LibGuides: Open Access Materials: Films

Open Access Films

Open Access Film Resources

Some sites on the web provide illegal access to videos and films. The following are NOT like those sites. Illegal sites often have problems other than being illegal, they may contain viruses or harmful content.

The following sites provide free access. The copyright is either expired, or the owner has given permission for its usage.

Films and Beyond

Internet Archive This link opens in a new window
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge. We began in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was just beginning to grow in use. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was ephemeral - but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Today we have 20+ years of web history accessible through the Wayback Machine and we work with 450+ library and other partners through our Archive-It program to identify important web pages. As our web archive grew, so did our commitment to providing digital versions of other published works. Today our archive contains: 279 billion web pages, 11 million books and texts, 4 million audio recordings (including 160,000 live concerts), 3 million videos (including 1 million Television News programs), 1 million images, and 100,000 software programs.
Open Culture This link opens in a new window
Free audio books, films, MOOC's (massive open online courses), textbooks, ebooks, and so on.

IMBD
IMDb offers a searchable database of more than 250 million data items including more than 4 million movies, TV and entertainment programs and more than 8 million cast and crew members.
National Film Registry Listing
Listing of all films.

Online Educational Videos

Annenberg Learner
Our mission is to advance excellent teaching in American schools through the development and distribution of multimedia resources for teaching and learning. We are a division of the Annenberg Foundation, which funds a wide range of programs in education and other areas. Annenberg Learner funds and distributes more than 100 multimedia courses and workshops to help teachers keep current on the content they teach. Professional development resources provide teachers with research on the most effective teaching strategies along with their connection to national education content standards, and examples of these principles applied in real classrooms. The video components are paired with extensive Web sites that include online texts, course and workshop guides, and extensive background information to enhance the learning experience. Using these resources, teachers can learn from experts, other teachers, and even students who reveal their unique interpretations of the content.
Beilstein TV
Beilstein TV is supporting the advancement of scientific communication by producing videos of research laboratory experiments, lectures and interviews with scientists. The exchange of scientific ideas is strongly based on written publications. Some scientific findings, however, are better explained by a video than with letters and drawings. Our videos are adding important visual and verbal aspects to scientific publications. Science is not only about facts – it is also about the people. Scientists have opinions, they like or dislike a particular hypothesis, they differ in their expectations regarding the future of their research field. Statements and commentaries from scientists are made freely available to a wider audience by us. In German and English.
Critical Past
With more than 57,000 historic clips and 7 million stills for immediate download, CriticalPast is your source for imagery of worldwide events, people, and B-roll spanning the 20th century. Fully digitized and searchable, the CriticalPast collection is one of the largest royalty-free archival footage collections in the world. Search and view thousands of historic video clips and millions of still images, all available for immediate download in many formats, including multiple variations of HD, PAL, and NTSC. All clips and stills are licensed royalty-free, worldwide, in perpetuity, for all media. The average HD clip price is only $200 for 2 minutes. Stills are licensed for only $25. CriticalPast offers immediate downloads of full-resolution HD and SD masters and full-resolution time-coded screeners, 24 hours a day, to serve the needs of broadcast news, TV, film, and publishing professionals worldwide.
HippoCampus
HippoCampus.org is a free, core academic web site that delivers rich multimedia content--videos, animations, and simulations--on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school teachers and college professors, and their students, free of charge. Teachers project HippoCampus content during classroom learning and assign it for computer labs and homework. Students use the site in the evenings for study and exam prep. Users do not need to register or log in to use the site.
MIT Blossoms
Math and science video modules at a high school level from MIT.
Pop Tech!
The PopTech conference serves as the annual gathering of a robust community of over 600 remarkable scientists, technologists, humanitarians, designers, artists, innovators, corporate and governmental leaders, academics, and those who defy tidy categorization. The purpose of the event is to explore, inspire, instigate and discover a shared potential that extends well beyond the reach of individual aspiration. The event is designed to push the limits of possibility – to create new territory for collaborative exploration. The role of a speaker is to instigate and inspire emerging bodies of work and next chapters in life – either collaboratively or as individuals.
Science Friday
For 25 years we’ve introduced top scientists to public radio listeners, and reminded them how much fun it is to learn something new. But we’re more than just a radio show. We produce award-winning digital videos, original web articles, and educational resources for teachers and informal educators. We like to say we’re brain fun, for curious people.
TED Talks
ED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.
US Fish and Wildlife Service National DIgital Library
The Videos collection depicts the outstanding work of our FWS videographers who have produced outreach and instructional tools available for public access and depicts the outstanding work of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its conservation partners. Additional information about National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) videos can be found in the NCTC Video Resource Library.
US National Archive
With 44 locations across the United States, extensive holdings, helpful research tools, and specialized departments, the National Archives has a wealth of information and services to provide the American public.
Videvo
The Videvo Standard License allows you to download clips for free for use in any project, forever. The only thing we ask is that you do not make the clips available for download elsewhere. The advantage of this license is that you do not need to credit the author of the clip(s) in your project, saving you time and valuable space on your video timeline – hoorah!
USGS Videos
Watch scientific animations, presentations, video shorts, training, and more related to USGS science and research.

Public Videos

PBS Video
A variety of educational and entertaining shows and videos. You do not need to be a member to access.

Online Film Recordings

UbuWeb
Archive video recordings. Note: Not under Creative Commons license so you must contact the artist in order to use.
UbuWeb Dance
Archive of dance. Note: Not under Creative Commons license, therefore you need to contact artist in order to use.