Film Studies and Law

Film studies and law is an intellectually unusual combination that rewards cross-disciplinary thinking. Film studies uses critical, theoretical, and historical approaches to examine one of the most significant cultural and artistic forms of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, asking how films produce meaning, how they reflect and shape social life, and how the global circulation of cinema connects audiences across very different cultural contexts. Law examines how rights are defined, how obligations are created and enforced, and how institutions use legal authority to regulate social behaviour and resolve disputes.

Together, they develop both cultural literacy and legal analytical rigour.

At the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, this programme takes on particular depth. SOAS has a distinctive expertise in global film cultures, particularly those of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and the film studies strand goes well beyond Hollywood-centric approaches to examine cinema as a genuinely global practice. The law strand develops your understanding of English law and, given SOAS's institutional expertise, of how legal systems operate in different national and cultural contexts.

The combination is unusual enough to be genuinely distinctive in the graduate market, and it is well suited to students interested in intellectual property, media law, cultural policy, or international law as well as to those who simply want to pursue two demanding disciplines in parallel.

The programme includes a foundation year and is studied full time over three years of the main degree. Graduates go on to careers in media law, international organisations, cultural policy, arts administration, journalism, broadcasting, and legal practice. Further study options include postgraduate degrees in law, film studies, media law, and intellectual property.