What the archive contains

The BFI National Archive and BFI Reuben Library collections include:

• 60,000 fiction films, including features, on all gauges of film and formats of videotape.
• 120,000 non-fiction films, broadly tracing the history of the use of the moving image in non-fictional settings and for non-fiction purposes.
• An estimated 750,000 television titles, mostly from off-air recordings as seen by the viewer, as well as production and transmission material.
• Audio and video recordings of Parliamentary proceedings (Lords, Commons and Committees).
• 30,000 unpublished scripts, from first drafts to release scripts, mainly relating to British and American film and TV titles.
• 30,000 pressbooks and 2000 items of cinema ephemera, such as programmes, tickets, autographed letters, promotional material and personal memorabilia.
• 15,000 posters.
• 600 collections of personal and company papers reflecting the history of British film and television production from the earliest days to the present.
• 1 million still images from or related to films and television programmes, including publicity material, production shots and portraits.
• 3000 production and costume designs.
• 3000 animation cels.
• 51,000 books.
• 7000 journal titles, trade and academic, including many hundreds of thousands of volumes and issues.
• 1 million periodical article citations.
• 4 million newspaper cuttings.