Guides and databases: Film and Media Studies: Film streaming and DVDs

Film, video, and television streaming

Film streaming

Academic Video Online
Academic Video online delivers more than 66,000 titles spanning subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. Accessibility statement for Academic Video Online.
BFI Player
Access for UCL students and staff only. To set up access to your BFI Player subscription follow these steps:
1. Go to BFI Player and create an account OR sign in if you already have one by selecting 'Already have an account? Sign in'
2. Select University College London from the dropdown list
3. Login using your UCL username and password.
Once you've set up your subscription, you can login on BFI Player for the remainder of this academic year; BFI Player is unavailable outside the UK; it is to be used by UCL students and staff for academic purposes only and access is limited to the subscription content
Bloomsbury Video Library: Arts and Humanities Collection
Previously called ArtFilms. Featuring international content across the visual arts and performing arts, film, history this collection features exclusive indie films and shorts, avant-garde performances, interviews with renowned writers, artists, choreographers, performers and practitioners, documentaries and more
BoB (Box of Broadcasts)
Access for UCL students and staff only. Access to BoB is only permitted within the United Kingdom. Requires login with UCL username and password. BoB is Learning on Screen’s on demand TV and radio service for education allowing users to record programmes from over 75 free-to-air channels, access over 2.2 million broadcasts dating back to the 1970s, create playlists, clips and clip compilations; search programme transcripts and subtitles; embed content in VLEs and share on social media
Kanopy
Providing video streaming to over 26,000 films including thousands of award-winning documentaries, training films and theatrical releases. The collection includes a number of leading producers, such as the Criterion Collection, PBS, Kino Lorber, New Day Films, The Great Courses, California Newsreel, BBC and hundreds more. Accessibility statement for Kanopy.
Video Data Bank (VDB) Streaming
Offering access to a collection of video art and experimental moving image work by and about contemporary artists. The VDB’s collection includes the work of more than 600 artists and 6,000 video art titles.
World Cinema Collection : Films on Demand
Streaming films from Africa, America, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, from the silent era, the mid-20th century, as well as award-winning contemporary works.

UCL Centre for Languages and International Education Self-Access Centre
A collection of off-air films, documentaries and lectures that is available to all UCL students and staff.

The Library also subscribes to several databases of primary source film and video content.

Digital Theatre+
Featuring filmed productions, practitioner interviews, and a wide range of written introductory/contextual materials. Including Digital Theatre's own recordings alongside collections such as the Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the BBC, Broadway Digital Archive, Eclipse, Royal Opera House, London Symphony Orchestra and LA Theatre Works audio radio-plays. Practitioner interviews exploring process, craft and technique with academics, playwrights and industry insiders and expert research resources such as encyclopedia entries, workshops, lectures and essays written by academics and industry insiders
Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI): Educational Streaming Site
EAI's Educational Streaming Site, contains full-length streaming videos for the featured artists.
Ethnographic Video Online
UCL has access to Vols. I and II: Foundational Films and Vol. III: Indigenous Voices.
MediaPlus
A service for UK higher and further education community bringing more than 100,000 videos, images, and sound recordings to your screen.
Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960-1974
Through letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral histories; accounts from official, radical, and alternative organizations; posters, broadsides, pamphlets, advertisements, and rare materials —125,000 pages of text and 50 hours of video—this collection tells the story of the 60s.
Socialism on Film: The Cold War and International Propaganda
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.
Theatre in Video
Streaming video of performances of more than 100 plays and 60 film documentaries, including the BBC Shakespeare Series. When complete, it will include more than 350 plays and documentaries from the 1930s onwards.
Victorian Popular Culture
Focused on popular entertainment in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is divided into 4 sections: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic; Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema

These streaming services require a personal subscription and films can only be viewed on an individual basis.

MUBI
Curated film collections.
Netflix
Unlimited films, TV programmes and more.
Prime Video
Amazon Prime film and TV streaming.

In addition to the above, Reelgood is a free guide to streaming services which aids discovery across platforms and can be personalised to view all your subscription and free content in one place. Browse, search, and watch TV and movies from over 20 services including Netflix, NOW TV, Disney+, Prime Video, BBC iPlayer and more

EU Screen
Free online access to videos, stills, texts and audio from European broadcasters and audiovisual archives. Explore selected content from early 1900s until today.
Film4
Freeview TV channel.
Freevee
Free film streaming (with ads) via the Amazon platform.
Internet Archive Moving Image Archive
Library containing thousands of free movies, films, and videos, including some classic full-length films.
Talking Pictures TV
An independent archive film and television channel available via Virgin 445, Freeview 81, Sky channel 328, Freesat 306, Youview 81.

SSEES Library's Bain Graffy Film Collection

The Library’s Bain Graffy Film Collection focuses on Russian, Soviet, Central and Eastern European and Central Asian films. It covers feature films, animations and documentaries from across the region.

The collection comprises more than 6,000 DVDs and hundreds of recorded discs with programmes recorded from television. It is one of the biggest collections of its kind in the UK.

The collection is available to UCL staff and students only. The items cannot be borrowed, but they can be watched on site in the Library in the Multimedia Room.

The Bain Graffy Film Collection

DVD collections

UCL library collections include DVDs, which can be borrowed and watched at home or in the library. You can search for a film in our DVD collection in Explore. Type your search term, for example: the title of the film or the name of the director, plus the word "DVD".

Search the BFI Player

BFI Player
Access for UCL students and staff only. To set up access to your BFI Player subscription follow these steps:
1. Go to BFI Player and create an account OR sign in if you already have one by selecting 'Already have an account? Sign in'
2. Select University College London from the dropdown list
3. Login using your UCL username and password.
Once you've set up your subscription, you can login on BFI Player for the remainder of this academic year; BFI Player is unavailable outside the UK; it is to be used by UCL students and staff for academic purposes only and access is limited to the subscription content

Search Kanopy

Source: Kanopy, Inc

Kanopy
Providing video streaming to over 26,000 films including thousands of award-winning documentaries, training films and theatrical releases. The collection includes a number of leading producers, such as the Criterion Collection, PBS, Kino Lorber, New Day Films, The Great Courses, California Newsreel, BBC and hundreds more. Accessibility statement for Kanopy.

Search BOB National

BoB (Box of Broadcasts)
Access for UCL students and staff only. Access to BoB is only permitted within the United Kingdom. Requires login with UCL username and password. BoB is Learning on Screen’s on demand TV and radio service for education allowing users to record programmes from over 75 free-to-air channels, access over 2.2 million broadcasts dating back to the 1970s, create playlists, clips and clip compilations; search programme transcripts and subtitles; embed content in VLEs and share on social media

Search Explore

Check out our Explore guide to find out more about how to use Explore for your research.

Explore guide