Research guides: Cinema Studies: Freely Available Resources

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Contributions

Freely Available Resources for Cinema Studies

Many thanks to Philip Bardach (MI 2018) for his contributions to research and compiling these resources.

Online Films for Viewing (Open Access)

British Pathé Digital Collections

Films and still photographs from the entire archive of 90,000 videos covering newsreel, sports footage, social history documentaries, entertainment and music stories from 1896 to 1976.

BFI Player - Free Archive Collections

Explore free archive film collection on British Film Institute's Player including shorts and features, including 120 years of Britain on film.

Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire

This website holds detailed information on over 6000 films showing images of life in the British colonies.
Over 150 films are available for viewing online. You can search or browse for films by country, date, topic, or keyword.

European Film Gateway

This portal is a single access point to films, images and text from selected digital collections of 38 film archives across Europe. Items include photos, posters, programes, periodicals, censorship documents, rare feature and documentary films, newsreels, and other materials.

Internet Archive - Moving Image Archive.

The Internet Archive's Moving Images Library has free movies, films, and videos. This library contains thousands of digital movies uploaded by Internet Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts.
Many of these videos are available for free download. Check the Moving Image Archive FAQ for more information.

Library of Congress - Researchers Moving Images Research Center - Digital Moving Image Collections

Several hundred early motion pictures are viewable in the Library of Congress' American Memory Collections.

National Film Board of Canada

Enjoy documentaries, animations, alternative dramas and interactive productions on the web, on your personalized home page, or on your iPhone.
Please be aware that UofT users have access to additional films through UofT Libraries

NZ Online

Online showcase of New Zealand television, educational, nature, documentaries, films, short films and music videos with over 3,000 titles.

OpenCulture.com - Films

Open Culture is a website focused on open access resources. The film section has a list of links to online films organized by categories including: Comedy & Drama, Film Noir, Horror, Westerns, Martial Arts Movies, Silent Films, Documentaries, and Animation. There are also special collections of Oscar Winning Films and works by Andrei Tarkovsky and Charlie Chaplin.

Public Domain Review.

These curated collections of images, books, audio and film shine a light on curiosities and wonders from a wide range of online archives.

UbuWeb Film & Video

Hundreds of avant-garde films and videos for viewing online

Film Reviews (Open Access)

Movie Review Query Engine
Search engine that brings together complete reviews of popular films in theatres, DVD and online, from newspapers, journals and internet sources. Access by title, director, or actor.
Media Digital History Library (Lantern)
Reviews in publications from 1850-1996. Lantern is the search platform for the collections of the Media History Digital Library, an open access initiative. The Media History Digital Library (MHDL) digitizes collections of classic media periodicals that belong in the public domain for full public access.

Primary Source Materials (Open Access)

Media Digital History Library (Lantern)
Reviews in publications from 1850-1996. Lantern is the search platform for the collections of the Media History Digital Library, an open access initiative. The Media History Digital Library (MHDL) digitizes collections of classic media periodicals that belong in the public domain for full public access.
Media Digital History Library - Book Collection
A free online resource, featuring books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound.
Library of Congress Archives
Gateway to primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States, organized into thematic collections. Including: public domain image resources, audio, video, and archived Web content.
Motion Picture Periodicals, Books, and Pamphlets: Margaret Herrick Library
The digital collection of Periodicals, Books, and Pamphlets contains complete issues of various publications from the library’s collections. The library’s published holdings include industry trade publications, fan magazines, technical and scholarly books and journals, and studio house organs and myriad other rare publications.
Box Office Mojo
Box Office Mojo tracks online box office revenue and offers its published data.
Online Silent Film Periodicals (Bioscope)
List of international silent film periodicals that are available online via different European projects.

eBooks (Open Access)

JSTOR Open Access eBooks
More than 6,000 Open Access ebooks from 75+ publishers, including Brill, Cornell University Press, De Gruyter, and University of California Press, are now available at no cost to libraries or users.
Directory of Open Access Books
Contains several hundred academic books that are published online and are open access.
Google Books: Advanced Search
The Advanced search in Google Books allows you to limit to magazine content.
Internet Archive - eBooks and Texts Collection
The Internet Archive offers millions of freely downloadable books and texts.
Internet Archive - Open Library
Open editable library catalogue with selected scanned online books from the Internet Archive. Items browsable by subject, author, or list.

Article Databases - scholarly journals (Open Access)

JSTOR Open Access Journals
This collection offers broad coverage in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) Open Access Journals List
CRKN maintains a list of open access journals supported by CRKN member institutions.

Film eJournals (Open Access)

Alphaville
Alphaville covers all aspects of film and screen media history, theory and criticism through multiple research methodologies and perspectives.
Mise-en-scène : The Journal of Film & Visual Narration
Mise-en-scène specializes in scholarly works at the crossroads of film, media studies, and popular culture.
Kinema
KINEMA publishes articles, critiques of film and media literature. It also reports on international film festivals, conferences and other important events.
Cinemontage
CineMontage Magazine has a lineage of almost 40 years as the Journal of the Motion Picture Editors Guild, publishing stories about its members working in the many crafts of the post-production industry.
Screening the Past
Screening the Past publishes material of interest to historians of film and media, to film and media scholars, to social historians interested in the place of film and media within general history, to film makers interested in the history of their craft or in representing history through their productions, to film and media librarians and archivists.
CINEJ Cinema Journal
CINEJ Cinema Journal is a free, online and print, open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal of Cinema.
Senses of Cinema
Senses of Cinema is primarily concerned with ideas about particular films or bodies of work, but also with the regimes (ideological, economic and so forth) under which films are produced and viewed, and with the more abstract theoretical and philosophical issues raised by film study.
Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image
The journal publishes original essays and critical articles, reviews, conference reports and interviews, and releases original art work in the field of philosophical inquiry into cinema.
Electric Sheep
Electric Sheep is an online magazine covering offbeat, left-field and cult cinema.
Scope
Scope provides a forum for discussion of all aspects of film and television history, theory and criticism.
Journal for Religion, Film and Media
JRFM is a peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication. It offers a platform for scholarly research in the broad field of religion and media, with a particular interest in audio-visual and interactive forms of communication.
Kinokultura: New Russian Cinema
Kinokultura is a quarterly journal that publishes writings on contemporary Russian visual culture, especially cinema, as well as festival reports.

Research Guides

Cinema Studies

Ask for Help

Contributions

Freely Available Resources for Cinema Studies

Online Films for Viewing (Open Access)

Film Reviews (Open Access)

Primary Source Materials (Open Access)

eBooks (Open Access)

Article Databases - scholarly journals (Open Access)

Film eJournals (Open Access)

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