The Masters of Fine Arts in Film

Get it made.

Make it right. Get it seen…then get up and do it again! A hands-on MFA at Stony Brook, where indie filmmakers train alongside faculty producing Academy-honored indie work.

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Latest from the program

image of Stony Brook MFA in Film students in class

Watch: Our Stony Brook MFA students

Watch the video about ourhands-on MFA at Stony Brook, where filmmakers train alongside faculty producing Academy-honored indie work.

WATCH ON YOUTUBE

still from alum Ethan Scarduzio’s commercial showing 2 polar bears holding up Pepsi cans

Vu Nguyen Hoang’s co-written feature becomes a hit in Vietnam

Quý Tử Vượt Giàu (Good Boy Gone Best), a comedy about toxic parenting told through an elaborate poverty simulation, grossed approximately $2.5M in its first two weeks. Vu is an alum and Fulbright scholar of the MFA in Film.

image of Stony Brook MFA in Film alum Nnamdi Nwosa with award at TINFF

Nnamdi Nwosa wins Best Performance Short at TINFF

The first-year’s film It’s Relative won the U.S. category for Best Performance Short at TINF. Next stop: the SoHo and San Jose International Film Festivals.

SEE ON TINFF

Xiaoxing Chen selected for the Gotham Marcie Bloom Fellowship

Xiaoxing is one of just five students selected from NYC film schools for this year’s fellowship

Rankings & reviews

#25 in Film Schools

Per The Wrap’s Top 50 Film Schools, our national standing as an MFA has climbed for the majority of the last decade. Filmschool.org rates Stony Brook's MFA in Film and TVW at #12 in the nation.

Praise for Stony Brook’s MFA: “A hidden gem”

The Hollywood Reporter praises SBU’s MFA with “high-quality curriculums with low state tuition.” MovieMaker calls us a “hidden gem.”

Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award

Christine Vachon (Artistic Director, MFA in Film) and Pamela Koffler (Killer Films) are receiving the Academy’s honorary award for career producing achievement at the 2026 Governors Awards.

Selected faculty

PRODUCING

image of Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler

Christine Vachon & Pamela Koffler

Killer Films – producers of over 100 low budget prestige movies in over 30 years, including Boys Don't Cry, Carol, Past Lives; receiving the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the 2026 Governors Awards

DIRECTING

image of Lucio Castro

Lucio Castro

Three features – End of the Century (New Directors/New Films at MoMA; The Guardian's five best queer films of the century so far), After This Death (Berlinale 2025; IFC/Sundance U.S. release, fall 2026), and Drunken Noodles (Cannes ACID; NYFF 2025; Strand Releasing U.S. release, June 2026)

SCREENWRITING

image of Jennie Allen

Jennie Allen

Writer & executive producer, 111 (C-Films, Auguste Content, Fidelio Films), premiering in Canada and Switzerland; Columbia MFA, Lewis Cole Award for Excellence in Screenwriting

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE TRACKS in PRODUCING, directing, & screenwriting >>

Get It Made. Make It Right. Get It Seen.

The Stony Brook MFA in Film is the only graduate program in the SUNY system fiercely dedicated to independent filmmaking. Our philosophy is simple: roll up your sleeves and dive in. We don't just study film; we make it. So get it made, make it right, get it seen, and get up and do it again.

READ MAGDALENE'S WELCOME

You Belong Here

Tell your story at Stony Brook, home to Thalberg Award-winning faculty and a top-25 film school

Feature theses

One of the nation’s few film programs where you’ll get hands-on mentoring support for your feature

Lincoln Center

All first- and second-year films screen at the world’s leading performing arts center

$20,000 annually

In film completion funds, thanks to the DI3 Fellowship and the Lichtenstein Reeves Film Completion Fund

Be a part of the Stony Brook MFA in Film experience!

To join our distinguished community of artists and visual storytellers, the first step is to apply.

Apply to the Film MFA