The Cinema Studies Program of the Department of Media & Communication Arts at City College offers a Minor to highly motivated students who wish to learn about the art, history, and theory of motion pictures and related screen arts.

The Minor assumes that audiovisual storytelling is one of the central experiences of life today. We experience the world largely as it is presented to us through moving images. Thus the Minor seeks to develop critical thinking skills for analyzing and interpreting not only films themselves but also their contexts of creation, production, exhibition, and reception. The Minor takes an international view of cinema in order to prepare students for life in a globalized world. Films are both a mirror of the world in its diversity and a lamp to shine light upon it. Thus students may use the Minor as a means of amplifying their studies in other disciplines. Films are now regularly understood as important documents for all fields of the arts, humanities, and social sciences. 

Since 1940 cinema has been studied at City College as an art form, social influence, and business practice. In the current curriculum the Minor in Cinema Studies is one of four undergraduate programs in the Department of Media & Communication Arts, which is a part of the Division of Humanities & the Arts of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.