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Education

2020’s Top American Film Schools, Ranked

Ossie Khan

11th June 2024 5 min read

A career behind the camera begins at these elite institutions — from USC to NYU — even as COVID-19 complicates curricula.

With both entertainment and higher education deeply impacted by the COVID-19 shutdown, top film schools across the U.S. spent the summer break reassessing established curricula. Many programs are moving classes completely online to comply with local and state health restrictions (student films will mostly be shot on cellphones and star family members and roommates). Colleges, universities and conservatories alike are filling in the gaps in their promised programs with Zoom lectures from top talents like Taika Waititi and Spike Lee, and are hoping to hold makeup physical production classes over the spring and summer breaks in 2021, assuming the world returns to relative normality by then.

But no matter how they are handling the pandemic, all of The Hollywood Reporter’s top film programs are committed to ensuring their graduates will be ready for a career in Hollywood — whatever it may look like. Whether it’s adding new virtual and augmented reality labs (like the University of California Los Angeles), or offering more courses in Black film theory (USC, Chapman, CalArts and UT Austin are among the schools to do so), these programs aim to evolve with the industry and educate the storytellers and executives who will shape the future of entertainment — even if that future is currently on hold.

(From left) Dodge Hall, Columbia University; Warner Bros. Building at AFI; UCLA’s Royce Hall.

1. American Film Institute (Los Angeles)

After much turnover in the dean’s office, Susan Ruskin took over the reins of the famed conservatory just in time for The American Film Institute’s 50th anniversary and a major year of awards and endowments. She replaces Richard Gladstein, Ruskin who stepped in after Jan Schuette left in 2016. The school swept the narrative category at last year’s Student Academy Awards, picking up the gold, silver and bronze honors, and had a similar showing at the DGA Student Awards, winning three of its four eligible categories. Alums and industry professionals note that the grad-student-focused conservatory guarantees students the opportunity to make their own films, with plenty of support. Alum Max Barbakow, whose Sundance feature Palm Springs sold to Neon/Hulu for a record-setting sum in Park City, says the conservatory excels at “empowering young filmmakers to make stuff,” adding that “the opportunity to dive in and make three substantial short films in my first year was undoubtedly the boon of the AFI experience.” Its strong alumni network includes veteran helmer Mimi Leder and Midsommar director Ari Aster, and, thanks to a $3 million gift from trustee emeritus Lawrence Herbert, the school plans to boost alums with a new physical Alumni Center and a digital portal, called AFI Backlot, designed to expand the center’s global reach to alumni. Even by oft-inflated film school standards, AFI offers an expensive education but hopes to continue to offset some tuition and production costs with a new $15,000 Bridges/Larson Production Award and the T.R. Paul Family Foundation Scholarship, and has seen an overall increase in gifts to its general scholarship fund, including installments from Bob Daly, Alan Horn and David Geffen.

TUITION $63,575 to $65,800 grad

2. USC (Los Angeles)

While most film schools focus on the creative and technical side of filmmaking, few cater to students looking to become execs or producers. USC’s renowned School of Cinematic Arts, which encompasses roughly 1,000 undergraduates and 700 grads, focuses on both disciplines, with a track record to prove it. SCA boasts both Marvel movie director Ryan Coogler and head of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige as alums. In the last school year, SCA established the John H. Mitchell Endowment for the Business of Entertainment chair — William Morris agency alum Bonnie Chi is the inaugural holder — and the school’s Peter Stark producing program celebrated its 40th anniversary with past grads who include UTA co-president David Kramer. “Rely on the talent and insights of your peers, the people you trust and respect,” says Nahnatchka Khan, the creative force behind Fresh Off the Boat and Always Be My Maybe, on the lessons she learned at SCA. “Keep in close contact with them, Khan keep it real, and you will all lift each other up and hit new heights together.” As Hollywood tries to uproot entrenched systems of racism and sexism, the school has made a new class a requirement for all students: Visions of Diversity in the Cinematic Arts, which looks at cinema and television history through the lenses of equality and inclusion.

TUITION $59,260 undergraduate;$39,900 grad

3. New York University (New York City)

After an online spring semester of Zoom calls with auteurs like Taika Waititi and Darren Aronofsky, New York University students will partially return to campus this fall with a hybrid approach, and international and L.A. students will have the option to study at one of its global network of campuses. In addition to welcoming Oscar-winning producer Donna Gigliotti (Shakespeare in Love) and nominated sound mixer Tod Maitland (Joker) to its graduate school faculty, its undergrad program has added classes in storytelling with a modern twist (“Aristotle to Beyoncé and Beyond”) and bulked up on its state-of-the-art equipment with new Alexa Mini cameras. Spike Lee, who is a professor at the school, also established a production fund that gives annual grants to student filmmakers, and the newly launched Black Family Film Prize awards $150,000 to grad students whose film projects exemplify innovation in story, style and tone. Says Watchmen producer Tiffany Chung: “My years at NYU have accompanied me beyond graduation as I continue to grow and be inspired by my peers, both personally and professionally, in the collaborative world of storytelling.”

TUITION $60,282 undergrad; $65,926 grad

4. Columbia University (New York)

The Ivy League MFA program, which will start this fall with a mix of online and in-person classes, will also return with a new commitment to diversity, inclusion and safe-space initiatives, focusing on the ways in which racism, privilege and inequity impact its community through facilitated discussion workshops. With programs for screenwriting-directing, creative producing and a growing emphasis on the production side, Columbia has been the starting ground for star alumni like Walt Disney Animation chief creative officer and Frozen writer-director Jennifer Lee, who says she chose the school “because it takes a holistic approach — you write, direct, edit, act and produce before specializing. I gained skills to complete every script I could imagine and learned the power of rewriting. In directing, emotion and character drove every shot and frame; in producing, I found the power of collaboration — it truly was everything I dreamt of and more.”

TUITION $62,912 grad

5. UCLA (Los Angeles)

Amid the box office shutdown, UCLA alum Gina Prince-Bythewood entertained the self-isolating masses with her Netflix feature The Old Guard, which was viewed by 72 million subscribers in its first four weeks, according to the streamer. At 19, the filmmaker was at first rejected from the school but wrote a letter to its then-head, Teri Schwartz. “Two days later, she called me and told me she read my letter and I was in,” says Prince-Bythewood. “She literally changed the trajectory of my life.” The school will educate the next generation of Prince-Bythewoods with the new Forever Sunny Directing Scholarship, which provides the female recipient with support for four years to cover tuition and fees, as well as up to $50,000 to cover production costs on the recipient’s thesis film. The Department of Film, Television and Digital Media also boasts diversity among its ranks, with the majority of both the studentbody (60 percent) and faculty (65 percent) being nonwhite. While the new school year begins under the leadership of interim dean Brian Kite, UCLA is looking to fill its top administrative spot, after Schwartz stepped down as dean a year ago.

TUITION $27,712 undergrad, in-state; $57,466 undergrad, out-of-state; $17,486 grad, in-state;$32,588 grad, out-of-state

For more information – https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/2020s-top-25-american-film-schools-ranked/11-university-of-texas/