Joan McGettigan teaches courses in Film history and analysis, including the department's fundamental courses in History of Film, and Film & Television Aesthetics. She also teaches Women in TV and Film, courses on Directors, and Genres courses such as Detective and Gangster Films,. She participates in TCU's summer Study Abroad program, taking students for five-week study sessions to London for courses such as British Film & European Culture, and Film in a Global Society She is also the curator of the Gwendolyn P. Tandy Memorial Film Library, which currently holds more than 9,000 film and television programs on DVD, VHS, and Laser Disc.

Prof. McGettigan has written several articles on the works of writer/director Terrence Malick. She is currently engaged in a long-term research project on the business practices of movie theaters during the Great Depression, focusing on theaters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has also presented and published articles on media depictions of crime and the legal system, including coverage of high-profile trials on Court TV (most notably, the Menendez brothers murder trial). She has presented papers on the use of voice-over narration and subjectivity in films, and on the changing notions of "realism" in the movies.

Prof. McGettigan earned her Ph.D. in Mass Communications from Penn State University; her dissertation examined the numerous versions of Dashiell Hammett's novel The Maltese Falcon, which was adapted for the movies three times, was broadcast twice on the radio in the 1940's and then inspired a radio series, The Adventures of Sam Spade.