Free Download Historical Video Clips at BFI

British Film Institute Early 20thC Film and Clip Archive

Sep 15, 2009

Historians turn to films as visual representations of the past and early-20thC silent movies and historical clips are important resources for the history of cinema.

The Creative Archive film collection is part of the National Archive of the British Film Institute (BFI). The BFI holds one of the world’s largest collections of film and television – more than 50,000 fiction films, over 100,000 non-fiction and around 625,000 TV programmes. The BFI National Archive includes an extensive collection of Silent Cinema from 1895 to 1929; artists’ moving image collection; and a collection of movie and television images.

Free BFI Films and Video Clips

The British Film Institute’s pilot site offers historical video clips for free download under the Creative Archive Licence. The aim is to promote creative re-use of historical visual material for non-commercial purposes. The films offered fall into the following categories:

Titles are added frequently so users are encouraged to check back for newer material.

Transport Films

One of the earliest historical video clips offered is the Panorama of Ealing from a Moving Tram. Made in 1901, the one-minute black-and-white clip is an example of a “phantom ride”. Terminus, a 1961 34-minute-long film captures a single day at Waterloo station.

Silent Movies

Mary Jane’s Mishap, a 4-minute-long clip filmed in 1903 uses the latest cinematic effects of the time to suggest the presence of ghosts. Another, The Haunted Curiosity Shop of 1907, uses ambitious special effects produced by director and illusionist W. R. Booth with impressive results. Three comedy clips from 1905, 1907 and 1914. Trick photography is also used in the 1898 Santa Claus, one of the earliest examples of parallel action on film.

A Christmas Carol and Hans Christian Andersen Tale

In the Literary Adaptations section, the BFI Archive offers for free download, Scrooge, a three-minute clip from 1901, which is the earliest surviving adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. From 1902 comes the adaptation of Andersen’s Christmas fairy tale, The Little Match Seller. A 60-minute long adaptation of Hamlet was produced in 1930 and directed by Hay Plumb.

Historical BFI Free Documentary Clips

The Newsreel and Documentary section of the BFI Archive offers several titles for free download. Edwardians at play (1901); a Lady Godiva procession (1902); an 8-minute wild life clip from 1912; the “Great Forest Fire” which documents the fire that threatened Sisson, California in 1914; a 1940 propaganda film; Morris Dancers dancing in France in 1921; a helicopter prototype testing (1925).

A still topical film, “Fundamentalism v. Evolution” (1925) depicted the clash between the Bible advocates and the followers of Darwin by staging a head-on train smash.

Each historical video clip comes with a full cast and credits, synopsis and analysis. All video clips and films can be downloaded for free from the BFI’s Creative Archive by anyone in the UK under the terms of the Creative Archive Licence.