Open Video Collection Websites: List of Open Access Videos A-O

This Research Guide provides information on streaming video resources that are offered free of charge.

• Academic Earth
  This website contains video lectures from leading scholars in the areas of astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, economics, engineering, English,  history, law, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology and religion.

• AdViews
  AdViews is a digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s from Duke University.

• Al Jazeera Video (CC)
  Al Jazeera’s Creative Commons Repository contains broadcast footage that Al Jazeera has released under various Creative Commons licenses.

• American Experience
  View complete episodes of select films from the acclaimed PBS documentary series.

• American Indian Film Gallery
  Vintage motion pictures offering rich perspectives on the American Indian experience. The site organizes titles by tribes, linking to films for more than 100 tribes.  A text box to describe each film is nonfunctioning, providing only "lorum ipsum dolor" filler text as a place holder.  Apart from what displays in the film itself, no additional information (publication date, running time, etc.) is provided. These archival films are not perfect. Some were educational shorts used in American schools from the 1930s to the 1970s. Several have abbreviated titles or missing endings. Some are spliced or scratched; others have faded color.  These films are windows into the human past, stunning documents with much to tell us about our New World story.

• American Memory (motion pictures)
  The American Memory project from the Library of Congress provides access to several hundred early motion pictures, organized into 11 discrete collections: America at Work, America at Leisure: Motion Pictures from 1894-1915 American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920 Before and After the Great Earthquake and Fire: Early Films of San Francisco, 1897-1916 Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904 Last Days of a President: Films of McKinley and the Pan-American Exposition, 1901 Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898-1906 Origins of American Animation Prosperity and Thrift: the Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929 Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures Theodore Roosevelt: His Life and Times on Film

• American Rhetoric
  Features a growing collection of text, audio, and video versions of over 5,000 speeches. The site provides access to "public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, and other recorded media events." Includes sections for Christian rhetoric, "Top 100 Speeches," "Rhetorical Figures in Sound," "Rhetoric of 9-11," and more. Notable is the selection of speeches from movies, arranged alphabetically by title. Not all speeches have accompanying videos. Site supported by advertising, and maintained by a speech communication professor.

• Annenberg Media Program Video Archive
  Free educational videos from the Annenberg Foundation, a non-profit educational organization.

• Archaeology Channel Video
  The Archaeology Channel provides free access to a large collection of streaming media covering archaeology worldwide.

• Archive of American Television
  Hosted by the TV Academy Foundation this archive provides access to hundreds of in-depth video interviews with TV's greatest legends and pioneers. These television history interviews can be browsed by person, show, topic or profession. New interviews and indexes are added regularly.

• ARKive  
  DIGITAL MEDIA (IMAGES, VIDEOS). Unique collection of thousands of wildlife videos, images, and fact-files, with a special focus on the world's threatened species.

• ART:21
  Created by P.B.S., this Web site is patterned after a nationally broadcast series on contemporary art, artists, and ideas. Among other things, this site has an online lesson library, teacher materials and discussions. Full episodes are available in the PBS video portal.

• Babelgum
  An internet and mobile tv platform that organizes its video content into thematic channels with dedicated publishers who select content based on their areas of expertise.

• BBC History of the World in 100 Objects
  Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, narrates 100 programa that retell humanity's history through the objects we have made. Each episode consists of an image of the item discussed, and a radio naration lasting about 15 minutes.

• BBC Online Media
  Provides online access to BBC's archives including themed collections of radio and TV programs, documents and photographs.

• CDC TV
  Web visitors can now view or download videos on a variety of health, safety and preparedness topics. The library of videos will expand to include single-topic presentations as well as different video series focused on children, parents, and public health professionals.

• C-SPAN Video Library
  Contains all C-SPAN programs since 1987, indexed, abstracted, and cataloged by the C-SPAN Archives staff. Programs are indexed by subject, speaker names, titles, affiliations, sponsors, committees, categories, formats, policy groups, keywords, and location. The congressional sessions and committee hearings are indexed by person with full-text.

• Civil Rights Digital Library
  Provides access to online films, texts, images, and audio recordings related to the Civil Rights movement in the United States in the 1950's and 1960's. CRDL is a partnership among librarians, technologists, archivists, educators, scholars, academic publishers, and public broadcasters. The initiative receives support through a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The site provides both simple keyword searching and advanced searching. Content also can be browsed by Events, Places, People, Topics, Media Types (including print, government records, correspondences, etc.) Other features of the site include numerous instructional materials, including lesson plans, quizzes, slide shows, study guides, and worksheets.

• CNN Video Almanac
  Archive of some of the most notable CNN video since the channel's beginning in 1980.

• Creative Commons Video Sites
  This is a listing of over 200 Creative Commons (CC) licensed video media collections. This content is freely accessible, and depending on the specific CC license applied, may allow for greater reuse of this content above and beyond copyright fair use exemptions.

• Critical Commons
  Professors post clips media analysis through the use of film clips.

• Europa Film Treasures
  Provides access to films of early European cinema from 30 European film archives.

• Europeana
  A collection of 6 million digital images of paintings, music, films and books from Europe's galleries, libraries, archives and museums. Included are images, texts, sounds and videos.

• EVIA Digital Archive Project - Ethnographic Video for Instruction & Analysis
  Collaborative endeavor to create a digital archive of ethnographic field video for use by scholars and instructors. Funded since 2001 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with significant contributions from Indiana University and the University of Michigan, the Project has been developed through the joint efforts of ethnographic scholars, archivists, librarians, technologists, and legal experts. Beyond the primary mission of digitally preserving ethnographic field video, the EVIA Project has also invested significantly in the creation of software and systems for the annotation, discovery, playback, peer review, and scholarly publication of video and accompanying descriptions. Viewing videos requires registering for an account and agreeing to the end-user license agreement.

• Folkstreams
  Provides streaming access to a large collection of documentary films about American folk, or roots, cultures. Includes essays about the traditions and filmmakes, transcriptions, study and teaching guides, suggested readings, and links to related websites. Site provides simple keyword and advanced searching, as well as ability to brose by subjects, regions, titles, filmmakers, and other categories. Video displays include links to additional, related films.

• Frontline
  View complete episodes of a large selection of films from the acclaimed PBS public affairs series.

• Global Performing Arts Database

• HEAL: Health Education Assets Library
  A national repository/referatory of free, web-based multimedia teaching materials in the health sciences. The collection is comprised of images, animations, videos and audio-files. Registration is required.

• HealthLibrary Online
  The Stanford Health Library provides a collection of online videos covering various health topics, including health and society, cancer support, and women's health. Videos may be viewable online through Stanford University iUniversity (iTunes interface) or QuickTime, or available for purchase on DVD. Not all videos are available for online viewing.

• HippoCampus
  A project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE), HippoCampus provides high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students. Content is organized by broad disciplines: Algebra, American Government, Biology, Calculus, Environmental Science, Physics, Psychology, Religion, Statistics, US History. The site was designed as part of Open Education Resources (OER), a worldwide effort to improve access to quality education. Colleges and universities develop the content and contributes it to the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC), another MITE project. Both HippoCampus and NROC are supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

• History Channel Video
  Selected full length History Channel programs.

• Hulu
  A partnership between NBC and ABC (Disney), Hulu is predominantly a site for television content. Hulu distributes video both on its own website and syndicates its hosting to other sites, and allows users to embed Hulu clips on their websites. In addition to NBC, ABC and FOX programs and movies, Hulu carries shows from other networks such as Comedy Central, PBS, USA Network, Bravo, FX, Syfy, Sundance, E!, and other commercial producers. The Channel link at the bottom of the Hulu homepage provides a broad subject organization of its content, including "News and Information" which includes sub-categories of Current News, Documentary & Biography, Live Events & Specials, and Politics.

• Internet Archive
  The Moving Image Archive within the Internet Archive provides access to nearly a quarter million films, uploaded by Archive users, and ranging from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Videos in the Archive are organized into 15 broad sub-categories: Animation and Cartoons, Arts & Music, Computers & Technology, Cultural & Academic Films, Ephemeral Films, Home Movies, Movies, News & Public Affairs, Open Source Movies, Spirituality & Religion, Sports Videos, Video Games, Vlogs, and Youth Media. The Archive also contains the Prelinger Archive, the most complete and varied collection of ephemeral films (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) in existence.

• Internet Movie Database
  The most comprehensive movie source on the web. Provides information on movies around the world, from earliest times to the latest releases. Includes filmographies, plot summaries, reviews, biographical data, etc.

• iTunes U
  A diverse range of freely available courses spanning a wide array of disciplines from multiple institutions.
• JoVE Science Education Videos until June 15, 2020 JoVE videos show scientific experiments from laboratories around the world. They allow scientists, educators, and students to see the intricate details of cutting-edge experiments.
• Khan Academy
  With a library of over 2,400 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and 125 practice exercises, we're on a mission to help you learn whatever you want, whenever you want, at your own pace.
• Learners TV
  This is a comprehensive site providing thousands of streaming and downloadable video lectures, live nnline Tests, and other materials in the fields of Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Dentistry, Engineering, History, Language Training, Law, Literature, Management and Accounting, Mathematics, Medicine, Nursing, Physics, and Psychology. The site provides free video and audio lectures of whole courses conducted by university faculty from around the world. Most of the materials offered are licensed by the respective institutes under a Creative Commons License.

• Med-Mem Mediterranean Memory
  A free video archive library; thousands of videos preserve the historic, cultural and tourism heritage of the area. English, French, and Arabic. Co-founded by the European Union.

• Media Burn
  The Media Burn Archive is a collection of over 6,000 independent, non-corporate tapes that reflect cultural, political and social reality as seen by independent producers, from 1969 to the present.

• Media That Matters Film Festival
  Annual collection showcasing twelve short films on important topics of the day. Seven years of films available on the site, organized alphabetically by title, by year. A simple search interface facilitates finding films by keyword. Films may also be browsed by one of 15 issues: Criminal Justice, Economic Justice, Environment, Family & Society, Gay/Lesbian, Gender/Women, Health/Health Advocacy, Human Rights, Immigration, International, Media, Politics/Government, Racial Justice, Religous Freedom, and Youth.

• Merlot
  Includes animations and other learning resources.

• Mike Wallace, The Interviews
  Video of 65 interviews from the television series hosted by the late Mike Wallace from 1957 and 1958. Provided by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Each program includes a text transcript. Available interviewees include Eleanor Roosevelt, Frank Lloyd Wright, Margaret Sanger, and Salvador Dali among other notables of the time.

• MIT Open Courseware
  MIT instructors provide a range of courses freely available online.

• Movieclips
  Provides more than 12,000 short clips from feature films licensed from Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. The Movieclips player can be embedded in social networks as Facebook and MySpace, and shared on blogs, Twitter and other personal websites, and used in PowerPoint presentations. In addition to searching by title or actor, the site provide additional search capabilities for dialogue, genre, action, occassion, theme, and mood and categories including best kiss, tearjerkers, birthdays, holidays, awkward moments, action moments, bad guys and fight scenes. Reuse of the clips requires registering with the site.

• Museum of Broadcast Communications Archive
  The archive includes more than 8,500 digitized television shows, radio programs, and photos (free, but must create user account).

• National Committee for Fluid Mechanics Films (NCFMF)
  A series of films created by Ascher Shapiro in the 1960s, used to teach fluid mechanics.

• National Film Board of Canada
  The National Film Board of Canada is a Canadian government agency that produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions of Canadian born film. The NFB website provides information on over 13,000 Canadian Film Board sponsored films, and includes free access to over 2,000 films, excerpts, trailers, and interactive works for online screening.

• National Geographic Video
  Video programs from Nat Geo TV and web only audiovisual material.

• National Parks Service B-Roll Video
  This webpage provides links to public domain video of some of those sites, including national parks, monuments, battlefields, historic sites and related areas. This content is great for remixing, reuse in projects and publication.

• Newslook
  Videos in the Archive are organized into 15 broad sub-categories: Animation and Cartoons, Arts & Music, Computers & Technology, Cultural & Academic Films, Ephemeral Films, Home Movies, Movies, News & Public Affairs, Open Source Movies, Spirituality & Religion, Sports Videos, Video Games, Vlogs, and Youth Media. The site provides free video and audio lectures of whole courses conducted by university faculty from around the world. Most of the materials offered are licensed by the respective institutes under a Creative Commons License.

• NIHSeniorHealth - Health Information for Older Adults
  NIHSeniorHealth makes aging-related health information easily accessible for family members and friends seeking reliable, easy to understand online health information. This site was developed by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM) both part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

• NOVA
  Provides access to selected programs from the acclaimed PBS science series. Programs are divided into chapters and have closed captioning. Available videos are organized by broad subject categories: Anthropology, Disasters, Earth, Exploration, Flight, Health, History, Investigations, Nature, Physics & Math, Space, and Technology.