LibGuides: How to Find Media: Find Films and Videos

Searching the Library Catalog

Go to the Library Catalog.
In the search box, type the title.
Click the Search button to view the results of your search. Then in the left-hand "Tweak your results" menu choose "Videos" under "Resource Type."

Go to the Library Catalog.
In the search box, type the name of the director, actor, performer, or related individual you are looking for.
Click the Search button to view the results of your search. Then in the left-hand "Tweak your results" menu choose "Videos" under "Resource Type."

Go to the Library Catalog.
Type "Video" into the search box.
In the "Tweak your results" section apply these filters:
- Availability = Held by library
- Resource Type = Videos
In the "Tweak your results" section click on the drop down menu next to "Sort by" and change "Relevance" to "Title." The search will update.
To view the full record for an item, click on the title.

Searching Library Databases

Unfortunately, there is no single search that will display all streaming video in the online catalog.

However, if you search the Library Catalog by title, subject, etc., all matching streaming videos will show up. You can use the categories in the left column to tweak your results:

Availability = Available Online
Resource Type = Videos

We also have several special collections of streaming video, including databases:

Kanopy This link opens in a new window
This film database contains many different types of films, including documentaries, instructional films, and more. Films in this database will show up in a regular catalog search.

Raw Footage of State of Illinois: Discover America
This footage may be freely reused, modified, incorporated, etc. for any non-commercial use, such as student projects.

DocuSeek2 Complete Collection, The This link opens in a new window
The DocuSeek2 Complete Collection: Second Edition contains 1800 exclusive documentaries and social issues films, from leading film producers and distributors, including Bullfrog Films, Icarus Films, the National Film Board of Canada, Kartemquin Films, MediaStorm, Scorpion TV, and more. These documentaries cover issues ranging from world history and politics to environmental studies and health.
Filmakers Library Online This link opens in a new window
The collection includes documentaries that are already heavily used in humanities and social science classrooms. Topical coverage is contemporary and relevant across the curriculum--race and gender studies, human rights, globalization and global studies, multiculturalism, international relations, criminal justice, the environment, bioethics, health, political science and current events, psychology, arts, literature, and more. The titles in Filmakers Library Online present points of view and historical and current experiences from diverse cultures and traditions world-wide.
SAGE Research Methods: Video This link opens in a new window
Video tutorials, interviews, case studies, and mini-documentaries covering the entire research process. Contributors include expert researchers at various institutions, SAGE authors, teachers, and more.

Area Studies

Asian Film Online: Volume I and II This link opens in a new window
Asian Film Online offers a view of Asian culture as seen through the lens of the independent Asian filmmaker. Through a selection of narrative feature films, documentaries and shorts curated by film scholars and critics, the collection offers highly relevant perspectives and insights onto themes relevant across Asia, including modernity, globalization, female agency, social and political unrest, and cultural and sexual identity.
Latin America in Video This link opens in a new window
Latin America in Video offers quality original language documentaries from some of the most important producers and independent filmmakers in Latin America. The films were produced in Latin America, by Latin Americans, about Latin American issues, such as cultural identity, political history, human rights, popular culture, agribusiness, education, religion, and much more.

Arts & Humanities

Broadway HD This link opens in a new window
BroadwayHD collects recordings of theatre and film performances both historical and from the 21st century.
Classical Music in Video This link opens in a new window
Searchable database for the study of classical music in streaming video format. At completion it will contain 1,000 hours of classical music performances and master classes captured on video--approximately 1,500 performances in all. The collection will contain performances of all forms of classical music, including major orchestral performances by leading orchestras, plus chamber music, oratorio, and solo performances, along with master classes and interviews with master teachers from around the world. Coverage of musical time periods spans Medieval to the 21st century, and performances cover historical recordings from the 1950s up to the most current recordings today.
Critical Studies and Performance Practice This link opens in a new window
This collection from Drama Online features over 400 academic books from Methuen Drama and The Arden Shakespeare imprints. Together they offer invaluable critical, contextual and pedagogic content from leading voices in theatre, performance and Shakespeare studies.
The collection also includes 60 actor training videos through PATAZ: Physical Actor Training - an online A-Z.
Dance in Video: Volumes I, II & III This link opens in a new window
Dance in Video contains dance productions and documentaries by the most influential performers and companies of the 20th century. Selections cover ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisational dance, as well as forerunners of the forms and the pioneers of modern concert dance.
Digital Theatre Plus This link opens in a new window
Digital Theatre Plus includes recordings of classic, contemporary and international live theatre performances, interviews exploring the dramatic, technical theatre-making process as well as experimental, post-dramatic and applied theatre, and essays, documentaries, lectures, and study guides covering theatre history, context, language analysis, encyclopedia entries, and practical techniques.
Fashion Studies Online This link opens in a new window
This collection features content from the archives of Videofashion, a provider of fashion video footage. More than 80 percent of the films are exclusive and including nearly 40 years of worldwide fashion shows, designer profiles, and documentary segments. The collection includes series from the history of Videofashion, including Designer DNA, Elements of Style, Fashion Classics, Millennium Fashion, Model TV, and VideoFashion News.
Music & Performing Arts This link opens in a new window
Music & Performing Arts combines audio and video that spans all time periods, hundreds of thousands of seminal artists, composers, choreographers, and ensembles.
National Theatre Collection (Volumes I & II) This link opens in a new window
National Theatre Collection brings the stage to life through access to high-definition streaming video of world-class productions and unique archival material offering significant insight into theatre and performance studies. Through a collaboration with the U.K.'s National Theatre, the collections offer a range of digital performance resources never previously seen outside of the National Theatre’s archive.
New World Cinema: Independent Features and Shorts This link opens in a new window
The collection includes approximately 200 full-length feature films from leading independent distributors such as Kino Lorber, First Run Features, Film Movement, MK2, and the Global Films Initiative. All films were presented at major film festivals, many were nominated for awards, and many have major awards. Collectively the films in the database have won more than 1,000 awards.
Opera in Video This link opens in a new window
This searchable and browsable database contains five hundred hours of the most important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews, and documentaries.
Shakespeare's Globe on Screen (2008-2015) This link opens in a new window
A video archive of performances at the Globe Theatre reconstruction from 2008-2015 and 2016-2018.
Silent Film Online This link opens in a new window
Silent Film Online brings together films which represent the basis of modern cinematic technique and film theory. This database covers silent features, serials, and shorts from the 1890s to the 1930s and includes examples of the silent film movement from Germany, Britain, the Soviet Union, and France. The resource complements its feature films with a selection of related documentaries
Theatre in Video This link opens in a new window
This browsable and searchable database contains performances of the world's leading plays and film documentaries on the subject of theater in streaming video. Some plays presented in multiple productions exemplifying various interpretations of the text, and technical and cultural differences among the presentations. Stage work of directors and actors are cross-searchable and available for side-by-side comparison. Interviews with directors, designers, writers, and actors, along with excerpts of live performances, provide illustration of the development of texts and the productions.

Business

Business Education in Video This link opens in a new window
Global Business and Economics in Video features case studies, documentaries, interviews, biographies, and lectures that focus on the human side of commerce. Following the case method employed by top business schools, these films offer a first-hand look at how the conflict between unlimited demand and limited resources plays out in real life. Subjects covered include Globalization, Operations & Logistics, Management, Marketing, Finance, Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, International Business, Negotiations, Ethics, Cross-cultural communication, Technology, and much more.

Education

Education In Video: Volume I and II This link opens in a new window
Education in Video provides a collection of streaming video developed specifically for training and developing teachers. Upon completion, the collection will contain more than 1,650 hours of teaching demonstrations, lectures, documentaries, and primary-source footage of students and teachers in actual classrooms.

Health & Medicine

Acland's Anatomy This link opens in a new window
Acland's Video Atlas of Human Anatomy uses fresh, unembalmed specimens that retain the color, texture, mobility of the living human body. A concise synchronized narration runs throughout the program. As each new structure is shown, its name appears on the screen.
Bate's Visual Guide to Physical Examination This link opens in a new window
Now in its Fifth Edition and featuring completely reshot content and new clinical skills videos, Bates' Visual Guide delivers head-to-toe and systems-based physical examination techniques for the (Advanced) Assessment or Introduction to Clinical Medicine course. The site features more than 8 hours of video content.
Counseling and Therapy in Video: Volumes I-V This link opens in a new window
Provides an online collection of video available for the study of social work, psychotherapy, psychology, and psychiatric counseling--over 500 hours and more than 500 videos. Videos include counseling sessions and demonstrations, consultations, lectures, presentations, and interviews. Many videos include supplementary materials for classroom use, and continuing education credits are available for a number of titles.
Health and Society in Video This link opens in a new window
Health and Society in Video defines and explores today's latest medical progress in health and wellness issues and their impact on society. This resource includes documentaries, profiles, reports, and interviews
Nursing Education in Video This link opens in a new window
The result of Alexander Street's partnership with Medcom-Trainex, one of the largest providers of nursing education video programs worldwide, Nursing Education in Video gives faculty and students anywhere-anytime access to Medcom's highly regarded library of full-length training programs -- online in streaming video -- with all of the search power and advanced functionality that Alexander Street's video collections deliver. As a single, cross-searchable collection, Nursing Education in Video covers the fundamentals of nurse training and advanced topics.
Rehabilitation Therapy in Video This link opens in a new window
Rehabilitation Therapy in Video is a collection of more than 750 hours of streaming video focused on the physical treatment of patients with congenital disorders, chronic health issues, and traumatic injuries. The videos feature occupational, physical, and speech therapists explaining the underlying anatomical and neurological issues in specific patient populations, while demonstrating effective techniques and methods for their treatment. With footage of therapists working with actual patients, as well as models and illustrations, this collection offers students and faculty a firsthand look at the realities of working with patients and putting theoretical concepts into practice.
Sports Medicine and Exercise Science in Video This link opens in a new window
This video collection is assembled for the study of human movement, conditioning, performance, rehabilitation, and physical education. Developed through an exclusive partnership with Healthy Learning, the world's leading producer of sports medicine videos, the collection features the most popular titles from the American College of Sports Medicine's catalog. The collection features an array of internationally renowned physicians, exercise scientists, certified athletic trainers, physical therapists, registered dietitians, sport psychologists, personal trainers, and health/wellness experts who share information, ideas, and insights on the principles, techniques, and modalities of modern exercise science and sports medicine.

History

American History in Video This link opens in a new window
At completion, American History in Video will include 2,000 total hours of streaming video content. More than half will be contemporaneous video from the 1890s to the 1980s. The early newsreels, including the complete series of United Newsreel and Universal Newsreel, available online in their entirety only in this collection, capture history as it was made and reported to viewers of the time ... American History in Video also includes hundreds of the documentaries most frequently used in history classrooms, from leading video content producers such as PBS, California Newsreel, Bullfrog Films, Documentary Educational Resources, Pennebaker Hegedus Films, The History Channel, and others.
March of Time This link opens in a new window
This resource includes an archive of The March of Time films. From 1935-1967, American theatergoers and television watchers were witness to Time Inc.'s unique and controversial film series. The March of Time series aired its first short subject film in theaters in the U.S. in 1935, and immediately turned heads among the media and ordinary citizens. These covered an eclectic range of topics, and took divergent and sometimes controversial perspectives that audiences hadn't seen before in this format.
Socialism on Film This link opens in a new window
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba. - See more at: http://www.socialismonfilm.amdigital.co.uk/#sthash.McOpse05.dpuf
World History in Video: English Language Documents This link opens in a new window
World history in video is an online collection of streaming video that gives users access to critically acclaimed documentaries from filmmakers worldwide. Upon completion the collection will include more than 1750 documentaries that offer a survey of human history from the earliest civilizations to the fall of the Berlin Wall. World history in video covers Africa and the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania.
World Newsreels in Video This link opens in a new window
Searchable database of streaming videos that features full runs of many of the key international newsreels produced during the first half of the twentieth century. The collection allows users to search by subject, year, historical era, historical event, people, and places.

News

60 Minutes This link opens in a new window
Provides streaming video access to the 60 Minutes news show archive for the third and fourth decades of this long-running show, plus segments from the CBS News program Sunday Morning. Includes transcripts of the videos for ease of citation, and a citation export feature. Topics include international and national news, politics, women's studies, society and culture, and many more.
Meet the Press This link opens in a new window
The Meet the Press collection makes over 1,500 hours of footage--the full surviving broadcast run from 1947 to present day--available online in one cross-searchable interface. Network television's longest running program--with its thousands of interviews, panels, and debates--is available via streaming online video.

Science & Technology

Environmental Studies In Video This link opens in a new window
Environmental Studies in Video will contain 500 hours of film covering all realms of environmental studies, particularly ethics, policy, economics, law, sociology, planning, and environmental science. The collection addresses specific topics including alternative energy, pollution control, eco-design, sustainability, farming and agriculture, the food industry, LEED certification, waste issues, and climate change.
Multimedia Fluid Mechanics Online This link opens in a new window
Video of fluid mechanic visualizations, interactive animations, and virtual labs covering the topics of kinematics, dynamics, interfacial phenomena, similarity and scaling, boundary layers, turbulence, and control volumes.

Social Sciences

Black Studies in Video This link opens in a new window
In partnership with California Newsreel, the oldest non-profit social issue documentary film center in the country, this collection includes cutting-edge racial justice and diversity films that inspire, educate and engage audiences. Additionally, Black Studies in Video features access to the SNCC Legacy Video Collection, a series of formal addresses, panel discussions and programs that took place at a conference and reunion unfolding over four days at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
Ethnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition This link opens in a new window
Ethnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition is a curriculum-aligned collection of videos and segments curated to support the teaching of introductory anthropology courses. Each video and segment within this collection are accompanied by a teaching guide providing background information, lesson plans, and class room exercises and activities. There are a variety of themes that are discussed including family and kinship, gender roles, cultural identity, belief systems and other topics centered around diversity, change, and culture.
LGBT Studies in Video This link opens in a new window
LGBT Studies in Video is a cinematic survey of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as well as the cultural and political evolution of the LGBT community. It features award-winning documentaries, interviews, archival footage, and select feature films exploring LGBT history, gay culture and subcultures, civil rights, marriage equality, LGBT families, AIDS, transgender issues, religious perspectives on homosexuality, global comparative experiences, and other topics. A primary partner for this collection is Frameline, a nonprofit media organization that produces the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, the oldest film festival devoted to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender programming currently in existence.

Resources Outside Illinois

If you need a film or other type of media for your research, you can acquire it through Interlibrary Loan just as you would a book or article. You can also check with your local public library.

A film you need might also be available via a streaming service such as Netflix. Hulu Plus contains many films in the Criterion Collection, and occasionally some are made available to stream freely. However, these services require a paid subscription (though many offer a free trial).