Guides: Films for Language Learning: Overview

Films - All Languages Taught at Penn

Penn Libraries provides access to films in languages taught at Penn. These links search Franklin, the Penn Libraries catalog, for both streaming video and physical media.

Search films by language

Search film by title

1. Go to Franklin, the Penn Libraries Catalog

2. Enter film title. Choose Title Browse from pull-down menu

(Hints: omit initial articles in European languages: the or a/an, el/la/los/las or un/una, le/la/les or un/une, der/die/das or ein/eine, etc.;

search different title translations and title in the original language--you can check this on a film's profile page in IMDb or in its Wikipedia entry.)

3. On the left, under Format, choose Video.

4. In the search results, there will separate records for the streaming film, if it is available, and the physical media, usually DVD.

Search film by director

1. Go to Franklin, the Penn Libraries Catalog

2. Enter director as Author. Last name/First name. Example: Cuarón Alfonso. Choose Author Browse.

3. On the left, under Format, choose Video.

4. In the search results, there will separate records for the streaming film, if it is available, and the physical media, usually DVD.

Film & media services at the Penn Libraries

Databases - Penn Libraries offer several streaming film platforms with world cinema.

Film sourcing - The Libraries source, license, and host films, from smaller distributors or independent producers in the U.S. and internationally, and connect them to Canvas course pages through our own cloud-based media server.

Physical media collections - The Van Pelt Video Collection is home to around 10,000 films on DVD, and an additional 25,000 films on DVD and a few hundred on other formats are available to request from LIBRA.

Film search - You can search films by title, director, actor in Franklin, the Penn Libraries catalog, and limit by language.

Quick links: Request a streaming film on reserve | Suggest a purchase

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.
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.

DVDs in VP

Check out up to 10 DVDs at once!