Research

The Moving Image Source Research Guide is a gateway to the best online resources related to film, television, and digital media.

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Silent Film

  • AFI Silent Film Database  
    A comprehensive database of silent film synopses, with extensive cast and crew information. Titles can be sorted by keyword (everything from "Romance" to "Vamps" to "Amusement Parks").
  • BFI Features: Charlie Chaplin  
    A bibliography and filmography from the British Film Institute. Includes a guide to other resources.
  • Bioscope  
    Bioscope features well-researched and indexed posts on a range of early and silent cinema topics as well as a calendar of current and upcoming festivals and conferences on silent cinema. The Bioscope Library compiles links to full-text downloads of books and journals, most published before 1920.
  • Black Film Research Online  
    A database of online resources pertaining to the study of black cinema. Users can search for collections contained in archives, public libraries, and university libraries, as well as for more specific online content on black cinema festivals and retrospectives and online scholarly resources.
  • Blues, Black Vaudeville, and the Silver Screen  
    An online exhibit, rich in primary sources, exploring the amusements available to the African American population of Macon, Georgia, from 1912 to the 1930s.
  • BusterKeaton.com  
    Click "Films" for synopses and an up-to-date calendar of Keaton retrospectives. The list of articles includes some historical reviews reprinted with permission and articles by the fans of the International Buster Keaton Society.
  • Chaplin: A Life  
    A website on the life of Charlie Chaplin by Stephen Weissman, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. The site features a collection of 40 photo essays about the actor with pictures and videos, as well as a news and blog page.
  • Digital Meme  
    As the only distributor of multilingual DVDs of early Japanese cinema, Digital Meme is an invaluable resource. In addition to making these films available to educators through DVD sales, Digital Meme also offers a film rental service.
  • Early Visual Media: A Pictorial Media Archeology  
    This excellent resource consists of many different online exhibitions concerned with all kinds of visual media, beginning with pre-cinematic visual technology and amusements, through early television. In addition to the text, each exhibit features many unique illustrations and photographs.
  • History in Motion  
    This site features clips from newsreels, early documentary films, and early narrative films such as The Great Train Robbery. Browse clips by topic, title, and date. History in Motion is the moving image section of Eyewitness to History, a site that compiles photos, first person accounts, and other historical primary sources for students. The film section focuses primarily on American history.
  • Internet Archive: Feature Films  
    A collection of almost 900 public-domain feature films, including some classic silent films by Charlie Chaplin and Mack Sennett.
  • Library of Congress: Variety Stage  
    Explore the relationship between vaudeville and early film. This collection includes 61 short films of vaudeville acts.
  • Like Television  
    Streaming video of classic films with expired copyright.
  • Louise Brooks Society  
    This website has an extensive bibliography on the silent film actress, with some sources dating back to the 1920s. Also includes a filmography, photo galleries, and extensive information on Louise Brooks ephemera.
  • Matsuda Film Productions: The Japanese Silent Films Site  
    Matsuda Film Productions is an archival rental house for silent Japanese cinema. Provides information on Matsuda's rental services and includes information on the historical context and development of early cinema in Japan.
  • Midnight Ramble  
    A tribute page by film fan Michael Mills about African American cinema in the silent era and the golden age of Hollywood. The site features a filmography. For each film, the author includes a high-quality still and poster image.
  • Silent Film Bookshelf  
    Curated by David Piece, this site reprints original documents from the silent film era. Includes reprints of historical reviews and magazine articles about the industry, as well as information about musical accompaniment of silent films, articles on famous theaters (such as the Roxy Theater in New York), and much more. Active through 1999.
  • Silents Are Golden  
    This website contains a huge collection of vintage reviews of silent films. The site also includes photos of hundreds of silent-film actors, a calendar of theatrical and TV screenings of silent films, and an exhaustive list of available DVDs and videos. The articles and essays on the site are mostly written by fans.
  • Thanhouser Company Film Preservation Inc.  
    This nonprofit organization is engaged in "the research, acquisition, preservation and publication of educational materials related to the early silent motion picture era," specifically by making available films by the Thanhouser Film Company, an early silent-cinema studio. The website also offers a general history of Thanhouser as well as information on its players and filmmakers.
  • Virtual Silver Screen  
    A site by the Library and Archives of Canada featuring early Canadian films and information about them