Use

Welcome to Film Theory, an open-access textbook written by Alexa Alice Joubin.

• Click any of the thematic “tiles” on the homepage to access the contents in a non-linear fashion.
• You may also use the drop-down menu as a more linear “table of contents” to replicate the experience of leafing through a codex book.
• Don’t know where to start? Try “What is a Film?” here.
• You are more than welcome to cite this book. Here is the bibliographic information:      Alexa Alice Joubin, Film Theory, an open-access interactive textbook, Washington, D.C.: George Washington University, 2024, https://filmtheory.net/

This website is designed with the principle of equitable redundancy and multimodal access, providing multiple, curated and self-guided, pathways to the contents. These openly-licensed learning modules cover key concepts of film studies, such as mise-en-scène, cinematography, sound and music, and film theory. 

You are cordially invited to “roam around” and chart your own path through the lesson units (presented as “tiles”) which are designed to be read in any order. All the units cross-reference one another. If you do not understand a particular concept, pause your engagement with the unit and take a look at the tile that explains that concept. You can then return to and continue with the current tile.