Featured Resource

Film Indexes Online -- AFI Catalog
The Film Indexes Online searches across the American Film Institute Catalog and the British Film Institute's Catalog entitled Film Index International.

The AFI Catalog is an exceptional resource and quite possibly my favorite resource for film research. It is an attempt to catalog every film produced in the United States. It currently includes works produced from 1893 - 1972 (they are completing the 1970s). You can search by title, director, cast, crew, character name, song, genre and subject. For each one of these fields, a browse option is provided. The most outstanding features include plot summaries (for major feature films -- these are quite extensive) and a notes summary which includes varying levels of detail regarding the production and filming. Culled from the major industry publications during the production period, the notes provide incredible film histories and a fabulous read.
Example: search Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, The Women and Gone with the Wind.