Funding
Find out more about financing your studies and whether you may qualify for one of our bursaries and scholarships
Money MattersFilm and Media Studies offers you an exciting intellectual journey to a future filled with creative possibilities.
Film and media studies focuses on the in-depth exploration of both cinematic and media forms, from the established to the new and emergent, from TV to games.
Taught by a large team with a diverse range of interests, you’ll have access to cutting-edge research expertise and excellent resources in a department as dedicated to supporting students as it is to inspiring them.
Film units introduce you to the history of cinema and its many forms and genres. This course will broaden your horizons from Anglo-American film to world cinemas, and develop your skills as a critical interpreter of the cinematic text. Media units explore the development of media industries, forms and criticism, but focus particularly on current and emerging platforms and industries. In your fin...
3 years full-time
4 years with placement year or study abroad
4-9 years part-time
Dr Aidan Arrowsmith"Our courses are about learning to understand and debate the pieces of writing, film and criticism that have shaped our world. Through our courses, you'll learn to read that world and become a confident, independent thinker."
Principal Lecturer and Programme Leader
Film and media studies offers diverse and international course content, which explores new media platforms as well as television and cinema. You will be taught by film specialist scholars within the Department of English and will benefit from the department's research excellence in gothic cinema, popular culture, gender and sexuality, and national cinemas, digital cultures and video games.
Teaching Excellence Framework 2023-2027
National Student Survey 2024 (NSS)
In Year 1 you will be introduced to historical, theoretical, and practical concepts in screen-based media forms, including film, television, and emergent media. You will develop key skills and subject knowledge in your units, and put them into practice in your assignments.
An introduction to aspects of film language such as camerawork, editing, and mise-en-scène.
An introduction to the key aesthetic, historical, cultural and social contexts of American and European cinema.
Part one of an introduction to theoretical tools and frameworks for thinking critically and analytically about media, focusing on a range of media forms.
This unit introduces key skills for university study, progressing to research, writing and project development. You will learn skills of close reading and textual analysis, practice on a range of cultural forms and focussed on representations of Manchester as a diverse, international city. You will then develop your own independent project and put into practice the analytical skills developed.
Study
Assessment
You will have the opportunity to undertake a placement for your third year of study, returning to Manchester Met for your fourth year. The Department of English works closely with a number of local schools and voluntary organisations that give students the opportunity to gain experience in a range of areas, including youth work, education, creative workshopping and video production.
In Year 2 you will learn to use theoretical concepts in your analysis of key genres and modes of film and media. Year 2 is also where you can begin to follow your developing interests, selecting from a wide range of option units, which include opportunities for film or media-related project work.
Please note, these option units are indicative of what may be on offer in Year 2 of this programme but may be subject to change.
Topic-based unit introduces a range of cinematic modes, movements and genres, whose formal, historical and cultural properties will be analysed. Topics may, for example, include: genres (eg Horror, Melodrama, Musical, Noir); theories of genre (structuralist and historical); other cinematic modes of expression (eg the gothic, queer cinema, art-house narrative) and other theoretical approaches to cinema (eg National/transnational cinemas, star studies, women's cinema).
This unit will explore existing and emergent screen media platforms, for example television form and content, media audiences, institutions, ideologies, narratives and texts. Platforms which will be examined may include, for example, television, screen media, digital media, social media and emergent media.
The unit introduces and debates a variety of theoretical perspectives on film.
Students focus on two literary forms chosen from a list (for example prose, poetry, scriptwriting) and follow an intensive workshop for one semester.
An innovative unit which applies interdisciplinary methods and perspectives in a professional and/or public setting. You will work in interdisciplinary teams on a range of projects.
The unit will take students through the various stages of recruitment from identifying strengths and skills, to job searching and CVs, using platforms such as LinkedIn, and interview practice. Students will build up a portfolio of tasks related to employability, for instance, CV, video interview, assessment centre and reflect on their learning across the unit.
This unit will analyse the current climate crisis applying the methodologies of creative writing, English literature, or film and media studies.
This unit will explore the organisations and activities that make up Manchester’s UNESCO City of Literature network, and assess ways in which literary activity can help cities address contemporary global challenges.
The unit will explore Manchester in a range of media and music, examining the ways in which urban media and culture both represent and contribute to social conflict and change in the city.
This unit explores the production, reception and dissemination of non-Anglo-American cinema and provides students with the necessary tools to explore global screen cultures. In this unit students will interrogate the issues and experiences of transnational interaction and cross-cultural appropriation, the problems with the concept of authentic `national cinema', and consider the depiction of 'third world' and 'diaspora' populations.
Study
Assessment
You will have the opportunity to undertake a placement for your third year of study, returning to Manchester Met for your fourth year. The Department of English works closely with a number of local schools and voluntary organisations that give students the opportunity to gain experience in a range of areas, including youth work, education, creative workshopping and video production.
If you choose one of our four-year routes, Year 3 will be spent on placement or studying abroad.
In your final year, you will undertake an independent project and select areas of study from a range of option units to suit your interests. You may also work on a project with one of our industry partners. Please note that the following list of units is indicative and may be subject to change.
This unit enables you to explore current media industry methodologies and practices. You will work in a group on an outward-facing project in collaboration with an external or industry partner.
You will work with a supervisor to define an independent project on a topic of your choosing - it may be an academic subject or involve work with an external partner. Preliminary research will generate a detailed proposal, which will form the basis of a guided independent research-based project to produce an extended piece of work that presents a thesis. Your final submission will be an individual project that builds upon the skills you will have developed on your course.
The Study Abroad unit will involve study for one semester at an approved partner University overseas.
This unit will focus on representations of the United States’ history, culture and selfhood promulgated by the nation’s movie industry from the early twentieth century to the present day; exploring how Hollywood has articulated, interrogated and dominated available ideas of American national identity.
This unit investigates the question of the human in contemporary cultural debate. In this exchange - between theory and cultural texts - topics such as neoliberalism, bare life and biopolitics, contagion and immunity, bodily commodification, surveillance culture, artificial intelligence and neurochemical selfhood will be explored via a discussion of a range of key theoretical, literary and cinematic texts.
The unit will take students through the various stages of recruitment from identifying strengths and skills, to job searching and CVs, using platforms such as LinkedIn, and interview practice. Students will build up a portfolio of tasks related to employability, for instance, CV, video interview, assessment centre and reflect on their learning across the unit.
This unit provides an analytical study of the gothic mode on screen.
Immersive Media asks what it means to be immersed in stories, simulations, and spaces, exploring the implications of immersive technologies for the understanding of creativity, identity and embodiment. It will address existing and emerging media forms, alongside attempts to imagine the technologies of tomorrow.
This unit will introduce students to all parts of the book publishing process and industry. Through practical exercises and interactive lectures, students will learn how the industry developed, specialist genres such as children's publishing and how publishers commission, edit, design and produce books in all formats.
The unit will aim to introduce English as a core curriculum subject in secondary schools and as an A-level subject. It will provide students with insight into the application of their subject specialism to teaching in school and colleges in England, covering aspects of both curriculum content and subject pedagogy.
This unit draws on LGBT Studies and Queer Studies to analyse cultural constructions (and manifestations) of non-normative sex, sexes and sexualities.
This unit provides an analytical study of a range of twenty and twenty-first century games, both analogue and digital. Students will be introduced to the critical and historical field of game studies, and given guidance on the appropriate critical approaches and terminology to enable them to read games and gaming.
This unit provides an analytical study of a range of twenty and twenty-first century games, both analogue and digital. You will be introduced to the critical and historical field of game studies, and given guidance on the appropriate techniques for writing for gaming and the experience of working with pre-determined project briefs.
This unit is concerned with critical and creative conceptions, constructions and depictions of forms of violence and trauma, and introduces students to representations and theories of trauma drawn from multiple locations (temporal and geographic).
A creative advanced Scriptwriting course which develops skills in team storylining and individual scriptwriting skills in the context of the study of contemporary professional practice.
Study
Assessment
You will have the opportunity to undertake a placement for your third year of study, returning to Manchester Met for your fourth year. The Department of English works closely with a number of local schools and voluntary organisations that give students the opportunity to gain experience in a range of areas, including youth work, education, creative workshopping and video production.
Whether you’ve already made your decision about what you want to study, or you’re just considering your options, there are lots of ways you can meet us and find out more about student life at Manchester Met.
We offer:
Your studies are supported by a department of committed and enthusiastic teachers and researchers, experts in their chosen field.
We often link up with external professionals too, helping to enhance your learning and build valuable connections to the working world.
These typical entry requirements may be subject to change for the 2025/26 academic year. Please check back for further details.
GCE A levels - grades BCC or equivalent
Pearson BTEC National Extended Diploma - grade DMM
Access to HE Diploma - Pass overall with a minimum 106 UCAS Tariff points
UAL Level 3 Extended Diploma - grade of Merit overall
OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma - grade DMM
T level - We welcome applications from students undertaking T level qualifications. Eligible applicants will be asked to achieve a minimum overall grade of Merit as a condition of offer
IB Diploma - Pass overall with a minimum overall score of 26 or minimum 104 UCAS Tariff points from three Higher Level subjects
Other Level 3 qualifications equivalent to GCE A level are also considered.
A maximum of three A level-equivalent qualifications will be accepted towards meeting the UCAS tariff requirement.
AS levels, or qualifications equivalent to AS level, are not accepted. The Extended Project qualification (EPQ) may be accepted towards entry, in conjunction with two A-level equivalent qualifications.
Please contact the University directly if you are unsure whether you meet the minimum entry requirements for the course.
GCSE grade C/4 in English Language or equivalent, e.g. Pass in Level 2 Functional Skills English
GCE A levels - grades BCC or equivalent
Pearson BTEC National Extended Diploma - grade DMM
Access to HE Diploma - Pass overall with a minimum 106 UCAS Tariff points
UAL Level 3 Extended Diploma - grade of Merit overall
OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma - grade DMM
T level - We welcome applications from students undertaking T level qualifications. Eligible applicants will be asked to achieve a minimum overall grade of Merit as a condition of offer
IB Diploma - Pass overall with a minimum overall score of 26 or minimum 104 UCAS Tariff points from three Higher Level subjects
Other Level 3 qualifications equivalent to GCE A level are also considered.
A maximum of three A level-equivalent qualifications will be accepted towards meeting the UCAS tariff requirement.
AS levels, or qualifications equivalent to AS level, are not accepted. The Extended Project qualification (EPQ) may be accepted towards entry, in conjunction with two A-level equivalent qualifications.
Please contact the University directly if you are unsure whether you meet the minimum entry requirements for the course.
There’s further information for international students on our international website if you’re applying with non-UK qualifications.
Tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year are still being finalised for all courses. You can find information on 2024/25 standard undergraduate fees for UK/Channel Islands and EU/Non-EU international students. All fees stated may be subject to change for the 2025/26 academic year.
Compulsory estimate: £300
Film and media studies is both a reading and viewing subject and students must have access to a copy of set texts. Primary texts are held in the University library and via platforms such as Box of Broadcasts, but students often prefer to possess their own copy. Prices vary but many are cheaply available and set texts are often available online for no cost. Students often buy texts second hand, and there is a book exchange in the atrium of the Geoffrey Manton building. Students may also need to print their assignments and other documents.
Some option units include trips to relevant events or venues, such as theatres, exhibitions and libraries. These are all optional activities.
Find out more about financing your studies and whether you may qualify for one of our bursaries and scholarships
Money MattersThe wide range of skills our students develop lead to a diverse range of career options. Typical careers for Film and Media Studies graduates include marketing, social media management, TV, radio and podcast production, publishing, film education, teaching and journalism. Manchester is an ideal location with links to many professional media bodies in the North West, including HOME, Grimmfest, BBC Manchester and Granada Studios as well as many new and developing media companies.
There is also the opportunity to engage in further study and professional training, for example some of our graduates go on to study MA/MFA Creative Writing at postgraduate level at our Manchester Writing School under the creative direction of Professor Carol Ann Duffy DBE (Poet Laureate 2009-2019). More than 95 former students of the Manchester Writing School have embarked upon careers as published writers. You'll have the opportunity to build on your knowledge and specialise in Scriptwriting (for stage, screen or radio). You can also specialise in Novel (including Short Fiction), Poetry, Writing for Children & Young Adults or Creative Non-Fiction.
You can apply for this course for 2025/26 entry once UCAS applications open in autumn.
Visit UCAS for further details, including deadlines.
Apply for other study options:
Please contact our course enquiries team.
Get advice and support on making a successful application.
You can review our current terms and conditions before you make your application. If you are successful with your application, we will send you up to date information alongside your offer letter.
Programme review
Our programmes undergo an annual review and major review (normally
at 6 year intervals) to ensure an up-to-date curriculum supported by the
latest online learning technology. For further information on when we
may make changes to our programmes, please see the changes section of our
terms and conditions.
Important notice
This online prospectus provides an overview of our programmes of study
and the University. We regularly update our online prospectus so that
our published course information is accurate. Please check back to the
online prospectus before making an application to us to access the most
up to date information for your chosen course of study.
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