Multimedia: Video

A collection of resources geared toward helping users with audio and visual research needs.

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Video Resources on the Web »

This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of video resources, but should provide a good sampling of useful starting points.

The majority of films in these resources date to the early and mid-twentieth century and have entered the public domain. A variety of genres are represented in these collections, from feature films to studio-produced short films to educational films and cartoons.

Be sure to review the copyright information on each of these websites before utilizing any of the content found there!

Advertising »

AdViews: A Digital Archive of Vintage Television Commercials
This archive at Duke University contains several thousand vintage television commercials from the 1950s through the 1980s.

General »

A/V Geeks
Collection of over 22,000 digitized 16mm educational films.
British film Institute (BFI) on YouTube
Over 300 films from the BFI National Archives are available for viewing here. Included here are filmmaker interviews, film trailers, and clips and excerpts from a variety of films spanning most of the twentieth century.
British Universities Film and Video Council
The search engine is designed to serve as an all-in-one tool for accessing nine online databases with more than 13 million film, TV, and radio records. The icon-based search engine generates related records and searches and provides a detailed user history and export function.
CBC Digital Archives
Access streaming video clips from more than seven decades of CBC radio and television history.
Folkstreams
Folkstreams is collection of digitized documentary films that chronicle American roots culture. The films are primarily created by independent filmmakers dedicated to the documentation of these traditional ways of life. The films are browseable by title, filmmaker, distributor, subject, and region, and are accompanied by essays, suggested readings, and teaching aids for educators.
Mazwai - Free stock video clips
Mazwai is a resource for free stock footage and moving images, created with one clear mission: to give creators around the world free access to beautiful stock footage, with simple licensing.
Moving Image Archive
The Moving Image Archive contains a variety of films submitted by users, ranging from cartoons and animation to features films, newscasts, ephemeral films, and much more. Within this archive are several collections such as the Prelinger Archives, which is now owned by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.
Pexels - Completely free stock videos
All videos uploaded on Pexels are licensed under the Pexels license. This means you can use them for free for personal and commercial purposes.
Prelinger Archives
A collection of over 60,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films, many in the public domain.
Utubersity
Presents the best educational videos available on Youtube and from other sites too, in an organized, easy to find way for you to watch and learn.
Videvo
Videvo offers free (and paid) stock videos and motion graphics for use in any project. You may use these video clips free of charge, in both personal and commercial productions.
Wikimedia Commons
A database of 10,519,061+ freely usable media files used in Wikipedia to which anyone can contribute.

History »

American Memory Online Films
American Memory Online Films is part of the American Memory Project, hosted by the Library of Congress. The films available through this resource are divided into smaller collections featuring topics such as daily life in early 20th century America, Vaudeville performances, early animation, and a host of other topics in American history.
Black Studies Center
The Black Studies Center features an extensive index of video clips of newsreel footage of many of the twentieth century's most famous Black public figures.
C-SPAN Archives
Records, indexes, and archives all C-SPAN programming for historical, educational, research, and archival uses. Every C-SPAN program aired since 1987 is contained in the archive and are indexed by subject, speaker names, titles, affiliations, sponsors, committees, categories, formats, policy groups, keywords, and location.
National Archives Videos
Watch the captured moments of our nations’ history with videos from the National Archives through YouTube! Several organizations within the National Archives maintain YouTube channels to share videos from their collections with the public.
Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive
In the days that followed, the team at Internet Archive worked with dozens of individuals and organizations to begin archiving this visual history. They collected over 3,000 hours of TV from 20 channels recorded on September 11 and over the course of the next week. The collection is organized on a minute-to-minute timeline.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provides access to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive.

Milwaukee »

WTMJ-TV News Archives, 1950-1980
A catalog of nearly 50,000 news stories broadcast from 1950 to 1980 by WTMJ-TV, an NBC-affiliated station located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Stories cover all aspects of Milwaukee history including politics, business and industry, sports, entertainment, and social justice movements.

Science »

IEEE.tv
Award winning, internet based television network, made possible by the members of IEEE. Shows on technology and engineering for the benefit of IEEE's members and the general public free of charge.
NASA Video
Public access to NASA's image, video, and audio collections in a single, searchable resource.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Digital Library
Provides access to a wide assortment of selected images, publications, video and audio clips that are in the public domain and freely available for use.