Why Video Essays Became the Internet’s Favourite Film School

Ask a film student how they first learnt to notice editing, framing or sound design, and there is a good chance the answer is a YouTube video rather than a textbook. Video essays, short or long films that make an argument about other films using clips, narration and on-screen text, have become an informal film school for millions of viewers. This piece looks at where the form came from, why it teaches so well, what it gets wrong and how to watch it with a critical eye.

Reading about a "match cut" or a "Dutch angle" is one thing. Seeing three examples side by side, with the moment of the cut slowed down and circled, is another. That is the core appeal of the video essay: it lets film talk about film in its own language, sound and image together, rather than translating everything into prose.

It is also cheap to access. A good video essay costs nothing beyond a data connection, runs in a lunch break and can be paused, rewound and rewatched. For viewers in India, where formal film education is concentrated in a handful of institutes and cities, that accessibility matters.

Where video essays came from

The essay film tradition

Long before YouTube, filmmakers were making films that think out loud. Sight and Sound's feature on the essay film describes it as an elastic, porous category that borrows from documentary, the avant-garde, agitprop and fiction, and is defined more by a sensibility than by fixed rules. One trait it stresses is a visible directing intelligence: the essayist's voice and presence are openly part of the work.

The same feature lists milestone essay films that will be familiar to anyone who has fallen down a video-essay rabbit hole, including Jean Vigo's À propos de Nice (1930), Orson Welles's F for Fake (1973), Chris Marker's Sans soleil (1982), Harun Farocki's How to Live in the German Federal Republic (1990) and Thom Andersen's Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003).

The move online

Two things made the online video essay possible: cheap editing software and a free place to publish. The book Film Studies in Motion by Thomas van den Berg and Miklós Kiss traces one early example to critic Kevin B. Lee, who in 2007 began a project to watch every film on the "1,000 greatest films" list compiled by the website They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, posting clips and commentary to YouTube. His short analysis of Fritz Lang's While the City Sleeps (1956) combined footage with his own voice-over; according to the book, the label "video essay" first appears about a year later in the title of one of his uploads, and was not used consistently for some time afterwards (Film Studies in Motion).

Through the 2010s, YouTube channels turned the form into a genre with a recognisable grammar: a clear question in the first minute, a narrator, clips arranged as evidence, and a conclusion that sends you back to the film. The best-known example is Every Frame a Painting, made by Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou, which published essays on film form, editing and cinematography between 2014 and 2016 (Wikipedia summary of the channel). When the pair announced in December 2017 that the channel had ended, they said there was "nothing sinister" behind it: they had taken on new jobs and freelance work, and their rule was that if they stopped enjoying the videos, they would stop making them (No Film School).

Why the format teaches so well

It shows the evidence

A written review can tell you that a scene "feels claustrophobic". A video essay can show the shot sizes getting tighter, the walls closing in on the frame and the sound dropping away, then play the scene again so you notice it yourself. The argument and the proof sit on the same screen.

It isolates one idea at a time

Most strong video essays take one narrow question, such as how a director stages conversations or how a composer uses a recurring theme, and answer it with several examples. That narrowness is good teaching. The Every Frame a Painting postmortem, as summarised by No Film School, includes the pair's advice to reduce each premise to a simple question and test whether people react to it without being sold on it.

It borrows the rigour of scholarship

Video essays are not only a YouTube phenomenon. Academics call the scholarly version "videographic criticism", and it has its own peer-reviewed outlet. [in]Transition describes itself as the first peer-reviewed academic journal of videographic film and moving image studies; it began as a collaboration between MediaCommons and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies' journal, and publishes each work alongside the creator's statement and signed peer reviews (Middlebury Digital Liberal Arts; Edith Cowan University library guide). Universities now run workshops on making them, which voters in Sight and Sound's annual poll mention when they describe the form becoming more institutionally established.

A good video essay does not ask you to trust the narrator. It puts the evidence on screen and asks you to look again.

How big the form has become

The most useful annual snapshot comes from Sight and Sound, which polls critics, academics, curators and creators on the year's best video essays. Its ninth poll, published in December 2025, drew a record 72 voters and 255 essays. Voters came from three broad groups:

The most-voted work was The Return of the Star Wipe by Jiří Anger and Veronika Hanáková. The poll's commentary notes that voters found it impossible to keep up with the volume of work, that some essays now run for hours, and that even successful scholarly essays often have low view counts. Voter selections also included work by Indian makers, among them Sudarshan Sawant's Lost Songs of Sundari, about Mumbai's shifting shorelines, and Suryansu Guha's Matchmove in Bangalore.

The same poll records a clear imbalance: most voters came from the US, the UK and Canada, and voters were mostly men. That is worth bearing in mind when you see "best of" lists, including this one's sources.

What video essays get wrong

An informal film school has informal standards. The form's strengths come with predictable weaknesses.

• Confidence is not evidence. A smooth voice-over and tight editing can make a thin argument sound authoritative. Three well-chosen clips can "prove" almost anything.
• The canon problem. One poll voter worried that videographic critics favour canonical auteur texts. On YouTube, the same few directors appear again and again because their films attract views.
• Algorithm pressure. Another voter described creators feeling pushed to "play it safe" for the algorithm, which favours familiar topics and formats over risk.
• Sourcing. Voters also criticised creators who cite sources mainly to avoid accusations of plagiarism rather than to build an argument. Good essays credit the critics and scholars whose ideas they use.
• Length creep. Longer is not always deeper. A two-hour essay may simply be a long summary.

How copyright shapes what you see

Every video essay depends on using clips from films the essayist does not own. In the US, that rests on "fair use". YouTube's help page on fair use lists commentary, criticism, research, teaching and news reporting as common examples, explains the four factors US courts weigh (purpose, the nature of the work, the amount used and the effect on the market) and warns that there are no "magic words": giving credit or adding "no infringement intended" does not by itself make a use fair. The same page notes that other countries have a concept called fair dealing that may work differently.

India is one of those countries. The Government of India's Handbook of Copyright Law says that, subject to certain conditions, fair dealing for research, study, criticism, review and news reporting is permitted without the copyright owner's specific permission. It does not give a clip-length rule, and neither does US law.

The law is only half the story. Platforms use automated matching systems, and those can block or demonetise a video that might well qualify as fair use. Tony Zhou's postmortem, as excerpted by Pixel Envy, describes learning "the basics of copyright law", then realising that YouTube could still take a video down through its internal system, so he "learned to edit my way around that system". In practice, this is one reason many essays use short clips, remix the audio or talk over footage: it is partly style and partly survival.

How to watch video essays like a student, not a fan

1. Watch the film first when you can. An essay is an argument about a film, not a replacement for it. Seeing the whole work lets you judge whether the clips are representative.
2. Name the thesis. After the first few minutes, try to write the essay's claim in one sentence. If you cannot, the essay may be a summary dressed up as analysis.
3. Look for counter-examples. Ask what scenes the essayist did not show. Would they weaken the argument?
4. Check the credits and description. Good essayists name their sources, from interviews to academic books. Follow one up.
5. Mix popular and scholarly work. Pair a popular YouTube essay with something from an academic outlet or a Sight and Sound poll list. The differences in method are instructive.
6. Try making one. Even a two-minute essay on a single scene teaches more about editing than ten hours of watching. Every Frame a Painting's farewell advice included keeping a dated notebook of ideas and staying organised with clip labels while editing (No Film School).

Where to go next

If video essays have sharpened your eye, the natural next step is to point it at films you have not yet seen. Our list of hidden gem psychological thrillers is full of films that reward close attention, and our guide to Indian independent cinema worth seeking out suggests films that are rarely covered by the big channels. Sound is one of the subjects video essays explain best; our listener's guide to how film scores shape emotion goes further into it.

The bottom line

Video essays became the internet's favourite film school because they show rather than tell: the evidence sits on screen next to the argument, one idea at a time, for free. They grew out of the essay film tradition, found a home on YouTube from the late 2000s, and now span everything from peer-reviewed scholarship to hours-long personal deep dives. Treat them as you would any persuasive essay. Watch the films, name the thesis, look for what is left out, and use the best of them as a starting point rather than the final word.

Frequently asked questions

What is a video essay?

A video essay is a short or long video that makes an argument, usually about films, television, games or culture, using clips, narration, on-screen text and editing as evidence. It descends from the essay film tradition and from academic film criticism.

Can video essays replace a film course?

They can teach you to notice technique and introduce you to ideas, but they rarely offer structured practice, feedback or a broad historical survey. They work best alongside watching whole films and reading criticism.

Is it legal to use film clips in a video essay?

US law allows fair use for purposes such as criticism and commentary, and India permits fair dealing for criticism and review, subject to conditions. Neither sets a simple clip-length rule, and platforms may still block videos automatically, so read your platform's current policy.

Are there academic video essays?

Yes. Scholars publish "videographic criticism" in peer-reviewed outlets such as [in]Transition, and Sight and Sound's annual poll includes academic, gallery and YouTube work side by side.

Sources

1. The best video essays of 2025, Sight and Sound, British Film Institute, 2025.
2. The essay film, Sight and Sound, British Film Institute, 2013 (updated 2019).
3. While the City Sleeps [by Kevin B. Lee], in Film Studies in Motion: From Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video, Thomas van den Berg and Miklós Kiss, Scalar, accessed 2026.
4. Every Frame a Painting, Wikipedia, accessed 2026.
5. RIP 'Every Frame a Painting': Farewell Advice from Video Essayists Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos, No Film School, 2017.
6. Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos Officially End 'Every Frame a Painting', Pixel Envy, 2017.
7. [in]Transition, Digital Liberal Arts, Middlebury College, 2020.
8. Video essay: journals and channels, Edith Cowan University Library, accessed 2026.
9. Fair use on YouTube, YouTube Help, accessed 2026.
10. A Handbook of Copyright Law, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Government of India, accessed 2026.