Skip to Main Content

American Films

This guide presents information on film research, including genre, cinematography, actors, directors, context, audience, and film reviews.

EBSCOhost - find popular movie reviews

  1. Use the MasterFILE Premier database and try an Advanced Search.
  2. Type the title of the movie and the main actor or director's name in the 1st search box.
  3. In the 2nd search box, use the terms motion pictures and reviews - OR - select Entertainment Review from the Document Type menu from the Limit your results section.
  4. Checkmark the Full Text box from the Limit your results section to limit your results to full text articles.

-OR-

EBSCOhost - find scholarly film reviews

  • Use the asterisk (*) as the truncation symbol to pick up all forms of a root word (e.g., film* will find filmfilmsfilmmakerfilmaking)
  • Use the Boolean operator, OR, to pick up related terms (e.g., cinema OR  film* OR  motion picture* OR  movie*).  Using the operator, OR, (without the operator, AND) will expand or broaden your search.
  • Using the operator, AND, will narrow your results to make it more precise or focused (e.g., raging bull AND motion pictures). 
  1. Use the Academic Search Complete database and try an Advanced Search.
  2. Enter the title of the movie and the subject term, motion pictures. You can also enter the name of the director or main actor/s.
  3. Checkmark the Full Text box from the Limit your results section to limit your results to full text articles.
  4. Checkmark the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals box from the Limit your Results section to limit your results to scholarly articles.

Advanced Search Tutorial