Launched recently, in June 2010, CriticalPast offers a fundamentally new approach to obtaining historical footage, with a fully digitized, viewable collection of over 57,000 archival clips from over 4000 locations worldwide.

"Uniquely, we offer immediate downloads of screeners and full resolution clips in a variety of HD and SD codecs."

BBC MOTION GALLERY is the commercial archive of the BBC.

BBC Motion Gallery offers creative professionals access to the most comprehensive collection of superb, unique motion imagery in the world.
Here you will find a wealth of content covering natural history, wildlife, news, locations, art, music, celebrities, culture, performing arts and more, including acclaimed programming produced in conjunction with Discovery and PBS.

BBC Motion Gallery provides the creative community of the world with a unique breed of content. Hand-picked from programming, films, documentaries and other unique sources, this is footage that not only has a distinct look and feel, but has production values that go far beyond typical stock footage. Moreover, BBC Motion Gallery content makes it easy to piece together the footage you need tell a complete story. A story that can take your production to a whole new level, at a fraction of the cost of shooting it yourself.

Very good resource of American folk footage with distribution information.

Folkstreams.net has two goals. One is to build a national preserve of hard-to-find documentary films about American folk or roots cultures. The other is to give them renewed life by streaming them on the internet. The films were produced by independent filmmakers in a golden age that began in the 1960s and was made possible by the development first of portable cameras and then capacity for synch sound. Their films focus on the culture, struggles, and arts of unnoticed Americans from many different regions and communities.

The filmmakers were driven more by sheer engagement with the people and their traditions than by commercial hopes. Their films have unusual subjects, odd lengths, and talkers who do not speak "broadcast English." Although they won prizes at film festivals, were used in college classes, and occasionally were shown on PBS, they found few outlets in venues like theaters, video shops or commercial television. But they have permanent value. They come from the same intellectual movement that gave rise to American studies, regional and ethnic studies, the "new history," "performance theory," and investigation of tenacious cultural styles in phenomena like song, dance, storytelling, visual designs, and ceremonies.They also respond to the intense political and social ferment of the period.

The filmmakers and the researchers they collaborated with explored performances situated in a community's customary work, worship, and play. Beneath their colorful surfaces often lie serious issues of physical, psychic, and social survival under duress. For understanding what they saw the filmmakers relied more heavily on observant and knowledgeable community members than on outside "experts." They conveyed understanding through action and symbol as often as by "talking heads." See Selected Films.

Many of the films, however, are linked to significant published research. Folkstreams draws on this material to accompany and illuminate both the subjects and the filmmaking. And the films themselves add powerful dimensions to print scholarship. They offer a direct experience of unfamiliar worlds. Many of these are now receding into the historical past, but we hope the example of these films may stimulate alternative filmmaking with subjects and approaches still ignored by mainstream corporate media.

For both Canadian and international producers, if you are looking for footage and photographic images, then this is the place to come. Searching sources in Canada and around the world, members of the Visual Researcher’s Society of Canada can find the footage they need for their program. The combined membership represents decades of experience in film & television, publishing, advertising, and the rare books and prints trade, with a number of members also specialising in musich reserarch and clearance. There are articles and links to a wide range of useful sites.

Clipcanvas offers a wide range of footage, featuring nature, ecology, technology, infrastructure, people and activities, aerials, timelapse and urbanscapes. All clips are directly available for preview and immediate download, as watermarked SD files for test editing. Prices range from 50 to 500 EUR. Professional photographers and high-end niche archives are encouraged to submit their footage for sale through Clipcanvas, receiving a 60% cut from sales.

The Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries International Ltd, is a not-for-profit professional trade association providing networking and marketing opportunities for content industry professionals and giving users easy access to over 300 members worldwide. FOCAL Film Libraries hold millions of feet of film that cover every subject under the sun. The website gives an excellent overview.

AP Archive is the moving image collection of the Associated Press. With a database of over 500,000, from news to entertainment to sport to the natural world, AP Archive represents some of the most extensive moving image collections, from all over the World.

Representative of prominent Russian Archives, including the largest owners of images and sounds in the world | Catalogue | Footage

FootageBank is a major supplier of HD images nationally and internationally. The FootageBank HD library represents more than 120 HD producers, cinematographers and production companies from around the globe offering the largest and most comprehensive HD library in the world.

Framepool - a footage collection that brings together the assets of outstanding cinematographers under one roof.