THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 95 AUGUST 14, 2019
Illustration by Nathan HackettThe Top 25 American Film Schools THR hands out
the annual grades to the colleges and universities that
are forming Hollywood’s next generation of geniuses
I
n the years The Hollywood Reporter has been ranking film schools
— this is the eighth list, determined by extensive interviewing
and research (see methodology in “How It’s Done,” page 96) — the
magazine has never received a straight answer to one very straightfor-
ward question: What is the purpose of film school?
Pretty much every institution on this list sees it differently. For some,
like No. 6 Wesleyan (up from No. 9 last year), where modern film studies
was all but invented in the 1960s (by cinema scholar Jeanine Basinger,
who’s getting her own building on the campus next year), it’s all about
history, subtext and auteur theory. For others, the focus is hands-on
experience, providing students with access to everything from old-fash-
ioned 16mm cameras to state-of-the-art 3D VR labs to the jumbo-sized
green screens at University of Texas (down one place to No. 12 this year).
Still, there is one purpose that academics at just about every type of
school — from tiny rural colleges to lofty big-city conservatories —
agree on. “We can be the sandbox that everybody experiments in,” says
Susan Ruskin — see her Q&A, page 98 — new dean of No. 4 AFI (down
from No. 3 last year). “We can say [to the studios], ‘Come play with us,
because this is the generation that is going to be creating content.’ ”in 2017) and launched a slew of
new programs (like a podcasting
seminar taught by The Producer’s
Guide’s To d d G a r n e r). Universal
chief Donna Langley joined the
school’s board this year, West
Wing producer John Wells (cla ss of
’82) brought his popular Writers
Guild showrunning class to USC
and a slew of graduates ended
up at the Oscars, including class
of 2011’s Ryan Coogler for Black
Panther and class of 2016’s Rayka
Zehtabchi, who won for best
documentary short. “I mean,
she just got out!” says Daley. “But
there were USC alums from every
generation at last year’s Academy
Awards.” Daley also instituted a1
USC
LOS ANGELES
The recent college
admissions scandal wasn’t a
great look for USC, but at least
the film school escaped relatively
unscathed, with nobody’s parents
getting arrested for bribing or
cheating their way in. In fact,
dean Elizabeth Daley had a ter-
rific year — terrific enough to
land the 90-year-old institution
at No. 1 for the seventh year in a
row — as she reeled in yet another
fat donation ($20 million from a
trust in honor of late Columbia
Pictures TV president John H.
Mitchell, on top of that $10 mil-
lion check George Lucas wroteTop 25 Film
Schools