Scholarship of teaching and learning goes to the cinema: movies and television in management education

Purpose This paper aims to draw from backward design theory to deductively develop a conceptual model of movie and television (TV) use in management education. The authors apply this model to comprehensively summarize the literature and identify research gaps and opportunities. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents a systematic review of articles addressing the use, or application, of movies and TV in courses to fulfill instructors’ goals published in management education’s major journals (from their respective inceptions to June 28, 2025). Findings A total of 229 papers were included in the final sample. Movies (rather than TV shows) were found to be the most commonly used medium (59%). Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); organizational behavior; and leadership (representing 16%, 15% and 14% of articles, respectively) were the most common topics addressed in this study’s sample. Perhaps most surprisingly, the majority of articles (55%) provided no data to support effectiveness, with just 10% providing quantitative data from students. Practical implications This review synthesizes the various topics and options an instructor should thoughtfully consider while designing their movie- and TV-embedded courses. In addition, this review (grounded in an established educational framework) strongly encourages the collection of data to evaluate the efficacy of these instructor choices, while providing various options for the collection of this data. Originality/value This research deploys a well-established learning theory, backward design, to analyze the literature on movie and TV use in management education. The analysis provides new and valuable insights on the level and type of empirical evidence collected in the literature with respect to movies and TV (i.e. the second stage of backward design) and various design choices instructors might consider when using movies and TV (which relates to the third stage of backward design) while providing a comprehensive review of movie and TV articles across major management education journals.