Visual criminology concerns itself with how crimes and society’s reaction to crime are depicted and perceived. Jeff Ferrell, Keith Haywood and Jock Young have been credited for creating the term „visual criminology“ in their 2008 book „Cultural Criminology: An Invitation“ (Rafter 2017, 60), although research in this area goes back for much longer. Indeed, at the turn of the millenium, in numerous subject areas there was an increased interest in for example, visual research methods, the representation of institutions in the media, popular culture, including popular legal culture, and the public display of power, deviance and control. Criminologists, social psychologists, legal scholars and sociologists of law among others started systematic research and began to include aspects into their teaching as well as their publication output. So varied are the strands of scholarship, that any attempt to a full and encompassing review is bound to fail. The paper will discuss and assess the methods used by scholars engaging with visual criminology. This will include the author’s own (Machura 2007) analysis scheme for law-related films and its transferability to other areas of study. Machura, S. (2007). An analysis scheme for law films. Baltimore law review, 36, 329-345. Rafter, N. (2017). Crime films and visual criminology. In M. Brown & E. Carrabine (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of visual criminology, (pp. 53-61). London: Routledge.