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American Film Institute Catalog (AFI)

Searchable Fields Menu in Advanced Search

Advanced Search searchable fields drop down menu

Search Limiters

Use the ABANY limiter to single out the Documents containing a Synopsis. Add ABANY(yes) in one of the Advanced Search boxes, or add it to the search using the link "Search within" in the Results page. Combine it with an AND to the main search to include only Film records with a Synopsis.

AFI Production Genre Definitions

See how to search the field Production Genre in the Searchable Fields box on the right. Here below the list of terms used to index the Production Genre in this field:

  • Adventure‎
  • Allegory‎
  • Anthology‎
  • Biography‎
  • Black comedy‎
  • Children's works‎
  • Comedy‎
  • Comedy-drama‎
  • Documentary‎
  • Drama‎
  • Epic‎
  • Experimental‎
  • Fantasy‎
  • Film noir‎
  • Horror‎
  • Melodrama‎
  • Musical‎
  • Musical comedy‎
  • Mystery‎
  • Performance‎
  • Romance‎
  • Romantic comedy‎
  • Satire‎
  • Science fiction‎
  • Screwball comedy‎
  • Swashbuckler‎
  • Variety‎
  • Western‎

Look Ups and Browsable Indexes

AFI Catalog offers nine (9) Look ups (i.e., browsable indexes), so you can easily find spelling or format variations of, for example, an author's name or publication subject. You can find the Look up links in the Advanced Search page and they are available for the following searchable fields:

  • Cast
  • Characters
  • Companies/organizations
  • Countries
  • Crew
  • Directors
  • People
  • Production titles
  • Subject headings (all)

For a description of these fields, please see the Searchable Fields table to the right. 

Note: Look ups are also available from the Command Line search page (through the Look up terms link located on the right side of the page).

To use and locate a Look up, select the field from the Advanced Search drop-down menu. If a Look up is available, under the search row you will see a link to the Look up (e.g., Look up Authors).  Look ups for Cast, Company/organization, Crew, Director, Subject headings, are listed in the More search options section of the Advanced Search page.

Select the Look up link and then you will see a browsable and alphabetical index for that field.  There are some indexes that will not display an alphabetical list before searching for the term, rather you will have to enter a term first, and then the alphabetical list of matches will display.

Once you locate the index term that you would like to add to your search, mark the item, and then click the Add to search button. The index term will now appear in the advanced search form along with the appropriate pull-down menu selection.  You may select multiple items by checking the box next to each, then selecting either the AND or the OR Boolean operator radio button prior to clicking the Search button.


Searchable Fields

An accessible version of the Searchable Fields table is available here below.


AFI=American Film Catalog        FIAF=International Index to Film Periodicals Database     FII=Film Index International

**  Use the look up list if uncertain of the format of the name


Field Name Label Search Examples & Explanation
Abstract  AB AB(“music track”)

The Abstract field contains the film’s Synopsis in AFI and FII.;
Accession
Document Number
AN AN(356894)

Search the unique database ID for articles and documents.
Anywhere   Disney cartoon

Enter keyword(s) without a field code label to search the entire record. On the Advanced Search page, enter search terms or phrases, and select the “Anywhere” from drop-down menu to the right of the search box.
Anywhere except full text NOFT NOFT(sound)

Searches for keywords in the citation and abstract. It excludes the full text of the article from the search.
Cast CAST Cast.Exact("Pickford, Mary")     CAST(AL PACINO)

Searches the name of the Actor (Cast>Name). **
Character CHR CHR.Exact("Ruth Wilcox")           CHR(Connie Corleone)

Searches the name of Character (Cast>Role). **
Company
Organization
ORG Org(Paramount)      Org("Merchant Ivory Productions Ltd")

Production company &ndash. **
Country of Publication CP CP("Great Britain")    CP("United States")

In AFI and FII use this field to focus the search on movies produced in a specific Country. **
Crew CREW Crew(Morricone)    Crew("Forster, E M")

Searches the name of a Crew member (Credits >Name). **
Director DIRECTOR Director.Exact("IVORY, James")    Director.Exact("Griffith, David Wark" OR "Griffith, D W")
director(sofia coppola)

Search the name of the film Director. **
Document Title TI TI(“The Godfather”)      TI(Cabiria)

Applies to all types of records. Locates the occurrence of search words in the title of the film or locates the title in its entirety (AFI, FIAF, FII – Film records). Includes also the Alternative Title.
Document Type DType DType(Film)      DType(Review)      DType(Book)

In AFI the Document Type is always Film.
Location  LOC Loc("Sicily Italy")       Loc(Spain)

In AFI and FII use to search for the location of the film. Can be a country and a region or a town.
There can be more than one location in the same film.
Notes NT NT(Variety)      NT(Married n/5 Vivien n/1 Leigh)       NT(Playwright)
NT(awards n/5 baftas)       NT("fritz lang")

AFI : Searches the Document Note text of the record.
Person PER Per("Selznick, David O.")       Per(Almodovar Pedro)      Per(Ismail Merchant)

Searches all the fields with single person names.**
In AFI and FII includes: Cast, Crew, Director, Producer.
Producer PRODUCER Producer(Griffith)       Producer("MERCHANT, Ismail")

Searches the name of individual producer.
Production genre PGR PGR("Drama")

Applies only to AFI . Use to search for the Film Production Genre: check the box for a full list of definitions included in this field
Production Title PTI PTI(The Godfather)         PTI(“Mario Puzo's The Godfather”)

Locates the occurrence of search words in the title of the film or the entire title. Includes also the Alternative Title. Applies to all types of records. **
Publication date PD PD(19871020)      PD(19691217)      PD(1991)

Use this field to search for dates of World release of Films in all.
Publication Subject JSU JSU(“Motion Pictures”)

In AFI and FII the Publication Subject is always Motion Pictures.
Publication Title PUB PUB(Variety)

Specific publication or publications. In AFI the Publication Title is always American Film Institute Catalog.
Source type SType Stype(Artistic & Aesthetic Works)  

Use this to find specific source types. In AFI the Source Type is always Artistic & Aesthetic Works.
Subject Heading(All) SU SU(costume)         SU.Exact("costume films")

Applies mostly to AFI and FIAF . Use the subject search field to look for a specific subject. A search for the subject heading “costume”, will find films with the subjects: costumes, costume films, costume design , etc. To run a subject search where only “costume films” is retrieved and no other alternative terms, search using EXACT.  **
Year YR/PY YR(1978)     YR(1914-1918)

Use a single year or series of years (separated by a hyphen) to search for all films released during that year or that course of years (AFI, FIAF, FII ).