Video Collections Librarian
Troubleshooting
Having trouble watching videos? Here are some tips that might help you.
Is the UVa personal digital certificate on your computer up-to-date?
Have you tried accessing the videos through different Internet browsers? Do you have the latest versions of the browsers installed on your computer?
Have you cleared your cookies?
If you receive an error message with an error code, have you looked it up online?
For watching streaming video off Grounds, you may need to install UVaAnywhere-Lite WebVPN to access the film. Most of the time, you just need to log in to Netbadge with your computing ID and password.
Accessibility Info for Streaming Video
Streaming Videos
The Streaming Collection
The library provides access to more than 100,000 licensed streaming titles. Most of these titles are for use by students, faculty, and staff only, usually because of licensing restrictions, and must be viewed via the UVa network. Off Grounds, you may be asked to sign in to Netbadge to go through the proxy server, or you may install UVaAnywhere-Lite VPN or UVa's Virtual Private Network to facilitate access.
Finding Streaming Videos in Virgo
Streaming videos may be found in Virgo, the library’s online catalog, by limiting the “Resource Type” facet on the left side of a catalog results page. First limit results to "Video," then limit that results page to an availability of "Online." Regular title or keyword searches or strings will then retrieve only streaming videos. Please also see the list of links below for quick access to streaming video portals.
Streaming Videos for Classes
Classes use streaming videos from several sources. Many videos required for courses are watchable through Virgo (look them up by title) or through the portals listed below. Access to other streaming videos may be provided through discrete URLs or in Canvas course sites. Please contact Leigh Rockey if you wish to make streaming videos available for your class.
Sharing Online Videos via Zoom: Proprietary streaming video providers, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Swank, often will not work through Zoom screen share.
Streaming Video Portals at U.Va. Library
- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new windowUsers may have to clear cookies before being able to watch films.
Academic Video Online is a multidisciplinary collection of over 70,000 titles spanning the widest range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. More than 14,000 titles are exclusive to Alexander Street Press.
- Acland's Video Atlas of Human AnatomySupports the teaching and learning of anatomy with more than 300 narrated videos of real cadaver specimens.
- American History in Video This link opens in a new windowOver 5,000 films, commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and documentaries showing historical events and their presentation over time.
- Avalon at UVaAvalon houses selected streaming video and audio collections pertinent to the teaching and research needs at UVa.
- Bloomsbury Video Library This link opens in a new windowAccess to masterclasses, documentaries, and interviews. Artfilms streams thousands of videos from top artists and producers.
- Dance in Video This link opens in a new windowDance productions and documentaries covering ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisational dance in the 20th century.
- Digitalia Film Library This link opens in a new windowDigitalia Film Library provides streaming access to hundreds of foreign feature films and documentaries from Spain, Argentina, Brazil, and France, among others.
- Digital Theatre+ This link opens in a new windowPatrons using Google Chrome must have the newest version of the Chrome browser in order to continue watching content on Digital Theatre+.
Digital Theatre+ collaborates with over 50 world-class theatre companies, industry associations, practitioners, teachers, examination boards and scholars to capture and curate live performance in stunning quality. The database also brings a range of insights from behind the scenes and educational resources to support study at every level. - Docuseek2 Complete Collection This link opens in a new windowDocuseek streams essential independent, social-issue and environmental films to colleges and universities, providing exclusive access to content from renowned leaders in documentary film distribution.
- Drama Online Video LibraryView performances of plays from the National Theatre and the Globe on Screen.
- Electronic Arts Intermix This link opens in a new windowElectronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is a nonprofit arts organization for video and media art. Full-length streaming videos are available for various artists.
- Explorations in Black Leadership This link opens in a new windowVideo, audio, and text of interviews with leaders in the black community, conducted chiefly by Julian Bond. These oral histories focus on leadership and the transformational role of the civil rights movement in America.
- Feature Films for Education This link opens in a new windowUsers may have to clear cookies before being able to watch films.
Feature Films for Education provides streaming access to over 600 feature films across numerous genres. - Filmakers Library Online This link opens in a new windowFilmakers Library Online provides award-winning documentaries with relevance across the curriculum—race and gender studies, human rights, globalization and global studies, multiculturalism, international relations, criminal justice, the environment, bioethics, health, political science and current events, psychology, arts, literature, and more.
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowA streaming video platform that makes it easy to incorporate educational video content into academic curriculum.
- Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies This link opens in a new windowThe Fortunoff Archive currently holds more than 4,400 testimonies, which are comprised of over 12,000 recorded hours of videotape. Testimonies were produced in cooperation with thirty-six affiliated projects across North America, South America, Europe, and Israel. The Fortunoff Archive and its affiliates recorded the testimonies of willing individuals with first-hand experience of the Nazi persecutions, including those who were in hiding, survivors, bystanders, resistants, and liberators. Testimonies were recorded in whatever language the witness preferred, and range in length from 30 minutes to over 40 hours
- HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowAround 150,000 stories are assembled here from life oral history interviews with 2,700 historically significant African Americans including politicians, religious leaders, athletes, musicians, civil rights activists, soldiers, and many more.
- JoVE Core This link opens in a new windowVideo textbooks which explain concepts taught in undergraduate courses through high-impact animations and real-life experiments.
- JoVE Science Education This link opens in a new windowA video library dedicated to teaching the practice and theory of scientific experiments through engaging and easy-to-understand visual demonstrations.
- Kanopy Streaming This link opens in a new windowKanopy provides access to feature films, documentaries, short films, and more. It includes films from The Criterion Collection, California Newsreel, DEFA German Film, Media Education Foundation, Roland Collection, First Run Features, Green Planet Films, Stenhouse, Medcom, Michael Blackwood, Kino Lorber and thousands of other educational filmmakers.
To watch a film off-Grounds: at the "Create your account" page, click on "Skip" to be taken to the video to view. - LinkedIn Learning- For Students and Faculty This link opens in a new windowLinkedIn Learning is a leading online learning company that helps anyone learn business, software, technology and creative skills to achieve personal and professional goals. Members have access to the lynda.com video library of engaging, top-quality courses taught by recognized industry experts.
- Met Opera on Demand This link opens in a new windowEnjoy instant access to 550 full-length Met performances with the online streaming database.
- Music Online: Classical Music in VideoThis database contains 1,000 hours of classical music performances and masterclasses captured on video—approximately 1,500 performances in all. The collection will contain performances of all forms of classical music, including major orchestral performances by leading orchestras, plus chamber music, oratorio, and solo performances, along with masterclasses and interviews with master teachers from around the world.
- Music Online: Opera in VideoThis database contains five hundred hours of the most important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews, and documentaries. Selections represent the world’s best performers, conductors, and opera houses and are based on a work’s importance to the operatic canon.
- National Theatre Collection This link opens in a new windowNational Theatre Collection brings the stage to life through access to high definition streaming video of world-class productions and unique archival material offering significant insight into theatre and performance studies.
- OntheboardsTV This link opens in a new windowOntheBoards.tv offers high-quality videos of full-length performances by some of today's most provocative artists working in dance, theater, music and other forms that defy categorization.
- PBS SelectionCurated collection of older streaming videos originally broadcast on PBS. Includes several of Ken Burns' series, American Experience, Scientific American Frontiers, and many others.
- Platino Educa This link opens in a new windowPlatino Educa is a Spanish Language film streaming platform with over 300 films from Spain and Latin America. The films are classified by subject and cover a broad range of themes, including art, history, environmental science, literature, and social justice. The films were specifically selected for teaching and some come paired with preselected scene clips and educational guides. Films have Spanish and English subtitles.
- Poets on Screen This link opens in a new windowVideo clips of poets reading their own and also older poems.
- Projectr This link opens in a new windowProjectr presents a curated collection of acclaimed indie films, archival restorations, and award-winning documentaries from around the world.
- Psychotherapy.net This link opens in a new windowPyschotherapy.net includes training videos featuring the leading practitioners of the field.
- SAGE Research Methods VideoHundreds of streaming videos cover every aspect of the research process, including how-to videos of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods.
- SAGE Video This link opens in a new windowCounseling & Psychotherapy, Criminology & Criminal Justice, Sociology, and Social Work Video Collections are included.
- Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive This link opens in a new windowThe Visual History Archive is the Shoah Foundation Institute’s collection of audiovisual interviews with witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides. With a current collection of more than 54,000 eyewitness testimonies, the Visual History Archive is the largest digital collection of its kind in the world. It preserves history as told by the people who lived it. Each testimony is a unique source of insight and knowledge, offering powerful stories from history that demand to be explored and shared.
- Socialism on Film: The Cold War and International Propaganda This link opens in a new windowThis 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.
- SwankSwank streams top-tier movies and documentaries. Currently, Swank videos will not work in Safari and occasionally not in Firefox. Chrome should be OK, as well as Microsoft Edge.
- Theatre in Video This link opens in a new windowStreaming video of over 350 productions of plays from Aeschylus through Shakespeare and Beckett to Sam Shepherd. Also documentaries about productions and interviews with authors, directors, and actors.
- Vanderbilt Television News Archives This link opens in a new windowSummaries of newscasts from CNN and NBC with selected streaming video can be accessed. The archive begins with August, 1968.
- William A. Elwood Civil Rights Lawyers ProjectSource footage for the documentary, "The Road to Brown: the untold story of 'the man who killed Jim Crow'" (California Newsreel, 1990) by William A. Elwood, former professor at the University of Virginia. Includes interviews with notable civil rights lawyers and others about the life of Charles Hamilton Houston, his crusade for civil rights, and the events that led to Brown v. the Board of Education.
- WSLS-TV News Film Collection, 1951-1971 This link opens in a new windowThis collection contains both news reels and scripts from WSLS-TV in Roanoke, VA. These mid-20th century broadcasts were given to the University of Virginia Library for preservation and use. The resulting collection spans 1951 to 1971 and comprises approximately 13,000 clips of 16mm film shown during news programs. It also contains roughly 18,000 pages of the accompanying scripts read on air by anchorpersons.
Free Streaming Video Sites on the Internet
- 35mm.onlinePoland's cinematic history lives at 35mm.online. Hundreds of free feature films, documentaries, and animations have been restored and digitized by the Polish Film Institute, then mounted online for everybody. All with English subtitles.
- AdViewsTV ads from classic American brands from the 1950s - 1980s. AdViews is a collaborative project between the Duke University Digital Collections Program and the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History, as well as a number of other groups, at Duke University.
- American Indian Film GalleryThis repository contains over 450 non-fiction films that document Native lifeways from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, with a large concentration on peoples of the Southwest. The films range from a 1922 silent newsreel to recent footage of pow-wows and political meetings in 2011. The majority of the films date to the golden age of U.S. educational and sponsored filmmaking after World War II up to the advent of portable video.
- American Memory CollectionSeveral hundred early motion pictures are viewable in the Library of Congress American Memory collections.
- Archive of American TelevisionThe archive collects in-depth video interviews with TV's greatest legends and pioneers.
- Black Film ArchiveBFA spotlights Black films made from 1915 to 1979 that are available streaming. While many of the films must be rented or require subscriptions, there are notable freebies like Super Fly from1972 and Juke Joint from 1947.
- British MovietoneBritish Movietone’s newsreel archive spanning 1895 to 1986.
- British PathéCinema newsreels, cinemagazines, and historic clips from 1902 to 1970.
- C-SPANThis site contains almost all C-SPAN programs since 1987.
- China's Cultural Revolution in Memories: The CR/10 ProjectThis collection contains video interviews with people who experienced China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). It also includes interviews with young Chinese people born after the Cultural Revolution, who discuss how they learned of this historical incident.
- CinemargentinoCinemargentino is a library of Argentinian films that allows users to stream full movies, documentaries, and shorts for free. Some with subtitles, some without.
- Cineteca Nacional OnlineFree and universal access to a trove of full-length Chilean films and documentaries collected by Cineteca Nacional de Chile.
- CrackleCrackle is full of films, TV shows, and original programming, mostly from Sony. It's free, yes, but there are ads during video playback.
- FolkstreamsFolkstreams is dedicated to finding, preserving, contextualizing, and showcasing documentary films on American traditional cultures. These documentaries focus on the culture, struggles, and arts of unnoticed Americans from many different kinds of communities.
- Internet ArchiveAn immense, wondrous assortment of film/video delights: classic feature films, daily alternative news broadcasts, cartoons, concerts, ephemera, archival footage, educational and industrial films, classic sports videos, television, and way more. Many of these videos are available for free download. See https://api.gdeltproject.org/api/v2/tvv/tvv for a breakout of news footage from all over the world.
- Korean Film Archive YouTube ChannelGet your Korean cinema fix with this YouTube channel devoted to selected films produced in South Korea during the past 70 years. The Korean Film Archive maintains this extensive collection. Subtitles in English provided!
- The Living Room CandidateWatch U.S. presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to 2020.
- MosfilmLegendary Russian Soviet-era film production company Mosfilm offers their archive as well as a few recent creations.
- National Film Board of CanadaDocumentaries, animation, shorts, and informational films that are, just like Canada, more fascinating than you can imagine. Many films are free, streaming, and some are downloadable.
- Netlfix Educational DocumentariesNetflix makes a few of its educational documentaries available on YouTube for free, notably 13th and Our Planet episodes.
- New Mexico Public Media CollectionThe American Archive of Public Broadcasting hosts this collection of thousands of audiovisual items documenting New Mexico’s social, political, artistic and cultural history between 1963 and 2020. It includes programs by Indigenous producers, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentaries, bilingual and Spanish language series, Vietnam War protest coverage and more.
- Open CultureLinks to more than 1,000 free movies available online collected by non-profit group of educators. Includes film noir, horror, silents, shorts, comedy, drama, and more.
- PSBT IndiaPublic Service Broadcasting Trust supports the independent documentary movement in India, producing over 52 films a year--with international accolades, frequent film festival invitations, and awards. You can watch many of them on the PSBT site or on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/user/PSBTIndia/featured.
- ScienceCinemaHighlights scientific videos featuring leading-edge research from the U.S. Department of Energy.
- Southern Foodways Alliance FilmsSFA films document the diverse food cultures of the changing American South. Based at the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture.
- TubiFree films and TV shows from major studios, albeit with ads.
- U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Film ArchiveMuch of the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is viewable online. It features thousands of clips pertaining to the Holocaust and World War II.
- Virginia Humanities' Video Collection on Discovery VirginiaDiscovery Virginia is a project of Virginia Humanities to digitize and preserve the thousands of valuable assets it has produced in its forty year history, including videos on topics ranging from African American heritage in Virginia to history by and about the Monacan People.
- WGBH Open VaultOnline access to unique and historically important content produced by the public television and radio station WGBH.
Video Lectures
University courses captured on video.