Media Distributors and Depositories

A list of distributors and depositories for various analog and digital film/video resources. While we generally consider these to be reputable vendors, this list should not be considered as an official endorsement.

Streaming Services

• Alexander Street – Passionate about creating landmark online resources that help scholars and students discover and learn with curated, discipline-focused, primary-source collections, websites, and streaming media for learning and research.
• Crackle – A streaming service that offers a variety of movies, TV shows, and original series for free.
• Criterion Channel – The Criterion Channel is a movie lover’s dream, offering classics and discoveries from around the world, thematically programmed with special features.
• Fandor – Fandor makes it easy for anyone to navigate the world of independent film.
• Max – A streaming platform that offers iconic series, hit movies, fresh originals, live sports, and more from HBO, Discovery, and other sources.
• Hulu – Hulu offers a vast variety of streamable content, most notably, its large selection of Criterion and Janus films.
• Kanopy – Stream thousands of films for free, thanks to the generous support of your public library or university.
• Netflix – Netflix members can instantly watch unlimited movies and TV episodes streamed over the Internet to PCs, Macs and TVs.
• MUBI – An online movie theater where you watch, discover, and discuss auteur cinema.
• Shudder – Shudder is the diabolical new streaming service devoted exclusively to things that go bump in the night.
• Tubi – A free streaming service that offers thousands of movies and TV shows from studios like Paramount, Lionsgate, MGM and more.
• UbuWeb – Presents hundreds of avant-garde films & videos for your viewing pleasure as well as concrete poetry, ethnopoetics, papers, articles, and much more.
• YouTube Movies and Shows – From award-winning hits to independent releases, watch on any device and from the comfort of your home. Free and purchased content available.

Print, Tape, and DVD Distribution

• Arrow Video – Arrow Video US offers a wide range of Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases of cult, classic and horror movies.
• Canyon Cinema – An unrivaled collection of more than 3500 films traces the history of the experimental and avant-garde filmmaking movement from the 1930s to the present. Canyon’s primary activity is the rental distribution of Super 8mm,16mm, and 35mm films (and their DVD transfers) by independent film artists.
• Criterion Collection – Since 1984, the Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, has been dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements.
• Deluxe – Founded in 1915, Deluxe is the world’s leading creation-to-distribution company, offering global, end-to-end services for theatrical markets and beyond. Through unmatched scale, technology, and capabilities, Deluxe enables the worldwide market for professionally created media.
• Drafthouse Films – Drafthouse Films, the film distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, is a curated brand of provocative, visionary and artfully unusual films new and old from around the world.
• Facets Multi-Media – A non-profit, 501(C)3 and a leading national media arts organization. Facets mission is to preserve, present, distribute, and educate about film.
• Kino Lorber International – While continuing to distribute classic films in their original 35mm format, Kino also focuses on the distribution (in all media) of high-quality contemporary world cinema, American independents, and documentaries — usually by up-and-coming directors.
• Janus Films – An American film distribution company, credited with introducing numerous films, now considered masterpieces of world cinema, to American audiences; including the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Sergei Eisenstein, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, François Truffaut, Yasujir, Ozu and many other well-regarded directors.
• Swank – Licenses and distributes content to non-theatrical markets, such as cruise lines, U.S. colleges and universities, K-12 public schools and libraries, hospitals, motor coaches, passenger trains and other markets like parks, art museums and businesses.
• Video Out Distribution – A non-profit, artist-run distribution centre that has distributed artists’ tapes to festivals, galleries, educational institutions, broadcasters, and individuals since 1980.
• Vinegar Syndrome – Providing public access to our ever-growing archive of rare and forgotten cult film by performing expert-level restorations and creating compelling home video packages for both 4K UHD and Blu-ray.

Film/Video Archives, Libraries, and Societies

• American Film Institute Louis B. Mayer Library – The only national arts organization devoted to film, television and video. The American Film Institute serves as a point of national focus and coordination for the many individuals and institutions concerned with the moving image as art.
• Anthology Film Archives – Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental, and avant-garde cinema.
• British Film Institute – The BFI was founded in 1933 and is a charity governed by a Royal Charter. They combine cultural, creative and industrial roles, bringing together the BFI National Archive and BFI Reuben Library, film distribution, exhibition and education at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX, publishing and festivals.
• Cinémathèque Française – The French Cinematheque was founded in 1936 by Henri Langlois, Georges Franju and Jean Mitry Paul Auguste Harle. Rich in experience, the French Cinematheque hosts the largest archive of films, movie documents, and film-related objects in the world.
• The Crawford Theater Collection, Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives – The Crawford Theater Collection consists of playbills and programs, photographs in a variety of formats, engravings, posters, clippings and other printed material which document the performing arts in the United States and throughout the world from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries. Material relating to dramatic performance forms the nucleus of the collection, but dance, opera, motion picture, circus, radio and television performances are also represented.
• George Eastman House: International Museum of Photography and Film – The George Eastman House collects and interprets images, films, literature, and equipment in the disciplines of photography and motion pictures — and it cares for the George Eastman legacy collections — to inspire discovery and learning for a regional, national, and international audience.
• Harvard Film Archive – Established with the assistance of the Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1979, the Harvard Film Archive has grown into an incomparably rich resource for scholars and filmmakers.
• The Internet Archive – The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format.
• JSTOR – A not–for–profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive of over one thousand academic journals and other scholarly content.
• Library of Congress – The Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections.
• Museum of Modern Art: Film and Media Collection – Founded in 1935 as the Film Library, this department’s collection now includes more than 22,000 films and four million film stills; the strongest international film collection in the United States, it incorporates all periods and genres. Among the holdings are original negatives of the Biograph and Edison companies, and the world’s largest collection of D. W. Griffith films.
• Museum of the Moving Image – Advancing the public understanding and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media.
• The Society of Cinema & Media Studies – The SCMS is the leading scholarly organization in the United States dedicated to promoting a broad understanding of film, television, and related media through research and teaching grounded in the contemporary humanities tradition.
• TIFF Film Reference Library – The ultimate resource for filmmakers, students, researchers, screenwriters and film and television professionals. The Library maintains the world’s largest resource of English-language Canadian film and film-related materials as well as a wide range of local, national and international film resources.
• UCF Libraries – The libraries of the University of Central Florida.
• UCLA Film & Television Archive – The second largest moving image archive in the United States after the Library of Congress, and the world’s largest university-based media archive.
• Yale Film Studies Research Guide – A guide to conducting research in Film Studies at Yale University, including key resources and crucial search strategies.