Prelinger Archives
4,753–4,800 of 10,346 films, free to watch, from the world's open archives.
Where these films come from, and who sees what
Every film here plays from the archive that keeps it: the Internet Archive, Wikimedia Commons, the NASA Image and Video Library, the Library of Congress and Open Images (the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision). Nothing is copied to this site. Each film's page names its archive, links to its page there, and states its licence or status as the archive does.
Archive films carry no age ratings, so each is placed from the collections it sits in and the subjects the archive gives it, cautiously. Sexual content and nudity are left out altogether.
| Little Ones | Films for young children by name: nursery rhymes, lullabies, preschool. |
|---|---|
| Kids | Cartoons and animation, children's and family films, and educational films, unless they deal with war, propaganda, crime, horror or drugs, or carry racial caricature. |
| Tweens | Documentaries, science, nature and space, classic comedies, newsreels, commercials and lectures. |
| Teens | Everything else, including anything we cannot tell about; war, crime, horror and westerns go no lower. |
| Adult | Sexual themes (such as the old "sex hygiene" films), gore, surgery, slaughter, atrocity footage. |
Internet Archive
[Untitled: San Francisco]
Pianist; SF Street; Tourist bus/trolley; Native Americans; Cable Cars; Pan of Bay
Internet Archive
[Home movie: 099842: 1940s east coast autumn and winter road trip]
Midwestern family takes a road trip through the east in autumn and winter featuring fall color, 1940s cars and landscapes, a stalled car in the rain,…
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 011201
Home movie footage filmed in the Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and likely in surrounding countryside as well possibly in parts of Ohio in the…
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: Al Wesson Collection: Wessons' New Home]
New Home 1940; Street car topples over 1943; Bathing Beauty Contest Redondo Beach 1940.
Internet Archive
John Schmidt Collection: Reel 07
A road trip through the Southwest and Southern United States, including footage of Petrified Forest National Park, Cadillac Ranch, Castillo de San Marcos…
Internet Archive
Social Diseases In Men
Internet Archive
Education for Peace
On the American Friends Service Committee.
Internet Archive
[Coca-Cola, Fanta, Simba & Santiba Commercials]
Internet Archive
Wildwoods-By-the Sea, The
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: Can 10399: Seattle, Dancing, Winter Shots]
Skeletal Entry
Internet Archive
[Home movie: 098813: A rail fan in the midwest, 1958 National Model Railway Association meeting at Pittsburgh, PA, also some footage from the 1962 meeting]
1958 trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a rail fan attends the National Model Railway Association meeting; extensive views of Pittsburgh seen from a moving…
Internet Archive
Human Face of Japan, The
Skeletal Entry
Internet Archive
Home movie: 010054_001: 1940s Great Lakes recreations and Ohio parade
Home movie: 010054_001: 1940s Great Lakes recreations and Ohio parade
Internet Archive
Fair, The
Skeletal Entry
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 000079
Reel opens with what appears to be an office party with drinks and dancing, probably at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel, and then features a war memorial…
Internet Archive
In The Drink
British military film demonstrating the features and uses of safety dinghies supplied on British Royal Air Force planes during World War II. (Incomplete, tail…
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: Southern United States]
GS women outside house with suitcases, preparing to leave by carPan cherry orchard, trees in bloom road through orchard rooster birds in trees African…
Internet Archive
Assembly Lines of Defense
Internet Archive
Millions of Us
Internet Archive
Story of Milk: Part One: Production, The
Shots to be logged.
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: United Auto Workers Strikers in Detroit]
Pictures picketing and demonstrations by members of the United Automobile Workers of America in the late 1930s, probably in Michigan.
Internet Archive
Magic Bond, The
Internet Archive
We the People
0580 PA8277 We the People
Internet Archive
Agriculture USA
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 97319: Hiking the Grand Canyon
Viewing notes state: Kaibab trail Boy and his dog Suspension bridge over the Colorado River Phantom Ranch Muddy Colorado River Pack mules Motel Townhouse…
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: Ransohoff Collection: Horses, Lake, Recreation]
woman and dogs / at kennel / people on horses / overexposed (or light transfer) of foliage from horseback rider's POV / family by lake in swimsuits / canoeing…
Internet Archive
Science in Action: Aero Medicine
Internet Archive
Bathe The Baby
Internet Archive
Mechanical Engineering at duPont
PA8640 Mechanical Engineering at duPont
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 97305: Home and Travel to Utah
Viewing notes in can state: Winter show Springtime work in yard Family kids Zoo-monkeys Seal show Owls & Vultures St, George Utah Temple 60s
Internet Archive
Bicycle Today, Automobile Tomorrow
0700 PA8753 Bicycle Today, Automobile Tomorrow
Internet Archive
[275th Anniversary of Founding of Southampton, New York Pageant]
Internet Archive
001326
001326
Internet Archive
It Figures
To be logged.
Internet Archive
Home movie: 000443: 1950s Detroit Jewish family
Summary This vintage home movie compilation from the mid-20th century captures intimate and candid moments of family life, beginning with a baby in a bassinet…
Internet Archive
Reactions In Plants and Animals
Internet Archive
This Is Color
Internet Archive
Troubles of a Merchant and How to Stop Them, The
Internet Archive
Vista Stock Shots: Seashore
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: Mahoning Valley Collection, Roll 28]
Domestic geese; "Petrified Forest" roadside attraction; Devils Tower seen in circular vignette; needles (rocky points); POV shots driving; VS Mount Rushmore,…
Internet Archive
People And Particles
Follows physicists at the Cambridge electron accelerator as they design, construct and assemble equipment for an experiment in high energy physics.
Internet Archive
American Family #1
Skeletal Entry
Internet Archive
Life of Your Artificial Denture, The
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: The Empire City, Part 1]
Skeletal entry. Info in logbook.
Internet Archive
[Untitled: Sealtest Ice Cream]
Shoppers browsing Ice cream in grocery store, man taking survey/interviewing shoppers about best ice-cream for sealtest sound on PA-0712, no sound on PA-0671
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: "A Prefix to Piscatorialism"]
Dramatized scenes. Possibly shot in Berkeley or Oakland, California. Good stock shots to be logged. Woman walking dog down city street; men in car pick her…
Internet Archive
I Am a Doctor (Part I)
0726 PA8811 I Am a Doctor
Internet Archive
[Home movie: 098863: 1950 road trip through Canada, latter portions better photographed than beginning; featuring fishing, canoeing, rural Quebec, Montmorency Falls, zoo and garden sequences, and…
A 1950 road trip through Canada, latter portions of the reel are better quality than the beginning; featuring flower gardens, a zoo, captive bears, a…