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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Frances Ha

2012 film by Noah Baumbach

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 16, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Frances Ha is a 2012 American comedy drama film directed by Noah Baumbach. It is written by Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, who also stars as Frances, a struggling 27-year-old dancer whose career and social life begin imploding at the same time that her best friend's life begins taking off. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 1, 2012, and was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on May 17, 2013, by IFC Films.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Frances Ha” as 2012 film by Noah Baumbach. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Frances, film and Noah.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2012, 2013—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Frances, film and Noah providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Frances Ha”, the useful work is to connect “2012 film by Noah Baumbach” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2012 and 2013.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Frances Ha”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Frances Ha primary sources, Frances Ha archive and Frances research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Frances Ha”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Frances Ha” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.