American Film Institute Catalog Search Tips

Use the context-sensitive help files if you have problems searching or contact us with specific search queries.

Find your set film

Type the film title into the Quick Search on the home page and click on the 'go!' button. From the list of results click on the film title that you are looking for such as The Graduate, Citizen Kane and Vertigo.

Alternatively, go to the Film Search screen and type the name of the film into the Title field. You can check the spelling using the 'select from a list' feature or enter more information such as 'Release Year' or 'Director'.

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Find a film series or adaptations of a literary work

You can simply Quick Search for the title you are interested in. For example 'Hamlet' retrieves film adaptations including the 1969 version starring Anthony Hopkins and Marianne Faithfull plus numerous films which refer to the play as part of the plot.

You can also use the Advanced Search screen to perform a character search e.g. James Bond, Sherlock Holmes and Dracula.

To find film adaptations by a particular author use the Advanced Search screen and use the 'Select from a list' to chose authors or works in the 'Based on' field (enter the activity 'Author' to refine your search still further). For example: Charles Dickens, Tennessee Williams and Edgar Allan Poe.

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Find resources on a set director

Type the name of the director into the 'Quick Search' on the home page and hit 'go!' From the list of results click on the name that you are searching for e.g. D. W. Griffith, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger and Michael Curtiz. Names can be inverted or non-inverted or you can just search on a surname for example Kubrick, Stanley' or Stanley Kubrick' or just 'Kubrick'.

If you are interested in seeing all the films that a director worked on, rather than just directed, you should enter the name in the Crew field. This search also retrieves records where the name appears the Notes field (so for example it will retrieve films that the director was meant to work on, or did work on but was not credited). For example, a search for Sergio Leone retrieves the film record for Ben Hur (1959) and in the Notes field we see that 'Several modern sources state that future Italian Spaghetti Western director Sergio Leone worked on the film'. Please note that hit highlighting will not appear in the Notes section in this search.

If you are unsure of the spelling of a name, use the 'select from a list' functionality next to the fields on the Advanced Search screen.

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Find a person with a pseudonym or alternate name

When a cast or crew member uses different names in different films, American Film Institute Catalog will retrieve all results for that person regardless of the name searched on and the correct credited name will display in each film record. This means that when you search for John Ford your search will retrieve film records for both Jack Ford and John Ford. The name John Ford will appear in the films records where he was credited as John Ford and Jack Ford in the film records where he was credited as Jack Ford.

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Find all the titles from a film genre or subject

Enter terms in the Genre field on the Advanced Search screen such as 'Civil War', 'Gangster' or 'Musical'.

For subject searching, enter terms in the Subject field to retrieve films with plots about anything from earthquakes to spies to World War II.

You can refine your search further by entering terms into other search fields. For example, to compile a list of 1950's sci-fi films, enter 'Science Fiction' as a genre and enter the years 1950 to 1960 in the Release years.

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