Prelinger Archives
5,905–5,952 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
Home Movie: Charles Forbes Taylor Collection: 003436
Southern California family posing for camera, spending time outside and with each other, and celebrating a wedding in the 1940s. Also documents manual…
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 012684
Revelry, good fun, and good times displayed and documented by a group of young people in the Midwest during the late 1950s. Women party with cans of beer,…
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 71102: Detroit Family
To come.
Internet Archive
Vista Stock Shots: San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, Roll 3
Internet Archive
Boys Beware
Anti-homosexual film targeted at teenage boys, urging them to avoid encounters with potential molesters.
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 11831: Phal Family
To come.
Internet Archive
Strohm 0043
Farming communities in rural India, including footage of Indian farmers and children reading the Ford Almanac for Farm, Ranch, and Home and women weaving.
Internet Archive
Winning Against Odds
Internet Archive
[Home movie: 098816: A rail fan in the midwest splices together scenes from two sponsored films about trains together with his own footage of a spectacular train wreck]
Composite reel featuring two sponsored films, "Railroad Story" by Lionel Films, and "Southern Pacific Steam Locomotive" spliced with the editor's own 16mm…
Internet Archive
Camera Eye on New Jersey
Sponsored film about infrastructure and industry in the state of New Jersey. Can notes: "Work print / Camera Eye On New Jersey 1960"
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 004167
A couple travels from Arizona to Southern California. Includes visits to Catalina Island and Santa Monica. Note on can: "CALIFORNIA"
Internet Archive
Indian Summer
Indian Summer
Internet Archive
Testing Animal Intelligence: White Rat and Monkey
Internet Archive
Feet First
feet, shoes and podiatry
Internet Archive
As Boys Grow
Sex education film aimed at teenage boys, with the coach as authority figure and teacher.
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: Can 10606: The Smedley School]
Internet Archive
Timber In The Northeast
Internet Archive
Home Movie: Kenneth Nettleton Collection: 001924
A wealthy family travels to France via steamship in 1928. Includes sequences of life aboard the vessel as it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, patrons at outdoor…
Internet Archive
[Television Public Service Announcements and Program Promos]
Skeletal entry tv spots in order: - National Safety Council: Winter Driving Safety tips with Julie Bishop (4 spots) - Women's Army Corps - National Guard (2…
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 001505
Part II of an African American family's trip to Africa. Extended families in Nigeria gather for holiday feast, followed by extensive city scenes in Lagos and…
Internet Archive
Home Movies: Can 11327: San Francisco Bay, Zoo, Lake and Fleet Week, ca. 1929-31
Scenes shot on San Francisco Bay during Fleet Week (ca. 1929-31), on a lake and at a zoo.
Internet Archive
Playstreets
Recreation in inner cities for children.
Internet Archive
Stillman Fires Collection: Fires Other Cities
from Stillman Fires Collection.
Internet Archive
Social Seminar: “Bunny”
Internet Archive
Home Movie: Rick Laubscher Collection: 010417
Content advisory: Animal cruelty in the form of bullfights. The people, architecture, landscape and markets of Mexico in the 1930s are at the heart of this…
Internet Archive
Movie Trailers ("Look for Exits")
Internet Archive
[Home movie: 098443: 1947 farm and factory scenes]
17 min., color: Well-photographed various sequences of light industry and farm scenes with milk production, crop dusting, cotton farming, exotic fowl, and a…
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 97487: Hawaii and Korea
Notes on can state: Fall 1946 Hawaii Spring 1947 Korea
Internet Archive
Strohm 0051 (Reel 1)
Industry and rural life in 1950s China featuring political activity, agricultural work and mining. Color footage of many of these shots exists in Strohm 0041…
Internet Archive
Laboratory Diagnosis of Rabies, The
Internet Archive
Experiments in Conduction of Heat
Skeletal Entry
Internet Archive
Mode-Art Can 1258 (Reel 2)
Outtakes from an industrial film featuring scenes of molten steel and saw manufacturing. Leader: Reel 2, Tiesler, 957-2- H.K. Porter, #A32749 Tissue: Boded
Internet Archive
Home Movie: Charles Edward Smith Collection: 000465
Historically significant footage of California agriculture and extractive industry in the 1930s. Filmed in Kern County, the reel documents agricultural…
Internet Archive
Four Seasons Adventure
four seasons at Estes Park, Colorado
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: Ransohoff Collection, Can 1-5: Yosemite]
Internet Archive
[Richard Walters T-Fal]
Outtake footage consisting of shots of T-Fal cookware products, possibly for a production sponsored by T-Fal. Includes footage of a woman washing pots,…
Internet Archive
The Treasure and the Trinket (A-Roll)
A-roll (of A/B rolls; see item 202887 for B-roll) of an overview of Temple Buell College (formerly and soon again to be known as Colorado Women's College), a…
Internet Archive
Christopher Columbus
Internet Archive
Home movie: 010131_001: 1950s amateur film of women at beach in La Jolla
Home movie: 010131_001: 1950s amateur film of women at beach in La Jolla
Internet Archive
Home Movie: Bill Dicicco Collection: 003747
A wealthy white family living in China in the 1930s. Includes footage of their home and their house staff tending to their property, as well as the…
Internet Archive
Portions of Twenty Three States in Two Parts (silent, Part 1)
Part one of a road trip travelogue beginning in New York City's Washington Square and closing in Portland, Oregon. (see item 202730 for Part 2) Film is silent…
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 10979: Christmas 1953
To come.
Internet Archive
[Home movie: 098193: Cruise LA to Acapulco, reel 1 c1966]
14.5 min., color: Princess Cruise Lines tour from LA to Acapulco, with shipboard scenes and several stops at coastal small towns, circa 1966.
Internet Archive
[Home Movies: Can 10663: Echo Lake and Fair]
Internet Archive
[Stanford Documents of World War II and Red Revolution Revealed]
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 97306: Home and Travel to Utah
Viewing notes in can state: Summer kids & family Salt Lake City winter Mormon Temple Snowball fights Summer fun
Internet Archive
Home Movie: Galante Collection: 004318
Winter scenes of skiing, boarding a train in the snow, and many lovely shots of snowy forest and icy trees. Can K- plus square
Internet Archive
Home Movie: 10056: Visit to California, ca. 1920s
Home movie depicting a visit to southern California and the snowy mountains, ca. 1920s.