Film and Video Archives, Collections and Institutes (Yale Library Film Studies)

Use these resources to locate film and video collections, film stills and photos, archival and manuscript collections, and other primary source film materials. For a more extensive list of printed reference sources available in the Library on film archives, search Orbis with the following Library of Congress subject headings:

Subject Headings for Searching Orbis

Film archives
Motion picture film collections
Motion pictures--Archival resources

For more information about how to find film and videos, please see: Finding Films and Videos at Yale and Beyond.

"You Can't Have Everything" From the Crawford Collection, Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives.

American Film Institute Catalog (also accessible through Film Indexes Online): SML Reference PN1998 +A43; The online AFI Catalog draws its content from six printed volumes that document every American film from 1893 to 1970 (except 1951 to 1960). Search records by keywords; film titles; cast, crew, and character names; subject; genre; release year and more. Most records include extensive plot summaries. The catalog provides comprehensive filmographic information on over 45,000 films, including more than 17,500 made in the early years of film from 1893 to 1910. The database includes approximately one million personal name entries - including more than 500,000 actor entries and 27,000 director entries.

American Film Institute Louis B. Mayer Library: The only national arts organization devoted to film, television and video. The American Film Institute serves as a point of national focus and coordination for the many individuals and institutions concerned with the moving image as art.
American Memory Project: Developed by the Library of Congress, this is a searchable database that includes motion picture collections, such as the Edison Companies and Early Animated Films, and there are films on special topics, including "Before and After the Great Earthquake and Fire: Early Films of San Francisco, 1897-1916", "Theodore Roosevelt: His Life and Times on Film", "America at Work, America at Leisure: Motion Pictures from 1894-1915", "The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures" and more.
Anthology Film Archives: Film museum located in New York City, NY dedicated to the film as art. The website has information on the archives which includes regular screenings of works in their two NYC theaters.
ArchiveGrid: ArchiveGrid contains close to half a million descriptive records of archival collections with a growing range of online finding aids or detailed collection guides and inventories. It comprises two types of material: collection records and collection guides. Collection records describe collections or specific portions of collections of primary source material related to individuals, major events, places and government bodies. These records give bibliographic descriptions of collections. Collection guides (or finding aids) are detailed inventories that reveal where a collection came from, how it is arranged, and what it contains.
Les archives du cinéma et de la télévision. Dirigé par Michel Serceau et Philippe Roger; préface de Jean Noël Jeanneney. Condé-sur-Noireau: Corlet; [Paris]: Télérama: INA, 2000.: SML, Stacks PN1993.4 A72 2000
ArchivesUSA: Identifies archival resources throughout the United States, including films, the papers of actors and directors, screenplays, and other materials.
Australian Centre for the Moving Image: ACMI, located in Melbourne, Australia, is a state-of-the-art facility for the exhibition, promotion and preservation of screen content from Victoria (Aus.), Australia and around the world. It is about the moving image in all its forms - film, television, games, video and digital media. ACMI features the world's largest screen gallery (over 1500 square metres), and the largest public lending collection of moving image for ACMI members.
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive: The PFA collection includes more than 10,000 titles, with areas of concentration in Soviet silent and Eastern European cinema, international animation, American experimental cinema, video art of the '70s, and the largest collection of Japanese cinema outside of Japan. The collection also includes an international selection of feature films and documentaries. Among the artists represented are Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Larissa Shepitko, Dziga Vertov, Gunvor Nelson, Chick Strand, and George Kuchar. PFA has identified the preservation of independent and experimental film as institutional priorities, concentrating efforts on works by Bay Area filmmakers. It has a searchable database with over 6,600 records.
Best Video: The video store in Hamden, CT.
Bibliothèque du Film (BiFi)
Black Film Center/Archive: A diverse collection of over 800 historic and contemporary Hollywood and independent films; black & white and color, silent and sound; features, documentaries, dramatic and musical shorts, comedy shorts, newsreels and animations in 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, DVD, and videocassette formats.
British Film Institute Collections and Archives: The British Film Institute is the UK national agency with responsibility for encouraging the arts of film and television and conserving them in the national interest.
Broadcast Pioneers Library of American Broadcasting: The Library of American Broadcasting is located on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park. It is housed in Hornbake Library along with the University's other broadcast-related collection, the National Public Broadcasting Archives.
Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC)
Cinémathèque française
Cinemaweb: Cinemaweb is a collective of independent film and video websites, sharing interwoven space on the World Wide Web. By combining their resources, smaller companies, publications and authors who might otherwise be overlooked in the WWW universe are able to benefit from a large, oft-browsed location.
Deutsches Filminstitut
Direct Cinema: Independent film catalog and distributor.
Directory of archival collections on the history of film in the United States. Matzek, Richard A., ed. (United States: s.n., 1983).: BEINECKE, Reference
PN1993.4 M36
Facets Video: Facets Video, a division of Facets Multi-Media, is one of the nation's largest distributors of art, classic, cult, foreign and hard-to-find videos. The Facets Video Library has tens of thousands of titles available for either purchase or rental. This video collection represents the best of our international film heritage: Thousands of foreign films, hundreds of documentaries, experimental and concert films, Hollywood classics, landmark silent films, American independent films, serials, animation, cult and the best of children's films.
Film researcher's handbook : a guide to sources in North America, South America, Asia, Australasia and Africa. (London: Routledge, 1996): SML, Reference Z5784 M9 F553 1996 (LC); A comprehensive reference guide to international film and video libraries, archives and collections.
Filmförderungsanstalt (German Federal Film Board)
Footage: North American film and video sources. (New York: Prelinger Associates, 1989-).: SML Reference PN1993.4 +F66
FOCAL International (Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries International): International professional trade association representing film/audiovisual libraries, professional film researchers, producers and others working in the industrty.
FOOTAGE.net: "FOOTAGE.net is the one source for the best footage available: the only place ad, film, TV and new media pros can instantly search the footage trade's best stock, archival and news footage databases all at once. It provides instant connections and the most up-to-date information available anywhere: More than a million shots indexed on-line, 120+ Web sites, over a dozen footage databases, and keyword searchable information covering hundreds of footage sources worldwide."
George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film: "George Eastman House collects and interprets images, films, literature, and equipment in the disciplines of photography and motion pictures -- and it cares for the George Eastman legacy collections -- to inspire discovery and learning for a regional, national, and international audience." Located in in Rochester, NY.
Getty Images Film Collections: There are three main film collections on Getty Images Creative: Image Bank Film, Archive Films, and Universal Studios. All three are rights-managed. There are also several royalty-free collections. The site provides searches, downloads, and purchases of multiple royalty-free and rights-protected brands.
Google - Film and Media Museums
Handbook for Film Archives. Bowser, Eileen and John Kuiper, eds. (New York: Garland, 1991).: SML Stacks, LC Classification PN1993.4 H3X 1991
The International Federation of Film Archives: The International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) brings together institutions dedicated to rescuing films both as cultural heritage and as historical documents. Founded in Paris in 1938, FIAF is a collaborative association of the world's leading film archives whose purpose has always been to ensure the proper preservation and showing of motion pictures. Today, more than 100 archives in over 63 countries collect, restore, and exhibit films and cinema documentation spanning the entire history of film.
Latin American Video Archives: For decades Latin American filmmakers have been producing important, innovative and authentic films and video tapes which depict their histories and cultures from a Latin American perspective. Because the predominant flow of media is from North to South, the vast majority of Latin American cinema and video is rarely seen in the United States. To address this imbalance the Latin American Video Archive (LAVA) has created an on-line searchable database and ordering service which includes thousands of Latin American titles and unites the collections of hundreds of U.S. and foreign distributors and individual film/video makers into a central, on-line location.
Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Reading Room: The Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (M/B/RS) has responsibility for the acquisition, cataloging and preservation of the motion picture and television collections. The Division operates the Motion Picture and Television Reading Room to provide access and information services to an international community of film and television professionals, archivists, scholars and researchers.
Moving History: A Guide to UK film and television archives in the public sector.: This research guide to the United Kingdom’s twelve public sector moving image archives presents detailed information on these fascinating and valuable film and television collections.
Museum of Modern Art: Film & Media Collections: This department's collection now includes more than 22,000 films and four million film stills. The strongest international film collection in the United States, it incorporates all periods and genres. Among the holdings are original negatives of the Biograph and Edison companies, and the world's largest collection of D.W. Griffith films. The Department's video collection, begun in 1970, includes some 1000 works dating from the 1960s to the present, ranging from educational pieces and broadcast documentaries to works by the artists whose primary medium is video. The Film Stills Archive (currently closed for renovation) contains approximately four million stills documenting more than fifty thousand American and foreign films, as well as half a million portraits and candid shots of film personalities.
Museum of the Moving Image: The Museum of the Moving Image is dedicated to educating the public about the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media and to examining their impact on culture and society. It achieves these goals by maintaining the nation's largest permanent collection of moving image artifacts and by offering exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, seminars, and other education programs.
National Film Preservation Board: The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB), authorized and established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-285; 2 U.S.C. 179), serves as a public advisory group to the Librarian of Congress. The Board consists of 40 members and alternates representing the film industry, archives, scholars, filmmakers and others who make up the diverse American motion picture community. As its primary mission, the Board works to ensure the survival, conservation and increased public availability of America's film heritage, including: advising the Librarian on the annual selection of films to the National Film Registry, and counseling the Librarian on development and implementation of the national film preservation plan.
National Film Preservation Foundation: The National Film Preservation Foundation is a new, non-profit organization created by Congress to save America's film heritage. The Foundation raises money for the non-profit and public archives to preserve and make available endangered films that are not protected by commercial interests.
Northeast Historic Film: A Moving Image Archive: Northeast Historic Film (NHF) is a nonprofit independent moving-image archive, collecting and preserving motion picture film and videotape relating to northern New England, with a theater and study center located in Bucksport, Maine. The archive collects, preserves, and shares home movies, television news film and other broadcast productions, independent works, industrials, dramas, and other edited and unedited moving images.
Open Directory - Film and Media Museums
Pathé: 3 centuries of moving images: On-line database reserved for audiovisual professionals. Allows searches and orders to their database and from their archive collection. Their collections include NewsReels, Recent news, Contemporary images, Sports and more.
The researcher's guide: film, television, radio and related documentation collections in the UK. Editor Jim Ballantyne. 6th ed. London: British Universities Film & Video Council, 2001.: SML, Starr Main PN1993.4 R47 2001
ScreenSound Australia: Collecting, preserving and providing access to Australia's audio visual heritage.
Silent Film Sources: This site lists silent films available in the United States for purchase on home video and laserdisc and for rental or sale in 16mm and 35mm.
Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive: The Spielberg Archive is the world's largest collection of Jewish/Israeli documentary material. This includes extensive holdings covering Israel, both before and after the establishment of the State, the Holocaust and Jewish communities abroad throughout the century. Located in Jerusalem.
UCLA Film and Television Archive: Containing over 220,000 films and television programs, and 27 million feet of newsreel footage, The UCLA Film and Television Archive serves the past, present, and future by assuring that the audio-visual records of our century survive to be enjoyed and studied for generations to come. Its film collection contains materials dating back to the 1890s, and it includes one of the largest and most respected repositories of television programming in the world. Established in 1965 through an agreement between the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Regents of the University of California, the television collection has grown from an initial donation of twelve kinescopes and television films to over 70,000 programs which span the history and scope of the television medium from 1946 to the present.
University of Chicago Film Studies Center: The Film Studies Center (FSC) is a facility dedicated to the teaching and study of motion pictures and related media at the University of Chicago.
U.S. National Film Registry: In 1988, the (United States) Library of Congress established the National Film Preservation Board, to preserve film deemed "culturally, historically, or esthetically important". Each year, the board selects 25 films to add to the National Film Registry. Herein is the complete list of those films so honoured to date.
Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research: One of the world's major archives of research materials relating to the entertainment industry. It maintains over three hundred manuscripts collections from outstanding playwrights, television and motion picture writers, producers, actors, designers, directors and production companies. In addition to the paper records, materials preserved include fifteen thousand motion pictures, television shows and videotapes, two million still photographs and promotional graphics, and several thousand sound recordings. WCFTR collections on the American film industry are richest for 1930 through 1960.
World directory of moving image and sound archives. Klaue, Wolfgang. (München, New Providence : K.G. Saur, 1993).: SML, Reference PN1993.4 W68X 1993
Yahoo - Video Clips: A collection of Web sites that have video clips and movie trailers.
Yale Film Study Center: The Yale Film Study Center is the home for a growing collection of film titles in various formats, as well as scripts, books and other reference material. We have over 2000 16mm prints, 1100 titles on laser discs or DVD and 3500 titles on VHS. This material is available only to Yale faculty and students for research and study purposes. The Film Study Center has two screening rooms (B-20 and B-21) available for classroom instruction; both rooms are equipped for 16mm and video viewing. We also have private viewing booths available for individual use. Faculty and students are allowed to borrow VHS tapes for overnight use and weekend use.