Skip to Main Content

Film Studies: National Cinemas

This guide highlights selected resources for various national cinemas.

Introduction to Polish cinema

Among the earliest Polish feature films were Antos po raz pierwszy w Warszawie/Anthony’s First Trip to Warsaw (Josef Meyer, 1908) and Dzieje grzechu/The History of Sin (Antoni Bednarczyk, 1911). At the outbreak of World War I there were over 300 cinemas in Poland, and production companies such as Sfinks, headed by Alexander Hertz, had released some fifty full-length features and 350 shorts (fiction, newsreel, and documentaries). A hiatus in the postwar period, with US imports dominating, was followed by a rise in production in the 1930s, with fourteen films per year in 1932–4 rising to between twenty-three and twenty-six annually in 1936–8. Pola Negri was Poland’s best-known film star during this period. Popular genres included literary adaptations, comedy, history films, social problem films, and a number of early synchronized sound films drawing on Poland’s rich cabaret tradition. Director Michał Waszyński (see yiddish cinema) made forty-one feature films between 1929 and 1941, while the films of Józef Lejtes garnered international critical acclaim.  ...

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Poland, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 27 May. 2021

Searching the online catalog

You can use the subject heading below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number range is also included.

Introductory reading(s)

Selected book title(s)

Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)

Articles and other writings about Polish films can be found in different publications. Our collection does not include any journals which look exclusively at Polish films. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.

Selected movie titles

For more Polish films in the library's online catalog.

Internet resource(s)