a group formed to study the art of the cinema through discussion or the actual making of films. In England and the United States such clubs, or film societies, are chiefly interested in film making, while in other countries they concentrate on viewing censored, foreign, or experimental films.

Enthusiasts formed the first ciné-clubs in England in the mid-1920s to discuss the new Soviet realistic movement represented by films such as Potemkin (1925), The End of St. Petersburg (1927), and Earth (1930). Later such clubs were significant in popularizing the documentary film developed in Great Britain in the 1930s and in providing a forum for viewing and discussing other films. In the early 1960s, one of the largest contemporary ciné-clubs was the American Cinema 16, established in 1947.