The 2024 Top 50 list ranks the top U.S. film schools, but there’s a big change this year.

The result is a new No. 1, with NYU Tisch School of the Arts edging past top dogs the AFI Conservatory and USC School of Cinematic Arts on the strength of its wide array of courses. Other schools that saw a significant jump include the University of Arizona, the University of Miami, the University of Colorado, and the for-profit, Manhattan-based schools New York Film Academy and the School of Visual Arts.

It’s the first time we’ve partnered with Screen Engine/ASI, a respected entertainment industry data research company, to create a more data-driven system for the rankings. The company, headed by Kevin Goetz, set out to find a less subjective way to consider each school’s strengths and weaknesses. To achieve this, they created a detailed survey and used the answers to score each institution on a wide variety of factors. (You can read Screen Engine’s breakdown of its methodology at the end of this list.)

This is a different approach to ranking schools—and while the results may be unexpected at times, we are confident this provides an improved basis for evaluation over our previous interview-based method. This list also recognizes most of the institutions that have populated our rankings since 2016. (For the record, the top nine schools that year are also the top nine this year, though the order has changed.)

We thank Screen Engine for tackling this enormous task, welcome five newcomers to the rankings—SMU, Drexel, RIT, the University of Georgia, and The Ohio State University—and invite you to peruse the list.

50. Mount St. Mary’s University

This private Catholic university has a main campus in the Brentwood section of West Los Angeles and a studio facility on Hollywood Blvd. Its undergrad program admits women only, making it the only university in Los Angeles to do so; its graduate programs admit men as well. MSMU reports a total of fewer than 150 students in its Film, Media and Communication department, and it has a 68% retention rate and a 61% graduation rate. The BA in Film and Media offers an immersive program heavy on courses in the Hollywood studio, but it’s also offered through weekend, evening and online courses. Tuition is about $48K for undergraduate study, but the average student receives $30K in financial aid.

49. The Ohio State University

OSU has a long and celebrated theater tradition going back to the 1930s: Jerome Lawrence (Inherit the Wind) is an alumnus. But the moving image production major only goes back to 2004, when the Department of Theater took over the student-run BuckeyeTV station and charged it with developing a production major to go alongside the existing film studies one. It wasn’t until 2020 that it was renamed the Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts. Last year, the department moved into a new dedicated building that includes a 3,700-square-foot soundstage with a green screen, editing and sound mixing bays and post-production facilities. The department’s philosophy stresses the pursuit of professional training in a liberal arts context, collaboration and exploration of cutting-edge work. While OSU is enormous with more than 66,000 students, the BA-only film studies and moving image program is small: just 230 students total. The 91% retention and 83% graduation rate speak well of the program.

48. University of
California, Berkeley

Film & Media is one of the three fastest-growing majors in the arts and sciences at Cal — and amid a general downturn in humanities majors, the department has seen its biggest enrollment numbers in a decade, with 33% of its humanities majors the first in their families to go to college. And for California residents, there’s a sweet path into this elite program: About half the students are community college transfers. In-state students pay only $17K in tuition, but room and board in pricey Berkeley adds an estimated $24K to the cost of attendance. For the university as a whole, about 62% get some aid.

47. Community College
of Aurora

The institution formerly known as the Colorado Film School has now been brought under the auspices of the Aurora CC, serving as that school’s Department of Cinematic Arts. The move was made to ensure the film program’s degrees remained accredited and to help it close a $2 million operating deficit. Still, Aurora has the distinction of being the only community college film program on the list, and that comes with the advantage of a two-year AA degree versus a four-year BA (or BFA) and a tuition bill of less than $5K, a fraction of other schools.

46. San Francisco State University

The department’s roots in the city’s 1960s counterculture heyday are still evident in its current philosophy: “Although we teach the ‘rules’ of fictional, documentary, experimental and interactive cinema … we encourage our students to take creative risks.” That ethos produced a Student Academy Award for alternative/experimental film for department major Birdy Wei-Ting Hung. The school recently added a screening room named for former dean August Coppola — yes, his baby brother is director Francis Ford Coppola. The school didn’t provide information on enrollment (which in the past was about 900 undergrad and 40 grad) or other key elements of its film program.

45. University of California,
Santa Barbara

That 70% of students graduate from UCSB is impressive, considering the school overlooks some of the most beautiful beaches in California. It’s also got a 91% retention rate. The university battles its “play hard, have fun” reputation by emphasizing scholarship and research. It’s closely affiliated with the Carsey-Wolf Center, a hotbed of new media scholarship funded in part by the creators of “Roseanne” (Marcy Carsey) and “Law & Order” (Dick Wolf). Like other state schools, it’s a bargain for California residents, costing just over $14K for tuition. Notable alumni include Scott Frank (“Logan”), Brad Silberling (“Charmed”) and Toni Graphia (“Outlander”).

44. Rhode Island School
of Design

The famously alternative and bohemian alma mater of Seth MacFarlane and Gus Van Sant and home to a puppeteering fellowship funded by Kermit the Frog (sort of — it came from Cheryl Henson, daughter of Kermit creator Jim and parent of a RISD student) took a tumble in the rankings this year by declining to provide robust data, including retention rate, required student films or how much financial aid it provides to students. Still, the school offers innovative courses with fun titles like Site Gags and Hidden Monsters, which explores animation history and its relationship to problematic issues of representation. The film animation and video department also created the interdisciplinary Movement Lab for animators and effects artists.

43. University of Georgia

Established in 2020, the small, 35-student grad program says it offers the only year-long course on crowdfunding and community filmmaking. It’s also very professionally oriented, drawing on the growth of production in the state. The school’s 14,000-square- foot soundstage is located within a professional complex, Athena Studios, that has brought work opportunities to students and alumni. Just this year Blumhouse, which filmed the horror movie “The Woman in the Yard” at Athena, hired four UGA students/alumni for the production. The program has two academic homes: in the College of Arts & Sciences and in the Grady School of Mass Communication and Journalism. Tuition is a budget-friendly $16K, but for out-of-state residents it jumps to a budget-busting $78K, though all students receive some financial aid.

42. Full Sail University

The for-profit school meets many students where they are today, emphasizing speed and the possibility of hybrid in-person and virtual learning. An undergraduate degree can be had with as little as 20 months of on-campus residency, with the rest completed remotely. On campus, students have access to 880,000 square feet of production facilities. Indeed, the school touts hands-on learning as key DNA. Tuition runs about $28,000 a year, and students average about $10,000 in aid. The program skews 69% male but is exceedingly diverse, with 24% identifying as Latinx, 22% as Black and just 30% as white.

41. Morehouse College

The Harvard of HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) admits that while it can’t compete with wealthier or bigger schools on equipment — it says they “have more ‘broken equipment’ than we likely have overall” equipment — its small size (35 students), rigorous curriculum, personalized instruction (6:1 student / faculty ratio) and high expectations plus extensive industry collaborations offset that. For example, it partnered with MTV to produce PSAs for Martin Luther King Day and designed a two-year apprenticeship program with Pixar and other companies. It boasts a 100% graduation rate and offers 70% of students some financial aid. Tuition is a modest $29K. “Morehouse Men” (the school is all male) in Hollywood include Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel’s kid John David Washington, Spike Lee (pre-NYU), director David Fortune and writer Quran Squire.

40. Wesleyan University

As Wesleyan insists, it’s not a film school but a liberal arts university with a film department, so they emphasize teaching students to think creatively rather than just check off career skills. Students can’t declare a film major until junior year — and while the school has a soundstage, shooting house and multiple theaters, it has fewer than other elite schools and doesn’t fund student films. Still, Wesleyan’s stellar overall reputation (it’s one of the most selective liberal arts schools in the country) has produced an outsize number of prominent alumni, from filmmakers like Michael Bay and Alex Kurtzman to documentarians like Sara Dosa and Lana Wilson to executives like Matthew Greenfield (Searchlight) and Halle Stanford (The Jim Henson Company).

39. Biola University

Lynsi Snyder-Ellingson, the billionaire owner and president of In-N-Out Burger, recently made the largest donation in school history to help fund the construction of a 45,463-square-foot film facility and endow student scholarships earmarked for at-risk youth. Already, Biola provides some aid to 99% of students who get an average $23K break on the $49K tuition. It also brought in former AMC executive Tom Halleen to be dean. All this has spurred a growth in enrollment, up 56% since COVID. The nondenominational Christian school emphasizes student character in its mission statement: “We want them to be great at what they do, but we also want them to be great at who they are.”

38. California State University, Northridge

Film students looking for inspiration have something at CSUN that no other school offers: The only permanent university exhibit on the art of the movie poster. That renowned collection symbolizes the university’s ambitions for its film program to compete with the elites, including beefing up its Entertainment Industry Institute and adding a new large-scale LED wall. It’s also one of the most diverse institutions, notably boasting an enrollment that is three-quarters nonwhite and 48% Latinx.

37. Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD)

Evaluating SCAD proved tricky since it didn’t provide as robust a trove of information as others on the list. It has good facilities, including satellite campuses in Atlanta and Lacoste, France, and the Savannah Film Studios complex, which recently added 11 acres of Hollywood-style backlots and other improvements. It has also leaned into Georgia’s growth as a production hub, securing work for students on Hollywood productions like Todd Haynes’ “May December.” The tuition is reasonable ($38K) and the graduation rate is a good but not exceptional 71%, but class sizes are likely to reflect the high 20:1 student/faculty ratio.

36. University of Pennsylvania

Penn has recently upgraded its Film & Media Studies program to full department status. The change means more faculty and degree offerings and a higher profile on campus. The grad program is mainly for aspiring academics: 90% are pursuing a PhD. Wannabe executives and agents also have access to Wharton, the No. 1 undergraduate business school in the country. An Ivy League school with a long history, Penn has produced alumni that include Maurin Mwombela ’17, who writes on Apple’s “Fraggle Rock” reboot, Oscar winner Morgan Neville and WGA president Meredith Stiehm.

35. American University

It’s a cool year to be a student in the doc-heavy AU film, which lined up internships involving the 2024 presidential campaign. It is part of a program ethos that wants to get students out in the field. Take the environmental issues-oriented Classroom in the Wild, which sends students out on such adventures as spring break workshops on the Chesapeake Bay or summer trips to Alaska, Cuba and the Galápagos. A sign of the school’s commitment is the recent appointment of its first senior director for experiential learning. It also offers more traditional field programs like the L.A. Intensive and N.Y. Intensive, which offer rising juniors exposure to the business in both cities via site visits, panels, meetings and social events. The MA in Producing Film, Television, and Video is on hiatus as they search for a new director, while a recent review cut the required courses in the undergrad major to make it more flexible and added two to the MA to provide more in-depth professional preparation.

34. Pratt Institute

New York City students wanting a film education in the context of an art school (versus a traditional college) need look no further than Brooklyn. Despite its small, 220-member student body, Pratt still offers three soundstages, editing suites and a 4K screening room that seats 90. The art school ethos permeates the film program, emphasizing that students can learn nontraditional forms of exhibition alongside the usual filmmaking courses. Recent graduates of the program include screenwriter Liz Hannah (“The Post”), documentarians Josh Koury and Myles Kane (“The Voyeur”) and “SNL” associate producer Asha-Kai Grant. Tuition clocks in at $60K, and 92% of students get some aid, but the average package of $19K only covers about one-third.

33. Rutgers University

Rutgers leans into its location less than 40 miles from Manhattan as a selling point — noting, for example, that a majority of the film school faculty live in the city. The program’s crown jewel is the Documentary Film Lab, led by Academy Award-winning director Thomas F. Lennon, which claims over $1 million in grants for student films and has sent students around the world to make them. The small student body size — 107 total — means they get annual 1-to-1 assessments from faculty and personalized feedback. Rutgers has added a state-of-the-art Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) room.

32. Arizona State University

ASU signaled its ambitions to be a top film school in 2020 when it spun off the department of film into a separate school and brought in former Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Cheryl Boone Isaacs to be its founding director. It has facilities in three cities — Tempe, Mesa and Los Angeles — to serve its 1,000 students in the program. The L.A. campus, overseen by producer Peter Murrieta (“Wizards of Waverly Place”), now accepts first-year undergraduates on its campus. Launching in L.A. this year is Borderlands Studios, a new filmmaking lab that champions stories about the borderlands by Latino artists, and Mesa hosts a top-notch facility with soundstages, a color-grading room, sound-mixing studios, editing bays and screening theaters. And fitting for a school named after Sidney Poitier is that more than 40% of the film majors come from underrepresented backgrounds.

31. Stanford University

The prestigious Northern California school is unique on the list in that its intensive two-year program, which accepts only six to eight students per year, is just for aspiring documentarians and independent filmmakers. If you get admitted, it comes with a great perk: Full scholarships for all, including money to offset living in pricey Palo Alto. Students make three films, two shorts and in the second year, a 15-20 minute thesis film. Its drop in the rankings reflects that idiosyncratic approach, small size and limited offerings, not the quality of the teaching.

30. Los Angeles Film School

The for-profit school, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2024, was founded by working professionals as a practical and affordable option. The L.A. Film School touts its location in the heart of Hollywood — it’s in the old RCA building on Sunset Blvd. — for allowing it “to blur the lines between education and real-world experience.” Its pitch is that students don’t just study film, “they live and breathe it.” More than 70% of its students are enrolled in the online program, one of the reasons the retention rate is 56%. The school is trying to counter that with more student social activities, both virtual and IRL. Despite being for profit, it offers 88% of students some financial aid to cover the $39K tuition.

29. Rochester Institute of Technology

At first glance, Rochester, New York, might seem like an unlikely stop on the Hollywood circuit, but as the home of film manufacturer Kodak and lens maker Bausch & Lomb, the city has a long relationship with the business. It’s not surprising that the institute’s strengths are in the technological aspects of film. That’s particularly true in animation, where it is one of the few schools to offer instruction in stop-motion. Games are a hot segment as well. The school has two new cutting-edge facilities: the MAGIC center (Media, Arts, Games, Interactivity and Creativity), a 62,00-square-foot multidisciplinary research facility and theSHED (Student Hall for Exploration and Development ), an innovative 180,000-square-foot facility that also houses the Sklarsky Glass Box Theater, maker spaces, a dance studio and a music instruction studio. The medium-sized program — 363 undergrads and 44 grad students — can also claim Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur (‘CODA’) as an alumnus.

28. Ithaca College

It’s not a diss to say Ithaca is a Mickey Mouse school. What else would one call the alma mater of Disney CEO Bob Iger? It also claims an Angel (David Boreanaz), a Captain (Gavin MacLeod) and a Tiny Beautiful Thing (Liz Tigelaar) among its graduates. The smallish — 5,600 total students — school punches above its size in the breadth of its class offerings, ability of students to both major and minor in different kinds of film (production major, writing minor, for example) and equipment ($5M worth of digital and film recording equipment). Another strong point: 100% of students receive some form of financial aid.

27. Drexel University

The Philadelphia school makes its debut in TheWrap’s rankings this year. The university is known for its co-op program, which requires students to spend two quarters working. Students have been placed at “Saturday Night Live,” NFL Films, HBO, Disney and Lionsgate, among other companies. The school also boasts that production classes are capped at 16 students and writing ones at 12. The school wants students to get practical experience from Day 1, promising they’ll get cameras and be sent out to create something in the first week. For those wondering about the $60,000 tuition, know that 99% of students receive aid of some kind.

26. University of Colorado at Boulder

Boulder’s broad course offerings, well-equipped facilities and a higher-than-average student filmmaking requirement contribute to the school’s high ranking. It also helped propel Trey Parker of “South Park” fame to a Student Academy Award when he was an undergrad. The department has deep roots in irreverent indie filmmaking — “Repo Man” director Alex Cox was a longtime professor at the school. The department of approximately 500 students (98% undergrads) has a high 24:1 student/faculty ratio and middling graduation rate (58%) but high retention (92%), which probably owes something to being in what is considered one of the coolest and most beautiful college towns in America.

25. Hofstra University

This Long Island school started as an NYU satellite campus before becoming independent in 1939. That’s also the birth year of the school’s most accomplished Hollywood alumnus, Francis Ford Coppola, who has funded a screenwriting fellowship. The alumni list also includes Anonymous Content CEO Dawn Olmstead, Marvel producer Avi Arad and “Everybody Loves Raymond” creator Phil Rosenthal. The program is solely undergrad and emphasizes all aspects of filmmaking. It graduates students at an 81% rate, and the 87% retention rate suggests a high degree of student satisfaction.

24. Ringling College of Art and Design

Despite the name, this isn’t a clown show or even a clown college (though the founding donor was indeed one of the brothers behind the famous circus). Instead, it has been on the leading edge of animation since the ’90s. The small film program — total enrollment is just over 100 and classes average 12 students — was started in 2008. Because it only offers a BFA, it emphasizes that undergraduates aren’t competing with grad students for equipment and studio time — and it has top-notch facilities, including two LED walls, five soundstages and advanced post-production tools. By graduation, Ringling says the average student will have worked on about 60 films and taken on a full range of roles. Impressively, 100% get some form of aid, averaging almost half the $50K cost of tuition.

23. ArtCenter College of Design

The irony of ArtCenter is that one of the smallest and most intimate top programs — there are only 70 undergrads and 75 grad students studying film and the student/faculty ratio is a fabulous 2:1 — has produced two of the most successful directors of big-budget, over-the-top spectacles in Zack Snyder and Michael Bay. Budding Bays and Snyders are helped by the fact that producer Terry Crews allows students to use the cutting-edge LED at his nearby production facility Amen & Amen. ArtCenter draws on professionally active faculty to staff the program, bragging that their “war stories are hours, not years old.” That coziness isn’t for everyone though: Retention (72%) and graduation (68%) rates are just OK.

22. Stony Brook University

Part of New York’s public university system, Stony Brook offers an MFA program located in the heart of Manhattan on Eighth Ave. and 37th St., distinct from the 680-student minor offered at the school’s main campus on suburban Long Island. After partnering with indie producing legend Christine Vachon and Killer Films for its MFA programs, Stony Brook says that their “indie ethos infuses all our courses.” To wit: a new year-long micro-budget workshop for student features, producing courses that mimic the Sundance Producer’s Lab. The support continues after graduation — TV Pilot Incubator, open only to Stony Brook grads, is an intensive post-MFA lab designed to help writers launch their careers. The school has a sterling 100% retention rate, especially exceptional for a public institution, and an 85% graduation rate for Master’s students.

21. School of Visual Arts (SVA)

SVA aims to create working filmmakers — from first-year students who start making films on Day 1 to seniors who are prepped to hit the professional ground running. SVA students are pushed to make four to five films in their time at the school, which is the upper end for most programs. The school offers an exceptional 4:1 teaching ratio and a breadth of courses that belie its small — about 550 total students — enrollment. SVA claims notable directors Morten Tyldum (“The Imitation Game”), Gillian Robespierre (“Obvious Child”) and Paul Fox (“Schitt’s Creek”), as well as composer Michael Giacchino among its alumni.

20. New York Film Academy

The NYFA could also be called the NY-LA-Miami-Florence-Australia Film Academy since it maintains campuses in all those locales. The for-profit institution says its “superpower” is connecting students to working professionals and getting them filming “from the moment that they step on campus.” It’s evident in the higher-than-average number of films each student is required to make, a factor in the school’s rise in the rankings this year, along with a low 4:1 student-faculty ratio and a comprehensive curriculum. The retention and graduation rates at NYFA are decent, and tuition is a reasonable $34K. Bill Hader, Issa Rae, Aubrey Plaza, writer Armando Bo (“Birdman”) and Oscar-winning cinematographer James Friend (“All Quiet on the Western Front”) are all graduates.

19. DePaul University

With DePaul’s close connections to Hollywood productions in Chicago, graduates have benefitted from the rise of production in the city. DePaul has 60,000 square feet of production facilities at Cinespace Chicago Film Studios, including a dedicated VFX stage and a new LED wall. Alumni, such as cinematographer Andrew Wehde (“The Bear”), pepper the crews of productions like the aforementioned FX hit and Dick Wolf’s “One Chicago” shows. In addition to an L.A. semester, the film school specifically offers study-abroad opportunities in Paris, Berlin, India and New Zealand. Notable alumni range from actor Michael Rooker to director Linh Tran to CBS VP Samantha Campos. Tuition stands at $45K, with 89% getting aid covering about a third.

18. Northwestern
University

The suburban Chicago school set on the banks of Lake Michigan — the view from the main gym is to die for — is best known for the actors it has produced out of the Theater Department, including Warren Beatty, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Zach Braff and David Schwimmer. The smallish Radio, Television and Film major — about 250 undergrads — leans toward the scholarly rather than the professional, though it offers courses in both. It’s not a surprising approach for an Ivy-caliber university where 94% of first-year students are in the top 10% of their high school class. But once in, 98% of students graduate. Undergraduate tuition is $67K, but all the Master’s programs are fully funded, so grad students attend tuition-free.

17. Southern Methodist University

One bonus at SMU is its Summer Film Production program, which allows students who are good with the heat that time of year to work on a longform project while still in school; every two years, SMU produces a feature film completely written, directed and crewed by students. Third- and fourth-year students take the lead, mentoring first and second years. It’s part of the school’s emphasis on getting BFA students to make as many films as possible, up to a dozen for those in the Production track. The school has added courses to capture the full spectrum of filmmaking today — not just features and TV but advertising, web, social media and documentary. The program has a 97% retention rate and virtually all (99%) get aid packages that aver- age more than half the $59K cost of tuition.

16. Boston University

The film program emphasizes balancing specialized training with the intellectual opportunities afforded in a comprehensive research university. It also has a longstanding L.A. program. To keep current, it has added classes such as Real World Productions; Developing the Short Form Web Series; Streaming TV Studies; VFX; Crowdfunding and Distribution; Media Money Trail, which “delves into the economics of media, exploring how companies generate and sustain value in a rapidly evolving landscape”; and Creating New Ideas, in which “students are challenged to devise new ventures or brand extensions for existing media giants.” BU has also upgraded its equipment and production facilities over the last few years to keep pace with emerging technology.

15. Columbia College Chicago

The 1,040-student school (all but 27 are undergrad) emphasizes “the art of storytelling” regardless of the technology so students learn the “joy of expressing their unique visions.” In particular, it has a reputation for producing excellent cinematographers, including Janusz Kaminski, Christian Sprenger, Michael Goi and Carl Herse. On the practical side, it has 35,500 square feet of production space in Chicago and an L.A. program housed at Sunset Las Palmas Studios. The school’s retention (65%) and graduation rate (51% BA, 68% MA) are below par, but tuition is on the low side for a private institution ($32K) and 94% of the students receive financial aid averaging $15K).

14. Syracuse University

Over the past few years, Syracuse has spent $3 million upgrading its facilities, including new animation and editing labs. It’s part of a decade-long effort to triple in size and improve graduation rates at the College of Visual and Performing Arts, which houses the film major. It also opened the Syracuse University Dick Clark Los Angeles Program building in December 2023 as a central location for its semester in L.A. program. Tuition is $64K, but undergraduate retention (94%) and graduation rates (88%) are strong.

13. University of Texas
at Austin

They say everything is bigger in Texas — even the wins, it appears. “Shōgun,” created by alum Rachel Kondo, set an Emmy record this year by snagging 18 trophies for its first season. Located in one of the most creatively energetic cities in America, with a vibrant arts, music and film scene, the school has been refreshing its facilities over the last few years with new film equipment and upgrading its VFX and CGI labs. The large program (1,000 BA, 160 MA) comes with a just okay 18:1 student/faculty ratio, but the school claims a stellar 89% undergraduate and 92% grad student graduation rate.

12. University of North Carolina School of the Arts

Not many public university systems include an arts conservancy like the University of North Carolina, and none can compete with the quality of UNCSA, which includes dance, theater and design as well as film in a small setting (about 950 undergrads and 150 grads, of which 339 and 41 respectively are in film). That small size means it has just a 7:1 student-faculty ratio. Indeed, it describes the ability of students to explore creativity across arts disciplines as one of its strengths. Within film specifically, the school just launched a new three-year concentration, “Story Art Studio,” centered on the intersection of technologies such as digital production, VFX and immersive entertainment with traditional filmmaking. It also has new partnerships with the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham and NYC’s Working Theatre. Recent alumni accomplishments of note include “The Bikeriders,” directed by Jeff Nichols; “The Righteous Gemstones,” created by Danny McBride; and “Mare of Easttown,” produced by Craig Zobel. 

11. Florida State University

FSU’s credo that a collaborative spirit permeates the program is more than just rhetoric, considering that director Barry Jenkins leaned on many former classmates to make the Oscar-winning “Moonlight.” The school has also produced directors Wes Ball (“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”) and Aaron Moorhead (“Moon Knight”) and screenwriter Lauren Miller Rogen (“Like Father,” which she also directed). Given the prominence of TikTok and other short-form social media content, the film school has emphasized teaching students how to create “moments” — stories as short as 5 or 10 seconds — that can engage viewers. FSU also boasts a 95% retention rate, a 5:1 student-to-faculty ratio, an 87% graduation rate for both the BA and MA and tuition that’s just $6,400 for in-state undergrads.

10. University of Miami

You don’t have to wear pastels like a “Miami Vice” character or pull your shades off like David Caruso in “CSI: Miami” to fit in at a school that’s only 20 minutes from the glam of South Beach, but it still touts the city’s vistas and diverse population as a strong selling point. Miami combines that with robust course offerings (recently added programs include a documentary film MFA and a TV writing course track), an excellent 6:1 student-to-faculty ratio, facilities competitive with the top schools and an interdisciplinary environment that draws on the entire university. The curriculum has been evolving to keep pace with industry changes, notably adding a transmedia module to teach creating cohesive narratives across platforms. Miami awards 85% of its students some aid, with pack- ages averaging about half the school’s $61K tuition.

9. University of Arizona

Senior film students at Arizona get a special treat this year: Alum Craig T. Nelson (“Parenthood,” “Young Sheldon”) is returning to campus to coach students, sharing the experience he’s garnered in a five-and-a-half-decade career. He’ll also act in a senior thesis film, one of the many screened at the school’s gala Dream in Widescreen showcase, attended by 1,000+ each year. Other well-known alumni include “Dark Winds” EP Chris Eyre, WME partner Brad Slater and “Rutherford Falls” showrunner Sierra Teller Ornelas. The school is also upgrading its L.A. facilities. As a federally recognized Hispanic Serving Institution, Arizona has a strong Latinx faculty presence, including screenwriter Diego Moreno, who just signed a development deal with Netflix via its Created By Initiative. It also includes many working professionals like episodic director Peter Lauer (“Emily in Paris”). Tuition for Arizona residents is a bargain at $12K and is still a comparatively inexpensive $39K for out-of-state students. Overall, about 94% of students get some form of aid. 

8. Loyola Marymount
University (TIE)

Don’t let the sweet location just two miles from the beach fool you: LMU is a serious institution. For example, it’s already trying to prepare its students for how AI could reshape the business with a range of courses from “Producing and Screenwriting with AI” to “The Business of Screenwriting — Law and AI,” offered in partnership with the law school. It can also brag that two big recent hits — “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “John Wick: Chapter 4” — came from LMU alumni, director Michael Jelenic and screenwriter Shay Hatten, respectively. On the facilities front, LMU is in the midst of a multipart effort to upgrade its main theater with a new 4K projection system, new sound and refreshed seating and flooring. While the school has a 53-47% male/female ratio, the student body is 56% nonwhite. On the financial aid front, 87% of students get assistance with the $62K tuition.

8. Emerson College (TIE)

Emerson is a funny place, and to prove it, the school offers the first specialized degree of its kind with its BFA in Comedic Arts. The move underscores a long history of comedy excellence that runs from Norman Lear to Jay Leno to Bill Burr. You can also add Kevin Bright of “Friends” fame, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” producer Vin Di Bona, late-night writer Opus Moreschi, Emmy winner Jennifer Coolidge and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert to the list. Emerson’s international outlook is no joke: Its L.A. campus is housed in a 120,000-square-foot Sunset Boulevard complex, and its partnership with the Paris College of Art offers a globe-trotting three-year BFA that has students studying in Boston, Paris and at a castle the school owns in the Netherlands. 

7. California Institute
of the Arts

Fittingly for a school that Walt Disney helped found, the roster of animation power players who studied at CalArts is impressive: Pete Docter, John Lasseter, Genndy Tartakovsky, Lauren Faust, Brad Bird, Tim Burton, Carrie Hobson and Chris Sanders, whose newest DreamWorks film “The Wild Robot” just premiered at TIFF. Building on that legacy, the film/video division appointed experimental filmmaker Ranu Mukherjee, whose work combines layers of photography, paintings and digital art, as its new dean starting in August. Underscoring CalArts’ intellectual as well as practical reputation, two film professors — Lilli Carré (Experimental Animation) and Juan Pablo González (Directing) — were awarded 2024 Guggenheim Fellowships. Tuition stands at $58K for both undergraduate and graduate students, and the school says 89% of students get some form of aid.

6. Columbia University

Students seeking an Ivy League graduate degree and a world-class film education need look no further than 116th and Broadway in Manhattan. Indeed, the school touts that pedigree as a differentiator — noting, for example, how its international faculty and alumni prepare students for an increasingly global industry. Its highly respected screenwriting classes draw from across the university to attract playwrights, novelists, nonfiction writers and poets in ways that mirror actual writers’ rooms. The Digital Storytelling Lab exposes students to new forms of storytelling and cutting-edge tech. That prestige doesn’t come cheap: Tuition is $75K, though 70% of students get aid, averaging about $30K. The impressive roster of alumni making news includes directors Jonathan van Tulleken (“Shōgun”), Shari Springer Berman (“Succession”) and Anna Boden (“Masters of the Air”), along with “Deadpool & Wolverine” producer Simon Kinberg. 

5. University of California,
Los Angeles

Admission to UCLA’s film program for undergraduates in their third and fourth years is insanely tough. Just 1% of the applicants get in, about 25 students out of 2400 applications. But the school calls that small size, which means intimate classes, a low faculty/student ratio and a close-knit learning environment, its “superpower.” The film program is embedded in a school that is regularly in contention to be the No. 1 public university in the nation. For California residents, that comes at the bargain price of just $15K for tuition. While students seem to like the program (first-year retention is 100%), the undergrad graduation rate drops to 44%. (State schools usually have lower graduation rates than private ones.) UCLA is still searching for a permanent dean to take over from Brian Kite, who had been serving as interim dean since 2020, was made dean on a contract that lasts through July 2025. Prominent alumni are everywhere in Hollywood: Channing Dungey, Justin Lin, Catherine Hardwicke and Francis Ford Coppola.

4. Chapman University

Under Dean Stephen Galloway, the former Hollywood Reporter journalist who took over in 2020, the school, which is located about an hour from Hollywood (if traffic cooperates), has emphasized practicality with a new career center in 2022 and an increased number of industry speakers and guest teachers — producer Neal Moritz taught a class on “How to Build a Franchise, Fast and Furiously.” The school recently received an anonymous $2.5M donation to help build an innovation lab, its virtual production center, and added courses on AI. They’ve also been paying attention to the bottom line, working to reduce the cost of the MA for the 262 graduate students by shortening the program to two years from three. All that has made admission to the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts extremely competitive — it accepts about 23% of applicants (vs. 56% for Chapman as a whole). The school has pushed to increase diversity with the majority of recent faculty additions being people of color. Among others, the school counts directors Parker Finn (“Smile”), Justin Simien (“Dear White People”) and the Duffer brothers of “Stranger Things” fame among its graduates.

3. AFI Conservatory

If Hollywood dreamed up the idealized version of a film school, it might look something like AFI, which combines a picturesque campus on a bluff adjacent to Griffith Park with a “learn by doing” ethos that emphasizes the creation of student films (some 175+ a year) and collaboration between students in the six different professional tracks (producer, editor, cinematographer, director, screenwriter, production designer). Its success can be seen in student films honored each year by the Oscars, Emmys, DGA Awards and others and the fact that the school claims that virtually all of its alumni are working in the entertainment industry in some capacity. Just last year, James Wilson ’91 won an Academy Award for “The Zone of Interest,” and all told, six of the 10 Best Picture nominees featured AFI alumni in significant roles. 

2. University of Southern California

The film school is as old as the Academy Awards — both were founded in 1929 — and it has as distinguished a history. It was the first university to offer a BA in film and the founding faculty included D.W. Griffith, Irving Thalberg and Darryl Zanuck. The list of distinguished alumni — there are more than 10,000 living — is truly amazing: George Lucas, Ryan Coogler, Shonda Rhimes, Kevin Feige, Stacey Sher, Judd Apatow, Brian Grazer… But USC also has its eye on the future. The school’s Entertainment Technology Center has worked with industry partners to explore virtual production, and it has added virtual production supervisor Habib Zargarpour, an Industrial Light & Magic veteran, to oversee the Virtual Production program. Almost 80% of the students get aid of some kind to pay the $70K tuition, and the school has a stellar 90% graduation rate for BA students and 95% for those in the MA program.

1. New York University

NYU sells the city itself as a bonus, noting it’s a film set, a cultural hub and a place where professional opportunities abound. But it also looks beyond New York through the recently founded Martin Scorsese Institute of Global Cinematic Arts, made possible by the largest gift in school history from George Lucas (a USC grad!) and his wife Mellody Hobson’s foundation. It offers as wide a range of classes as any of the best film schools and also leans on NYU’s other top programs, partnering with the Stern School of Business to offer a joint 5-year BFA/BS and a 3-year MFA/MBA. The school is majority female. Students like it: NYU boasts a 99% retention rate for first-year students. It helps that every student gets some aid to offset the $69K tuition (average amount: $37K). The alumni roster is full of well-known names: Spike Lee, Chloé Zhao, Ang Lee, Dee Rees, Cary Fukunaga and M. Night Shyamalan.