Help - Search
The Search page allows you to search for films in Film Indexes Online using a combination of the search fields. Select the linked field name below to learn more about that search field.
To conduct a search, either type the required search terms (individual words or phrases) into the relevant search boxes or select them from a browse index using the 'select from a list' link.
You can combine search terms using Boolean and proximity searching, search for variations on search terms using truncation, and specify exact matching in phrase-indexed fields.
When you have finished entering your search criteria, select Search. The Search results page will display the results of your search.
Note: Between search boxes, all terms are treated by default as if they were combined using the Boolean operator AND.
Keyword(s)
The Keyword(s) field searches for any word or phrase contained in the fields shown on the Search page. To enter terms, type your search terms directly into the Keyword(s) search box, or select terms from the Browse list (using the select from a list link). Search terms may consist of either single words or phrases. Example:
Keyword » select from a list
Film Title
Use the Film title field to search for any word or phrase contained in the title of a film. The Title field also searches alternate film titles, such as foreign language titles or working titles. Example:
Film title » select from a list
The browse for Film title lists the full film title for each film contained in the site. This is useful if you want to see an alphabetical list of film titles.
Director
Use the Director field to search for films with a particular director's name. Example:
Director » select from a list
Year
The date range available is 1893–1971 for AFI Catalog data and 1900-2007 for Film Index International data. Use the Year field to limit your search to films released during a specific year or a range of years. The default values appearing in the search boxes represent the earliest (1893) and most recent year (2007) of released films in the site. Day and month are not searchable as search criteria in this field.
The Year field can be searched in two ways. To search on a range of years, enter the relevant year values into the from and to boxes. Example:
Year from to
To search within a single year, enter the same year in the from and to boxes. Example:
Country
The Country field will limit a search to films that originate in a particular country. Example:
Country » select from a list
Most films will be USA only. Some films have more than one country associated with them.
Cast and crew
The Cast and crew field will search for records containing particular cast and crew member names. Example:
Cast and crew » select from a list
Character
The Character field will limit a search to records containing a particular character name. Example:
Character » select from a list
Character names are searchable only in the non-inverted form. In other words, a search for "Golightly, Holly" will not produce any results.