Film & TV and Philosophy

Film, television, and philosophy is an unusual but intellectually compelling combination, bringing together two disciplines that share a deep concern with how human beings represent reality, construct meaning, and ask fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, and value. Film and television studies gives you the analytical tools to examine moving image media as art forms, industries, and cultural forces, considering how stories are told through camera, editing, sound, and performance. Philosophy asks the deepest questions about reality, consciousness, ethics, and knowledge, using argument and analysis as its primary tools.

Together they illuminate each other in productive ways, since cinema and television are among the richest sites for philosophical exploration in contemporary culture.

At Nottingham Trent University, this three-year full-time programme develops your critical and analytical skills through sustained engagement with film and television as cultural objects and industries, alongside a thorough grounding in philosophical thinking across ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of art. You will examine the aesthetics and theory of cinema, the history and institutions of British and international television, and the ways in which film and television engage with philosophical themes of identity, morality, time, and reality. The programme includes a sandwich year with a work placement, giving you professional experience in a media or arts-related organisation and connecting your academic studies to the realities of working in the cultural sector.

Graduates from film, television, and philosophy programmes go on to careers in media organisations, film and television production, journalism, arts administration, education, publishing, and the civil service. The combination of critical literacy and philosophical reasoning is valued across a wide range of professional contexts. Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in film studies, philosophy, or media studies, or pursue professional training in areas such as documentary production or screen writing.