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American Film Institute Catalog
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- Description
- AFI Catalog is the comprehensive national filmography documenting American films from
1893-1972, with additional "stub records," usually several hundred for each year,
for selected major films from 1972 to the present. The Catalog includes foreign
films co-financed by American companies, or released in the U.S. for the years 1893-1910 and
1961-70. About 85% of the films produced since 1931 have credits and synopses verified during
viewing, indicated by the "viewed film icon" next to the film's title.
The AFI Catalog includes only those films that are 40 minutes or longer in duration; in
addition, over 17,000 short films (those less than 40 minutes) have also been included from the
first era of filmmaking, 1893-1910.
The goal of the Catalog is to delineate America's film history. Since 1983, the
Catalog includes only contemporary credits and plot information in the main body of the
entries, and relegates 'modern' information (i.e. information obtained from sources not contemporary
to the era being researched) to textual notes. This is to provide an accurate historical record for
each American film, similar to national book bibliographies. For the last twenty years it has been a
priority of the project to present only that information which can be documented in contemporary
historical records. For motion pictures, these historical records consist of the films themselves
and contemporary written sources. In this regard, each decade of filmmaking has had its own
characteristics.
- Help
- "Help" is available via a link on the toolbar available on every screen.
- User tools and features
- Advanced Search offers detailed access to titles, cast, crew. Special detailed access is also
created for character names, subjects, and all kinds of genres.
Records may be marked, including user Notes, and exported in plaint text or a format compatible with
ProCite, EndNote, Reference Manager and RefWorks.
- Dates covered
- 1893 to present.
- Updating frequency
- Twice yearly.
- Type of coverage
- Filmographic textual information, including plot summaries, ranging in
size from approximately 300 to 1,100 words, depending on the length of
the film. The second area of textual information, the note, provides
commentary on disputed credits, location shooting, budgets, literary
sources, pertinent historic relevance, censorship, alternate titles,
sequels and remakes. Source citations to contemporary periodicals are
input in each record; increased efforts have been made since 1996 to add
citations for reviews from trade publications, newspapers, and other
periodicals.
- Print counterpart or related resources
- The American Film Institute catalog of motion pictures produced in the United States. Berkeley :
University of California Press, 1971-1986.
- Producer/content provider
- The American Film Institute
- Vendor/electronic presentation provider
- ProQuest
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