Filmography

A filmography is a list of films related by some criteria. For example, an actor's career filmography is the list of films they have appeared in; a director's comedy filmography is the list of comedy films directed by a particular director.

Filmographies are not limited to associations with particular people. For example, the Handbook of American Film Genres (1988, ISBN 0-313-24715-3) includes "19 substantive essays on major American film genres", each accompanied by a "valuable selected filmography."^[1] In 1998, the University of Washington sponsored a university-wide "All Powers Project" which assembled a filmography of films related to the Cold War Red Scare, which consisted of "motion pictures that played a role in fueling the Red Scare, in propagandizing the threat of Communism and in a few rare and rather veiled cases, in standing up to the charges of the House Committee on Un-American Activities."^[2]

Another example is the filmography published by a library director at Brigham Young University–Idaho of over 500 films "that in some significant or memorable way include a library or librarian", a filmography assembled to better understand Hollywood's stereotypes of librarians.^[3] The Georgia Department of Economic Development, whose responsibilities include promoting film production in the U.S. state of Georgia, maintains a filmography of such films.^[4]

Etymology

The term, which has been in use since at least 1957,^[5] is modeled on and analogous to "bibliography", a list of books. As lists, filmographies are distinct from the cinematic arts of "videography" and "cinematography", which refer to the processes themselves, and which are analogous to "photography" instead.^{[original research?][citation needed]}