Guides: Cinema & Media Studies: Streaming from Penn Libraries

About Streaming

Penn students, faculty, and staff can stream feature films, documentaries, oral histories, video interviews, and other niche content through the Penn Libraries.

What can I stream?

If you know what you’re looking for, search the title in Franklin. Under Access, choose Online to see streaming films.

To see all streaming videos in the Franklin catalog, under Access, choose Online, and under Format, choose Video.

If you want to browse, start with a streaming platform listed below.

What kinds of films are available?

All types, all genres. Popular feature films, documentaries, short films, interviews, or historical video are available.

Why use the Franklin catalog, instead of just watching what’s available on the streaming services I already use?

There are no rental fees to stream films through Franklin. There is no additional cost to you.
You can find unique films. Library platforms have films not always available on home streaming services. Some films are exclusive to certain platforms like Kanopy or Projectr.
The films are available longer than a rental period, sometimes an entire year or longer.
You can see the date that the film will leave its platform in Franklin, the Penn Libraries catalog. Films change less often than films leaving Netflix, Hulu, or Max (HBO) each month.

Do I need to set up an account for every library streaming platform?

No. Just access each streaming platform with an active PennKey and password. Access is restricted to current Penn students, faculty, and staff. Affiliated employees with PennKey access to other Penn Libraries resources - from the University of Pennsylvania Health System (HUP, Pennsylvania, and Presbyterian Hospitals) and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia - are also eligible to create accounts. Alumni are not eligible to access streaming films due to licensing terms.

The film I want is not available to stream. Can I still get it through the Penn Libraries?

Maybe! The Van Pelt Video Collection also has DVDs to borrow. To browse in Franklin, choose At the Library and format Video for DVDs. Don't have a player? The Vitale Digital Media Lab lends portable all-region players and external DVD drives (link: Equipment Lending).

If the Penn Libraries does not own the DVD that you want, you can Request Media through Interlibrary Loan using this form. We will try to find a library to supply it. Note: This may take 5-10 business days.

Questions? If you find an error or broken link, please report it through Franklin, or Ask Us.

Streaming Collections

Kanopy
Streaming collection of films and documentaries covering many subjects: pop culture, social policy, politics, education, and gender studies. You can access films on Kanopy on your mobile devices and smart TV through the Kanopy app.

Criterion Collection on Kanopy
Stream acclaimed and historic films from the Criterion Collection on Kanopy. Note: this is a subset of the Criterion Collection, not the full catalog of the streaming service The Criterion Channel. Here you will find access to 500+ films, but due to streaming licensing, not all Criterion Collection films are available.

Swank Digital Campus
Selected streaming full-length feature films and documentaries.
Academic Video Online (AVON)
Large, wide-ranging collection of feature film, documentaries, news footage, historical newsreels, and a range of primary source content. Includes film from the Criterion Collection, PBS, BBC, and Academy, Emmy, Peabody award winners, as well as silent films, serials, and early cinema shorts, including Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Chaplin, Murnau, and Lubitsch. Also includes documentary and international films from Film Platform.
Projectr EDU
Streaming platform for independent, international, and documentary films from Grasshopper Film, Canyon Cinema, and MTV Documentary Films.
Docuseek
Documentary films from Bullfrog Films, Icarus Films, Good Docs, Women Make Movies, Collective Eye, Fanlight, dGenerate, and Kartemquin films.
New World Cinema: Independent Features & Shorts, 1990-Present
Full-length feature films and award-winning shorts from leading independent distributors.
Films on Demand: World Cinema Collection
Films from the silent to contemporary eras, with classic films from global cinema.

Independent World Cinema: Classic and Contemporary Film
This is a collection from indie film distributors—Milestone, Zeitgeist, Pragda, and Oscilloscope. These films support disciplines such as cultural history, psychology, gender studies, anthropology, African-American studies, and more.

China on Film: Twentieth Century Sources from the British Film Institute
Documentary films and historical footage sourced from the renowned British Film Institute (BFI). The collection offers a vivid portrayal of daily life, historical moments, and transformative events, seen through the lens of foreign travellers. From the rise of communist China to everyday moments in bustling cities and rural areas, these films provide a visual journey through profound political, social, and cultural change.

Pragda Stream
Pragda is the leading educational film distributor for the newest Latin American, Spanish, and Latinx cinema.

Platino Educa
Platino EDUCA is an innovative platform that uses audiovisual and film as educational tools, with over 240 works. It includes 70 of the 100 Spanish films that every student should know according to the Spanish Film Academy.
Hindi Cinema: Histories of Film-making
Sourced from the private collection of renowned author and documentary film-maker Nasreen Munni Kabir, this resource features unedited interviews with leading Indian film personalities who contributed to the shaping of the ‘Golden Age’ of Hindi cinema and beyond.
Victorians on Film: Entertainment, Innovation & Everyday Life
Showcasing the British Film Institute’s Victorian Film Collection and the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection, as well as a selection of special early large format films, this material provides a glimpse into the lives of the late Victorians and Edwardians captured between 1895 and 1913 by some of Britain’s earliest film pioneers and innovators.
BBC Literary Adaptations in Video: Volumes 1 & 2
BBC productions including more than 50 famous literary works, many that were buried in the BBC archive for decades. From Dickens to Shakespeare, from Chekhov to Arthur Miller, from Jane Austen to Mary Shelley, features performances for theatre, drama, performing arts, and literature courses, and additional titles like "Face to Face" and "Performance" where actors and directors discuss their craft.
Digital Theatre Plus
A digital video collection of British theatre productions containing full-length films of Shakespearean plays, modern dramas, and musicals, as well as behind the scenes insights.
Socialism on Film
Collection of documentary, newsreel and feature films reveals the world as seen by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, East European, and Latin American filmmakers, from the early 20th century to the 1980s.
Penn Video Network - PVN Movie Service
Selected streaming full-length feature films from Resident Select or Criterion on Demand, licensed for on-campus viewing only by Penn Video Network, a unit of Penn ISC. Line-up changes monthly. These films do not appear in Franklin, the Penn Libraries catalog. Note: You can only use PVN Movie Service while on the Penn campus, using a Penn IP address. PVN Movie Service films may change monthly, while streaming films on other platforms through the Penn Libraries remain available for a full calendar year, multiple years, or in some cases, do not expire after activation.
Films on Demand
Selected streaming films from Films Media Group.
Ethnographic Video Online
Classic ethnographic films, films about cultural change over time, and films made by and for indigenous communities. Browse by geography or cultural groups. Some films include study guides.
Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI): Streaming Art Films
Bloomsbury Video Library
Includes works for arts education and artists that are relevant to the performing arts, music, electronic media, visual arts, photography, fashion, philosophy, religion, gastronomy, history, politics, and psychology.
DIS.art
Streaming art film platform (formerly a magazine) focusing on studio art, historic preservation and art history
Met Opera on demand
Access to more than 700 full-length Met performances.

Independent Documentary Filmmakers from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Web Archive
Independent documentary and ephemeral primary sources archives which includes websites, blogs, and video feed belonging to notable filmmakers from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, all made available for future research and access. Chinese independent filmmakers from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong have long been crucial to bringing attention to social and political developments in their areas, but due to the sensitive nature of their work, their web presences are at risk of disappearing. This project, part of the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation's Web Collecting Program, is an initiative of the Confederation's Collection Development Group.

Russian Film Hub
Russian and Soviet movies with English subtitles. Users can filter by genre, decade, director, and more. Created by Penn alumnus Richard Wess C'16.
March of Time, 1935-1967
Newsreel and television series which ran in U.S. movie theaters until 1951 and on television until 1967, blending confrontational journalism and docudrama
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive
Digital library of video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust.
On the Boards TV
OntheBoards.tv delivers full-length, high-quality contemporary performance films.

Subject Guide

Charles Cobine

he/him

Contact:

Van Pelt Library 205

215-746-5830

Subjects: Cinema & Media Studies, German Studies

Where can I stream it now?

Useful apps for Cinema & Media Studies

IMDb, the Internet Movie Database, for filmographies, casts, credits, showtimes, reviews, and watchlists for film and TV.
Letterboxd, a social network for film people with watchlists and reviews.
JustWatch or ReelGood, streaming search and watchlists.

Not available to stream? It happens.
Search for the DVD

Search Franklin for films and TV, streaming or as a DVD. The physical DVD copy is sometimes the only option for access.

DVDs can offer bonus essays, booklets, interviews, and extra content.

Set up Kanopy's app

Get the Kanopy app on mobile or TV

The Kanopy app is available on iOS devices, Android phones and tablets, and most smart TVs.

Stream on mobile - instructions
Stream on a smart TV - instructions

Please note that Kanopy access is restricted to current Penn students, faculty, and staff. Affiliated employees with PennKey access to other Penn Libraries electronic resources - from the University of Pennsylvania Health System (HUP, Pennsylvania, and Presbyterian Hospitals) and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia - are also eligible to create accounts. Alumni are not eligible to access this resource due to licensing terms. For more information, visit the Penn Libraries’ guide to accessing electronic resources.

Films in Class

My classroom does not have a DVD player. What do I do?

Did you know that the Vitale Digital Media Lab lends external DVD drives?

(Link: Equipment Lending. After logging in to the reservation system, search "DVD drive")

To request a streaming purchase or license instead of a DVD, or to inquire about streaming availability, Send Us a Question. Not all films are available to stream, and U.S. Copyright Law may not allow format transfers. Consult with us for other options.

Suggest a Purchase if the library does not yet own a film that is available for purchase.

Cinema & Media Studies: Streaming from Penn Libraries

Selected streaming platforms from Penn Libraries