Sight & Sound was released in 1932. The bfi has been the magazine's publisher since 1934. Originally published four times a year, Sight & Sound was only published monthly in the early 1950s. This changed in 1991, when the bfi's Monthly Film Bulletin was incorporated into Sight & Sound.
Since then, all new releases in the United Kingdom have been detailed on a monthly basis. Sight & Sound also makes a point of highlighting films that are exclusively available in arthouse cinemas. All film reviews fully explain the material, which means that the conclusion of each film reviewed is also disclosed, as well as a comprehensive list of the cast and crew of the film.
There are interviews, background studies, and film history themes in addition to the film reviews, with a concentration on foreign cinema outside of the Hollywood mainstream. This strategy helped Sight & Sound establish itself as a premier film publication. The British newspaper The Independent described it as "very academic but yet intelligible," while former Sight & Sound writer and cinema reviewer Raymond Durgnat accused the magazine of being aristocratic, puritanical, and snobby.
