Research Guides: CIN201: Film Cultures 1: Art & Industry: Resources Organized by Topics

Film Industry (business docs, Production Code, Gov docs)

The following links will connect you with online collections, but please visit Research Tips by Database (see leftside menu) to learn how to build effective searches using these search interfaces.

Picture house interior

Government / Legal
Production Code
Audience / Spectators
Exhibitors (promotion, movie theatres displays & posters)
Film Studios / Production (financial documents, distribution plans)
National Cinemas
Marketing
Professional Associations
Trade Publications

Media History Digital Library - Early Cinema Collection
(1903-1928) MDHL's collection of trade journals. Includes both extensive run publications and select holdings of publications with less archived material, all searchable through Lantern.
"Through the camera lens" : The Moving Picture World and the silent cinema era
(1907-1927) Moving Picture World reviewed current releases and published news, features, and interviews relating to all aspects of the industry. News items, the best reviews and feature articles, including advertisements published each week.
Calisphere (California) - Digitized Collections
Calisphere's digitized collections have been contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California, libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state. Materials include photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers

Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive

Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Spotlight on Hollywood During World War II
(1940s) "A selection of rare documents, photographs, and ephemera related to Hollywood’s participation in the war effort. Topics include the Hollywood Canteen, war bond rallies, the military service of Hollywood figures, the First Motion Picture Unit, the Hollywood Victory Committee, and women during World War II."

Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive

Media History Digital Library - Year Books Collection
(1916-1964) Record of accomplishments within the industry. Documents films released, highlights events, provides comprehensive listings of industry companies and personnel, reprints company financial statements, and contains evocative advertisements from industry suppliers, vendors, producers, stars and directors.
Media History Digital Library - Hollywood Studio System Collection
(1914-1964) Collection of periodicals charting the studio system during its rise, the transition to sound, the Great Depression, the World War II years, and postwar decline.
Museum of the Moving Image - Silent Film Era Holdings
(1894-1931) Silent film-era archival material including programs, posters, costumes, lantern slides, motion picture cameras and projectors, filmmaking equipment, personal docs, photos, and oral histories with actors and filmmakers.
Calisphere - Jonathan Silent Film Collection
(1820s-1970s) Images that covers the early years of the film industry and specifically the contributions of Carl Louis Gregory, Eric Berndt, the Thanhouser Film Studio, and the Edison Studio among others.
Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Spotlight on Casting Directories
(1923-1938) A selection of early casting directories from the Library’s core collections. "This digital collection features early issues of The Standard and the Academy Players Directory considered the “casting bibles” of their time. These bound directories include actor headshots, names, studios, and film titles, and provide researchers with a visual overview of studio casting history."
Margaret Herrick Library - Adolph Zukor Correspondence Collection
Selected letters and other items from a collection of Adolph Zukor (1873-1976) a film executive who launched the Famous Players Film Company in 1912 which later merge to become1916 Famous Players-Lasky and eventually acquired a controlling interest in Paramount Pictures. Zukor was president of Paramount until 1935.
Producing Gone With the Wind Fan Mail Database
The Harry Ransome centre's collection of letters received from the public pertaining to the production of the film Gone With the Wind. Contains materials ranging from fan mail, protest letters, and preview questionnaires, to replies from Selznick International Pictures.
Calisphere (California) - Digitized Collections
Calisphere's digitized collections have been contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California, libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state. Materials include photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more.

Hollywood, Moral Censorship, and the Motion Picture Production Code
(1927-1968) The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Production Code Administration Files collection documents forty years of self-regulation and censorship in the motion picture industry.
MPPDA Digital Archive
(1922-1939) This database contains records of the General / Business Correspondence files of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. These documents describe "... the organization and operation of the industry's trade association, and include extensive correspondence and other documentation relating to industry policy and public relations, distributor-exhibitor relations, censorship and self-regulation. The great majority of this material is unavailable from other sources."
Margaret Herrick Library - MPAA Annual Reports
(1932-1967) An archive of the annual reports of the Motion Picture Association of America through the period of the Production Code.
Margaret Herrick Library - MPAA Production Code Administration Records
(1930s-1967) "Full documentation from a selection of 500 film titles in the Motion Picture Association of America Production Code Administration records."
Margaret Herrick Library - MPAA Production Codes
(1930-1968) Documents from the Margaret Herrick Library pertaining to the formation and continuation of the Production Code.

Also see CineFiles (UC Berkeley) tab for more marketing materials, including press kits, exhibitor manuals, distributors materials. CineFiles (UC Berkeley) CineFiles is an ongoing project of the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)'s Film Library and Study Center.

Harry Ransom Center Movie Posters Collection
(1910s-1970s) Collection containing thousands of movie posters advertising musicals, epics, westerns, horror, and counter-culture films.
Calisphere - Movie Poster Collection
(1910-1940) Collection of posters spanning from the dawn of cinema until WWII.
Margaret Herrick Library - Spotlight on Lobby Cards
(1913-1994) Lobby cards were placed in theatre windows to attracted passersby to the films currently being shown.
Media History Digital Library - Pressbooks Collection - United Artists
(1914-1953) Pressbooks were deployed to theatres by distributors to aid with the marketing of their films. Materials included range from posters, to lobby cards, to advertisements meant to be shared with newspapers.
Warner Brothers Pressbooks
(1930-1952) This Warner Bros collection of digitized materials are held within Internet Archive.
Museum of the Moving Image - Licensed Merchandise Holdings
(1914+) Archive of film merchandise history that allows for an exploration of the link between film and consumer culture.

Media History Digital Library - Government & Law Collection
(1912-1995) A collection containing transcripts, decisions, and proceedings that chart the interplay between Hollywood, politics, and law.

Explore the digitized records belonging to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI):

Hollywood and J. Edgar Hoover: Investigations of Actors and Directors
(1922-1961) Documentation includes: FBI surveillance and informant reports; Justice Department and FBI memoranda, correspondence, and analyses; news clippings and articles; excerpts from HUAC hearings; briefing papers; speech excerpts; and transcripts of conversations.
Hollywood and J. Edgar Hoover: Communists in the Motion Picture Industry
(1925-1961) Documents covering the FBI's investigation of Communism in Hollywood. Reports on the workings of major film studios such as MGM, Paramount, RKO, and Warner Brothers, and studio management and labor union power struggles.
FBI Files - Howard Hughes Digital Archive
(1941-1981) FBI records on billionaire Howard Hughes, documenting his activity in various enterprises including motion pictures. Hughes’s relationship with film stars, reports on his sex life, details on his disappearance in 1970, and Hughes’s contested will are also covered.
FBI Files - Federal Surveillance of African Americans
(1920-1984) Contains reproductions of hundreds of FBI files documenting the federal scrutiny, harassment, and prosecution to which black Americans of all political persuasions were subjected.

Film-focused content can be found in various special and archival collections.

Start with more generic searches to see the range of materials that are available in the collections
- "motion picture" OR film OR movie OR film OR cinema OR "moving picture"

Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Academy History Archive
(1927+) "Full text issues of member newsletters, annual reports, technical articles, and other publications produced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as selected photographs, ephemera, and other materials documenting the history of the organization."
Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Spotlight on Movie Star Ephemera
(1910s-1950s) "This digital collection contains examples of movie star and fan ephemera and collectibles from across the library’s collections. Items include scrapbooks, fan magazine covers, fan club publications and movie star memorabilia, as well as products endorsed by or featuring images of movie stars. The earliest materials date back to the silent era."
Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Spotlight on Hollywood During World War II
(1940s) "A selection of rare documents, photographs, and ephemera related to Hollywood’s participation in the war effort. Topics include the Hollywood Canteen, war bond rallies, the military service of Hollywood figures, the First Motion Picture Unit, the Hollywood Victory Committee, and women during World War II."
Calisphere - Lee (S. Charles) Papers - movie palace architect
This Collection contains drawings, renderings, blueprints, photographs, and surveys relating to the professional career of architect S. Charles Lee. Most of the collection reflects his work as a developer and the most prolific architect of art deco movie palaces in Los Angeles.
The Sex and Sexuality, Module I
Sex & Sexuality explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviours throughout the twentieth century. Investigate the breadth and complexity of human sexual understanding through the work of leading American sexologists, sex researchers, organisations and the public consciousness.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture - Digital Collections
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library) "Digital Schomburg provides access to information, interpretation, and scholarship on the global Black experience ... [Locate] online articles, digital exhibitions, photographs, audio and video streams, historical projects, and external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora.
Calisphere (California) - Digitized Collections
Calisphere's digitized collections have been contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California, libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state. Materials include photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more.

CineFiles (University of California, Berkeley)

BAMPFA Film Library and Study Center manages Cinefiles and its online database containing scanned images of reviews, press kits, film festival and repertory theater program notes, newspaper articles, and other ephemera.

Search Tips

Create a Login

Some documents are restricted due to copyright and require a free account for access. In the top right corner of the page, a login link will allow you to connect (or set up) your free Cinefile account. Read about CineFiles accounts, our privacy policy, and more.

Experiment Filtering by Document Type

Submit a keywords search using the search toolbar or click on "Advanced Search"
Search filters can be found on the left side of the page, definitely explore "Document Type" to see the range of BAMPFA's digitized materials.
Be sure to limit the date range. Click on Document: publication year and enter the beginning and end date.

Remember to Filter by Date

Explore collections based on 'Document: type' and 'Document: publication year'

press kits (limited to date range 1924-1968, filtered in chronological order)
exhibitor manual (limited to date range 1924-1968, filtered in chronological order)
distributors materials (limited to date range 1924-1968, filtered in chronological order)
exhibitor manuals (limited to date range 1920-1968 but more results for 1940s onward, filtered in chronological order)
program notes (limited to date range 1924-1968 but more results for 1950s-1960s, filtered in chronological order)
booklet (limited to date range 1924-1968 but more results for 1950s-1960s, filtered in alphabetical order)

Screenshot of bampfa's cinefiles website highlighting search filters on left side, search field in top middle of page, link to Advanced Search and Login link in the top right corner of the website

Stars, Directors & Filmmakers

Photograph of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks

IMPORTANT - these materials must be created or from the time period you are examining, (e.g., an interview at the time of the film's release, not 20 years later)

Fan magazines, newspapers articles, trade / industry magazines & yearbooks
Film industury materials (headshots, studio press releases, Production Code records) and Marketing for films (e.g., movie posters, lobby cards, merchandise)
Personal letters, Personal documents, scrapbooks, diaries, photo albums,
Business or Legal documents (e.g., contracts, court cases, business correspondence, FBI profiles).
Interviews (print, audio, or film)

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Filters are your Friend

Use the Date / Year of Publication Filter to Narrow your Results

Be sure to limit the date range to locate materials created in the time period you are examining that falls between 1895-1960.

Build your Search Strategies

Connect Search Terms with Boolean Operators

Enter search terms on separate lines e.g., enter title of film on the top line, director's last name below, so as to articulate your search request. Use Boolean Operators to improve your search:

AND (narrows your search e.g., Paramount and Hepburn)
OR (widens your search e.g., blacklist or communist, MGM or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
NOT (exclude results that include this term)
Quotations marks (search for specific phrases, compound words, or exact searches)
- "Wait Until Dark" AND "Audrey Hepburn"
- "studio system" AND "Warner"

Use the Language of the Time Period

Remember that searching historical scans of publications you need to use the language that would be most appropriate for that time period.

Think about Format

Identify Formats that will have the Most Relevant Information for your Research

Industry / Trade Magazines

Don't forget there are different types of content within newspapers and magazines

Articles
- Reviews (e.g., films, books, theatre, even restaurants)
- Opinion pieces - Editorials (opinion pieces by editor of publication), Letters to the Editor (written by the public and the publication prints them)
- Front Page / Cover Story, Feature Articles
- Regular Columns (e.g,. gossip columns, business updates)
Advertisements (often companies or organizations can include text & images)
- classified ads (posted by individual people seeking buy or find something, promoting their own services or small businesses),
Contests or Competitions
Images (e.g., Photos, Artwork, Illustrations, Cartoons)

Fan Magazines

Media History Digital Library - Fan Magazine Collection
(1911-1963) Archive hosting a number of fan magazine runs. "Fan magazines gave audiences a way to experience the magic of the movies beyond the theatre. The magazines also gave producers a way to promote their stars and coming films."
Media History Digital Library - Global Cinema Collection
(1904-1957) Global fan magazines spanning China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Latin America, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Film Industry Materials

Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Spotlight on Casting Directories
(1923-1938) A selection of early casting directories from the Library’s core collections. "This digital collection features early issues of The Standard and the Academy Players Directory considered the “casting bibles” of their time. These bound directories include actor headshots, names, studios, and film titles, and provide researchers with a visual overview of studio casting history."
Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Spotlight on Hollywood Portraits
This digital collection showcases portraits of Hollywood actors and actresses, as well as other Hollywood luminaries including directors, writers, executives and craftspeople.
Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Spotlight on Movie Star Ephemera
This digital collection contains examples of movie star and fan ephemera and collectibles from across the library’s collections. Items include scrapbooks, fan magazine covers, fan club publications and movie star memorabilia, as well as products endorsed by or featuring images of movie stars. The earliest materials date back to the silent era.
Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Spotlight on Hollywood During World War II
(1940s) "A selection of rare documents, photographs, and ephemera related to Hollywood’s participation in the war effort. Topics include the Hollywood Canteen, war bond rallies, the military service of Hollywood figures, the First Motion Picture Unit, the Hollywood Victory Committee, and women during World War II."

Collections tied to Individual Film Performers

Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Mary Pickford Papers
(1910s-1950s) Selection of photographs and documents from the life of early film actress and producer Mary Pickford.
Calisphere - Micky Moore Collection
This digitized collection features the photographs, correspondence, and production materials of Michael D. “Micky” Moore, a child actor turned film director whose career spanned the evolution of filmmaking from the silent era to the millennium. Between 1917 and 1929, Moore acted in over 40 films and worked with such silent screen stars as Mary Pickford, Jack Holt, Gloria Swanson, Lillian Gish, Conrad Nagel, and Tom Mix. However, the most influential relationship he developed during this time was with legendary director Cecil B. DeMille, who became his mentor.
Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine Collection (Library of Congress)
(1918-1992) Use the tabs at top: "About this Collection" (overview of materials) and "Collection Items" (search the contents).
Use filters to narrow by date, formats (manuscripts, correspondence, business papers, scores, scripts, photographs, sound recordings and video clips) and more

Directors

Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Alfred Hitchcock Papers
(1920s-1960s) A collection pertaining to the director Alfred Hitchcock which contains scripts, story notes, synopses, screenplay drafts, correspondence, memos, casting records, call sheets, financial and legal records, location information, research material, music notes, editing notes, publicity, clippings and reviews, and teleplays.
Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Victor Fleming Scrapbooks
(1939) This digital collection contains selected scrapbooks of film director Victor Fleming, which include clippings, photographs, reviews, and other ephemera related to the production of The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Cecil B. DeMille Photographs
Selection of items from the Cecil B. DeMille photographs. Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959) was an American director, producer and screenwriter active in film between 1913 and 1959

Producers, Scriptwriters, Composers & more

Norman O. Dawn Collection
(1907-1975) A collection relating to the life and work of special effects artist Norman O. Dawn. "Features 164 display cards that illustrate over 230 of the 861 special effects Dawn created in more than 80 movies. Also present is a small amount of manuscript material, including correspondence, drawings, and reminiscences."
Alfred Junge Film Collection
(1930s-1940s) This collection consists of photographs and drawings from the career of the prominent British art director, Alfred Jung.
Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Costume Designer Irene Scrapbooks
(1932-1950) "This digital collection contains selected Irene scrapbooks, which include clippings, correspondence, photographs and other ephemera. Irene, born Irene Lentz and also known as Irene Gibbons, was an American costume designer active from the 1930s to early 1960s."
Margaret Herrick Library - Adolph Zukor Correspondence Collection
Selected letters and other items from a collection of Adolph Zukor (1873-1976) a film executive who launched the Famous Players Film Company in 1912 which later merge to become1916 Famous Players-Lasky and eventually acquired a controlling interest in Paramount Pictures. Zukor was president of Paramount until 1935.
Calisphere - John W. Boyle Film Stills and Photograph Collection
The John W. Boyle Film Stills and Photograph Collection consists of film stills and photographs from movies John W. Boyle (1891-1959), an American cinematographer, shot in the 1910s and 1920s. Boyle began shooting films by 1915 and worked closely with director J. Gordon Edwards and consequently with such actresses as Theda Bara, whose favorite director was Edwards. This collection also features Silent Era stars Albert Roscoe, William Farnum, and Louise Lovely and provides a behind-the-scenes look at moviemaking in the Silent Era, including sets, equipment, and crews.

Technology

Early motion picture camera illustration

Check out the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers's SMPTE journals (see next tab)

Newspapers can also be great source for news on technology: Proquest Historical Newspapers

Media History Digital Library's Technical Journals Collection (1916-1965) covers "... improvements in film stocks, sound recording, color reproduction, cameras, lenses, lighting and other hardware."

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The following engineering journals were published by professional association for Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Use them to find the cutting edge research on technology for your time period, but remember to identify keywords from that time period, not current terminology or brand names.

Browse by Year

These articles are accessed through Media History Digital Library's Lantern platform. Remember to be careful when downloading unless it is a single page. Often several issues from one year are saved together in a volume and sometime multiple years are grouped together.

The links below were crafted in the Lantern Advance Search inteface (Title = "Society of Motion picture Engineers" OR "Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers").

Remember to limit the publication dates to the relevent time period.
Click on advanced search button to add more keywords for your topic.

Be aware that this publication's title changed over time, and use the date filter.

1916-1929 Society of Motion Picture Engineers (SMPE) including Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers
Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers
1930-1949 Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (SMPE)
- This selection is not tagged by individual year so you many need to add the relevant year as a keyword (last checked 2024)
1950-1954 Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE)
1957 Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE)

IEEE Database

Access IEEE's Advanced Search

To limit your search to Moving Image Engineering journals, combine two methods:

Search By Publisher
Limit + Date Range

This will pull in search results from all the journals published by SMPTE within a time span

Enter SMPTE in the search field.
Use the dropdown menu in that row, select Publisher
In the next row(s), add keyword(s) for your search (e.g., sound, "film projector", Vitascope, flammable)
Under Publication Date, choose Specify Date Range to 1895-1968 (or time period applicable for your topic) and enter the date range by typing or using the slider.

screen shot of IEE search interface with publisher search for SMPTE with a limited date range

Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers
(1930-1949, 1957) Accessed through Media History Digital Library

Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema
The Victorian Popular Culture portal is an essential resource for the study of popular entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Media History Digital Library - Magic Lantern and Lantern Slide Catalog Collection
(1840s-1920s) "Magic lantern and lantern slide distribution catalogs are rare items and mostly held in private collections. These catalogs can help archivists and collectors to identify magic lanterns and lantern slides and they also enrich knowledge of the development of the apparatus and projection technology. The illustrations give insight into the way in which the apparatus worked and what lantern slides, lanterns and accessories such as light sources, special lenses and projection equipment looked like."
Calisphere - Animal Locomotion
(1880s) A collection of early films showing different animals walking, demonstrating the development of motion picture technology into cinema.

George Eastman Museum - Technology
(1800s+) Selections from the George Eastman Museum's holdings, covering early film and camera technology.
Margaret Herrick Library - American Society of Cinematographers Collection
American Society of Cinematographers Collection "Selection of photographs from the American Society of Cinematographers collection. ... The photographs in the collection consist largely of material submitted to and/or published in the magazine and photographs from the membership files.'
Media History Digital Library - Technical Journals Collection
Includes scholarly and professional publications dealing with technological improvements that have shaped the creation and production of films (Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, later known as Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, American Cinematographer, International Projectionist and more).
Browse the collection page or use MHDL Lantern (search page) and limit it by collection or by revelant publication title.

Click on the SMPTE Journals (Society of Motion Picture Technology & Engineering) tab to search a wider range of years for technical journals with filters. including document formats.

Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers
(1930-1949, 1957) Accessed through Media History Digital Library
George Eastman Museum - Technicolor Online Research Archive
Access to Return 2022, (1914-1955) More than 40,000 documents—notes, journals, correspondence, film tests, technical drawings, and more—from the George Eastman Museum's Technicolor collections.
Media History Digital Library - Technical Journals Collection
Includes scholarly and professional publications dealing with technological improvements that have shaped the creation and production of films (Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, later known as Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, American Cinematographer, International Projectionist and more).
Browse the collection page or use MHDL Lantern (search page) and limit it by collection or by revelant publication title.

Click on the SMPTE Journals (Motion Picture Engineering tab to search a wider range of years for technical journals with filters. including document formats.

If interested in Film Music, please see the Audiovisuals Section and click on Audio/Music tab.

Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers
(1930-1949, 1957) Accessed through Media History Digital Library
Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies
Material related to the life of Thomas Edison and the dawn of recorded sound and video. Includes motion pictures, audio recordings, photographs, articles, etc.
Media History Digital Library - Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Collection
(1896-1964) Collection of publications pertaining to the topic of recorded sound technology.

Norman O. Dawn Collection
(1907-1975) A collection relating to the life and work of special effects artist Norman O. Dawn. "Features 164 display cards that illustrate over 230 of the 861 special effects Dawn created in more than 80 movies. Also present is a small amount of manuscript material, including correspondence, drawings, and reminiscences."

Booking Schedule for the Animation Kiosk at Innis College LIbrary
Please bring your own earphones. Be aware that Bluetooth and Lightning Apple Earphones are not compatible with the Animation Kiosk.
The Library of Congress - Origins of American Animation
Collection of animated films tracing the development of animation and the animation industry. Date range: 1900-1921.
Rarebit Early Animation Wiki
The Early Animation Wiki is a collaboration between faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates at the University of Toronto and AnimationResources.org. A project for gathering and sharing information on the early years of animation, its initial focus is on the United States but expanding to international materials. The wiki offers biographical information on animators, historical data on animation studios, and an extensive bibliography of sources on animation and related topics.

National Cinemas

UofT Newspaper Research Guide
Each section includes links to historical archives for newspapers across the globe.
> Organized by location (e.g., Canada, United States, Latin America & the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia)
> Check the date range carefully. Look for "HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS" in the navigation menu on the left side.
UofT Libraries - Subjects A-Z: Primary source
Use the Subject dropdown menu to narrow results by Country / Language Studies and more
The World Digital Library
The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.

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UofT Libraries - Subjects A-Z: Primary source
Use the Subject dropdown menu to narrow results by Country / Language Studies and more
National Cinemas Guide (UofT Libraries)
Media History Digital Library - Global Cinema Collection
(1904-1957) Global fan magazines spanning China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Latin America, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Socialism on Film: Module II Newsreels and Cinemagazines
This is a collection from Soviet, Chinese, Vietanmese, East European, British and Latin American filmmakers. The new module includes the China Today newsreels, diplomatic and political newsreels focused on the USSR, the GDR Magazine newsreels from the German Democratic Republic, global newsreels including Czechoslovakia in Pictures, Bulgarian Chronicle and Vietnam Today, and Soviet newsreels and cinemagazines including Around the Soviet Union, Agricultural News and Soviet Sport.

Asia

Chinese Film Classics
This is a research and learning project led by Christopher Rea. The website makes available a number of early Chinese films, with related academic literature and resources.
Chinese Film Classics - Directory of Early Chinese Films
The page for each film includes: the subtitled film,
basic information about production and personnel, and more.

Chinese film and newsreel scripts from the Cultural Revolution
Documentary films and newsreels were two of the major mass media and communication channels in China from the 1950’s through the 1970’s. They covered all aspects of social activities, though the emphasis was on developments in the building of a socialist country. The bulk of the items in the collection are transcripts for the documentary films and newsreels from the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976.

Hong Kong Film Archive - Site Map
National Archives of Singapore - Online Archives
Posters, Audio Visual materials, documents
Search tips: https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/tips
Korean Film Archive - Film Channels
Scroll down for links to KoFA film channels on YouTube, also can search their film index (KMDb) for details on films.
South Asia Archive
South Asia Archive is a primary and secondary source collection of culturally and historically significant literary material produced from and about the South Asian region. Items include journals, reports, books, legal documents, and rare film publicity booklets, and date from the early 18th century to the mid-20th century. They originate mainly from the Bengal area and most items are in English but 30% of the collection is written in vernacular languages.

Australasia

National Film and Sound Archive of Australia - Search Collection
Once you submit a search (try Basic or Advanced), Located on the filters on the left side under "Narrow Search by:".
Select "View/Listen Online Items" to see digitized content. Narrow by date using the "Year" filter further down the page
The website has additional details on exhibits https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection

Latin America

Classic Brazilian Cinema Online
(Brazilian Portugese Language) A unique collection of digitized historical film magazines from the 1910s to the 1970s, providing students and researchers with easy access to rare and previously dispersed sources documenting the cinematographic history of the largest country in Latin America.
Classic Mexican Cinema Online
(Spanish Language) A database of five historic film periodicals, illuminating the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema (1930s-1960s). The database also gives access to the personal scrapbook of pioneering filmmaker Fernando de Fuentes (1894-1958), as well as to a collection of fifty rare lobby cards.
International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA)
Archive of artistic work and related material by artists coming from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and artists of Latin American descent living and working in the United States.

North America

Toronto Public Library Digital Archive (CInema Studies)
Copy the following to draw in cinema-focused results: ("motion picture" OR "moving image" OR cinem* OR film OR movie)
> Add another search term with AND, NOT
>> e.g., ("motion picture" OR "moving image" OR cinem* OR film OR movie) AND director
National Film Board of Canada Search
A search tool to find films available online through the National Film Board of Canada, you can apply a date range to see films within the period of the assignment. Date range: 1939+

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
Personal papers and oral histories describing the immigrant experience in America and Canada between 1800 and 1950.

Library of Congress - Moving Image Research Center - Online Resources
Links to American online resources, institutions, and information related to the subjects of film and television: Archives, Museums, and Libraries, Organizations Informational Websites, Streaming Video, Scripts & Screenplays, Stock Footage, Still Images & Posters, Television Commercials
American Memory Project
From Library of Congress, the Project has “a diverse collection in a variety of formats (prints, photographs, letters, reports, sheet music, recordings, maps, etc.)”
African American Digital Collections
The Library of Congress' collection of material relating to Black history. Contains photographs, records, maps, books, etc.
National Museum of African American History & Culture
(1850s+) The Smithsonian's collection of material relating to Black history. Does not have a specific film exhibit, but exhibits can be searched by date range and location.

Europe

European Film Gateway
Hundreds of thousands of film historical documents as preserved in European film archives and cinémathèques: photos, posters, programmes, periodicals, censorship documents, rare feature and documentary films, newsreels and other materials.
EUscreen
(early 1900s +) This search interface offers free online access to videos, stills, texts and audio from European broadcasters and audiovisual archives
Cahiers du Cinéma
Archived issues of the French film criticism publication Cahiers du Cinéma, spanning 1951-1979.
German History and its Digital Memory in Moving Images
Offers World War I Era (1914-1918) films from the German Federal Archives Collection. The material contains about 120 films with a runtime of more than 21 hours. The web portal also presents films from the Weimar Republic era (1919-1933).

List of film archives - Wikipedia
This list is organized by country and links out to the archive websites. Please be aware that some of these Film Archives have digital collections, but it is not applicable for all of the entries.
Calisphere (California) - Digitized Collections
Calisphere's digitized collections have been contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California, libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state. Materials include photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more.
The Library of Congress - Digital Collections
Access to print, pictorial and audio-visual collections and other digital services. The Library of Congress has made digitized versions of collection materials available online since 1994, concentrating on its most rare collections and those unavailable anywhere else.
African American Digital Collections
The Library of Congress' collection of material relating to Black history. Contains photographs, records, maps, books, etc.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture - Digital Collections
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library) "Digital Schomburg provides access to information, interpretation, and scholarship on the global Black experience ... [Locate] online articles, digital exhibitions, photographs, audio and video streams, historical projects, and external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora.
Gallica
Digital library from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). Essential site for French digital images and documents.

UofT Newspaper Research Guide
Each section includes links to historical archives for newspapers across the globe.
> Organized by location (e.g., Canada, United States, Latin America & the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia)
> Check the date range carefully. Look for "HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS" in the navigation menu on the left side.
ICON: International Coalition on Newspapers Newspaper Digitization Projects
Independent and Revolutionary Mexican Newspapers
Open Access collection with over 1,000 titles from Mexico’s pre-independence, independence and revolutionary periods (1807-1929)

Research Guides

CIN201: Film Cultures 1: Art & Industry

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Film Industry (business docs, Production Code, Gov docs)

CineFiles (University of California, Berkeley)

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