Links to Free Online Streaming Platforms for Films and Moving Image Work

Last updated January 17, 2018

Temperatūra ne pagal Celsijų / Off Gauge Temperature (Almantas Grikevičius, 1973)

Recommended by Herb Shellenberger. Click on CC in the frame above to switch on English subtitles.

Online at the Lithuanian documentary films website, run by Meno Avilys: http://sinemateka.lt

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Film Studies For Free brings you an entry that has come about because of a piece of Facebook crowdsourcing by film curator extraordinaire Herb Shellenberger. Shellenberger requested from his friends any links they had to free online streaming platforms for films and moving image work. He was especially interested in ones that are run by archives, and most interested in those outside the US/UK.

A wonderful list of links was rapidly assembled to a wide variety of international platforms, only some of which FSFF has tweeted or blogged about before. So, courtesy of Shellenberger and his friends, below is the list (with acknowledgement given to the individual suggesting each link - thanks especially to Patrick Friel for his extensive contribution, along with Herb).

If you have any further suggestions to make for the list, please use the Comments thread below.

• The American Indian Film Gallery (AIFG) is an online collection of more than 450 historic films by and about Native peoples of the Americas, compiled and digitized by historian J. Fred MacDonald over many years. These films range in date from 1925-2010. https://aifg.arizona.edu (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• Archive of Hungarian Public Television https://nava.hu/ (thanks to Zsolt Gyenge)
• Audiovisual Thinking - a leading journal of academic videos about audiovisuality, communication, media and design. http://www.audiovisualthinking.org
• Austrian Film Museum - a lot of material (still growing) among them Dziga Vertov's Kinonedeljas and soon his Kinopravdas http://filmmuseum.at/en/collections/film_online
• Béla Balázs Studio in Hungary.. (a little harder to navigate but has plenty of gems http://bbsarchiv.hu/en (thanks to HS)
• Ben Model's 'Accidentally Preserved' - YouTube channel of silent film accompanist/historian  including his collection of rare or lost silent films from vintage 16mm prints https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-lLg-Ljx6NZbIU8MIbY37w (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• The British Council An archive of 120 short documentary films made by the British Council during the 1940s http://film.britishcouncil.org/ (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• The British Film Institute YouTube channel, including a selection of orphan films  http://www.youtube.com/user/BFIfilms
• Chicago Film Archives - a regional film archive dedicated to identifying, collecting, preserving and providing access to films that represent the US Midwest http://www.chicagofilmarchives.org (Thanks to Lori Felker)
• Cinemargentino Argentine Film Institute (INCAA) platform https://play.cine.ar/bienvenida/#play (thanks to Sarah Dockhorn)
• Cineteca di Bologna - YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/CinetecaBologna (thanks to Franco Consales)
• Cineteta Nacional Online Chilean films to be viewed online from the archive for free, grouped in: Archive collections & Specials, there are 245 movies available to watch online in streaming mode. http://www.ccplm.cl/sitio/secciones/cineteca-nacional/cineteca-online/ (thanks to Vlad Rosas)
• Cineteca Virtual - Virtual Cineteca of the University of Chile film archives http://www.cinetecavirtual.cl/ (thanks to George Clark)
• Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire Over 150 films are available for viewing online, all showing images of life in the British colonies http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• Daazo Shortfilms European shortfilms and social media platform http://www.daazo.com (thanks to Zsolt Gyenge)
• Distribution Centre for Finnish Media Art - not a completely free platform but you can rent out presentation rights for research use and watch some free previews as well http://www.av-arkki.fi (thanks to Viika Sankila)
• DIVA Station - a material and on-line archive of video and new-media art developed by Center for Contemporary Arts, SCCA-Ljubljana since 2005 http://www.e-arhiv.org/diva/index.php?lang_pref=en (thanks to Max Grau)
• EU Screen - a consortium of European broadcasters and audiovisual archives, streaming lots of  archive programmes from European broadcasters http://euscreen.eu
• EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam YouTube channel of the national museum for film in the Netherlands https://www.youtube.com/user/eyefilmNL/
• Filmsdivision - Quasi-dysfunctional (but incredible) online archive of Films Division - the Indian state-run production house of government propaganda designed to "maintain a cinematic record of Indian history." http://filmsdivision.org/category/archives (thanks to Ashim Ahluwalia)
• Folkstreams maintains a huge archive of (mostly) American (mostly) short documentaries that chronicle lesser-seen elements of American culture http://www.folkstreams.net (thanks to Alexander Lesher)
• The History Club channel on YouTube has an astonishing archive of Russian and Soviet film - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI8LB46N9tHfvF4qvKim90g (thanks to Juliet Jacques)
• Hungarian National Film Archive (Magyar Nemzeti Filmarchívum) - possibly temporary free Vimeo channel (catch it before January 22) https://vimeo.com/filmarchivum/ (thanks to Zsolt Gyenge)
• Indiancine.ma - an annotated online archive of Indian film. It is intended to serve as a shared resource for film scholars and enthusiasts in India and beyond. https://indiancine.ma (thanks to Ashim Ahluwalia)
• Internet Archive - a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. Moving Image Archive with hundreds of public domain films: https://archive.org/details/movies
• [inTransition: Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies found footage works made to generate new knowledge through their audio-visual form http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/intransition/
• Japanese Animation Film Classics http://animation.filmarchives.jp/index.html (thanks to Черная Дыра)
• Jeff Quitney (individual) YouTube Page gathering dozens of digitally restored/cleaned-up educational, government, sponsored, and other public domain films and television items. 1940s-1980s, primarily https://www.youtube.com/user/webdev17/videos (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• The Korean Film Archive has a YouTube channel of free subtitled features from its collection. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvH6u_Qzn5RQdz9W198umDw (thanks to Rufus L de Rham)
• Library of Congress Lots of items, in varying resolutions. Including the recent Selections from the National Film Registry has 66 titles, most in high-resolution. Most downloadable. https://www.loc.gov/collections/selections-from-the-national-film-registry/?sp=1 (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• Lithuanian documentary films 1950s-2000s, run by Meno Avilys: http://sinemateka.lt (thanks to HS)
• LUX Online Exhibitions A series of online exhibitions of screenworks from the LUX Collection https://lux.org.uk/whats-on/online-exhibitions 
• Media Burn preserving audiovisual records of history and culture and engaging audiences with their creative reuse http://mediaburn.org/ (Thanks to Lori Felker)
• Mosfilm Soviet Features with subtitles https://www.youtube.com/user/mosfilm/videos (thanks to Alexandra Anikina)
• The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw has some Polish avant-garde film and video art online Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie/ Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw - https://artmuseum.pl/en/filmoteka/ (thanks to HS)
• National Film Archive in Poland - animation and experimental films are free to stream http://repozytorium.fn.org.pl/?q=en (thanks to HS)
• National Film Board of Canada - the NFB's award-winning online Screening Room, featuring over 3,000 productions https://www.nfb.ca/
• National Film Preservation Foundation “Screening Room”: Treasures from American Film Archives; EYE Project; Lost and Found: Too Much Johnson; Lost and Found: New Zealand; Lost and Found: Australia; Saved Through the NFPF; PLUS: A resource directory to other preserved films online: https://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/where-to-see-more-films-preserved-with-nfpf-support (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• National Film Preservation Foundation Online Guide to Sponsored Films https://www.filmpreservation.org/sponsored-films (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• Net Film - The Russian Film Archive https://www.net-film.ru/en/ (thanks to Vladimir Nadein)
• New York Public Library Digital Collections: Jerome Robbins Dance Division Audio And Moving Image Archive https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/danceaudiovideo (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• OAR – Oxford Artistic and Practice Based Research Platform - some moving image work http://www.oarplatform.com 
• Peabody Awards Archive - A resource for radio and television materials, its holdings include most of the submissions to the notable award since 1940. While not all material is digitized, the staff will take requests to digitize programs from researchers. http://www.libs.uga.edu/media/collections/peabody/pbdatabase/index.html (thanks to Jason Mittell)
• Películas Mudas / Silent Cinema - YouTube channel directed by Víctor Ramiro and Eduard José Gasulla https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_tMkLTLLDNTbebWHKXJ6-Q/ (thanks to Peter Bosma)
• PLAT - featuring the work of Spanish experimental/independent filmmakers http://plat.tv/ (thanks to Elena Duque)
• The Public Domain Review Film Archive - its focus is on works which have now fallen into the public domain http://publicdomainreview.org/medium/film/ (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• Screenworks a forum for the dissemination and discussion of practice research (often including experimental films) that includes space for reflection on research contexts. http://screenworks.org.uk
• Svensk film archive Swedish film archive website: http://www.filmarkivet.se
• TATE Online - video and audio material to stream http://www.tate.org.uk/search?q=film&type=media
• Thanhouser Films Online - free streaming video to all 56 films currently available on the Thanhouser DVD collection (those directed, produced and distributed by the Thanhouser Company, the pioneering American motion picture studio of New Rochelle, New York)  https://www.thanhouser.org/videos-online.htm (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• UbuWeb: Film & Video avant-garde films & videos presented for educational and non-commercial use http://www.ubu.com/film/ 
• UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center YouTube account gathering 14 historic documentaries (1960s-70s), including the Farmersville films https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWT3h0f3iUI&list=PLRbWnGoy2ay-uxnVhCyFmewkpQu_oj4fG (thanks to Patrick Friel)
• Vectors Journal - a forum for "works that need, for whatever reason, to exist in multimedia. In so doing, we aim to explore the immersive and experiential dimensions of emerging scholarly vernaculars across media platforms." http://vectors.usc.edu/journal/index.php
• VIDEOFREEX Pirate TV (not completely free but, if not free, very cheap VOD of some rare films) https://videofreexpiratetv.vhx.tv (thanks to Liz Flintz)
• Videonale - online archive of one of the most important and renowned festivals of video art and time-based arts in Germany and Europe http://archiv.videonale.org/en/ (thanks to Maz Grau)
• Western Front Society Vimeo channel - maintains an extensive, digitized archive of experimental work created and presented over the past thirty years, and is committed to preserving the legacy of Canada’s artistic community. https://vimeo.com/westernfrontsociety (Thanks to Pablo de Ocampo)
• Wild Film History - multi-media guide to the history and heritage of wildlife filmmaking with numerous streamable films and clips http://www.wildfilmhistory.org (thanks to Patrick Friel)

Note: OpenCulture.com also has a great list of free online films, and currently links to at least two of the channels suggested by the crowdsourcing above). It sourced its list from the following collections: Public domain collection of film noir at Archive.org - Boing Boing; The Best: Movies in the Public Domain - Wired; Films in the Public Domain - Wikipedia; Fimoculous list of Hulu Movies; About.com: Download the Classics; Salon: The Future is Almost Now.

Temperatūra ne pagal Celsijų / Off Gauge Temperature (Almantas Grikevičius, 1973)

Recommended by Herb Shellenberger.

Online at the Lithuanian documentary films website, run by Meno Avilys: http://sinemateka.lt