All Mediatheque collections
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We present a selection of the subversive director’s work — from his best known TV plays to exclusive rarities — spanning two decades.
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We focus on British animation, which has often displayed a surreal touch that would make Ghibli’s legendary co-founder Hayao Miyazaki proud.
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Amy Johnson: Queen of the Skies
Marking 80 years since her record-breaking solo flight to Australia, we salute Britain’s legendary aviatrix.
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From Johnny Rotten to Gizzard Puke – a 30th anniversary celebration of punk: the players, the fans and the satirists.
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Beautiful South: Lambeth and Southwark on screen
As part of the Mayor’s Story of London project we explore two vibrant boroughs on BFI Southbank’s own doorstep.
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New additions to the Mediatheque’s collection of more than 160 titles exploring LGBT life on screen include Stephen Burn’s Straight and Narrow-Minded.
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Before Midnight: a Portrait of India on Film, 1899-1947
Home movies, documentaries, dramas and comedies exploring how life was lived in British India.
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100 years of black British stories, histories and representation on film and TV.
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Sample the small-screen work of one of Britain’s greatest film stars, Dirk Bogarde.
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Tea drinking, rationing and the Blitz… Welcome to the 1940s.
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The Book Group: The Buddha of Suburbia
Hanif Kureishi’s semi-autobiographical exploration of race and sexuality on the fringes of 70s London.
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The Book Group: A Christmas Carol
A look back on some of the many films and TV programmes inspired by Charles Dickens’s timeless tale.
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To mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Elizabeth Gaskell’s final Cranford-set work, we focus on one of her most beloved novels.
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Big-screen myths and Victorian paranoia: dig deeper into Bram Stoker’s 1897 chiller.
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The Book Group: The Magic Toyshop
Discover the 80s TV adaptation of Angela Carter’s enchanting novel – 40 years since it was first published.
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The Book Group: Nineteen Eighty-Four
Big Brother is still watching you… We celebrate George Orwell’s iconic dystopian novel.
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Revisit Daphne du Maurier’s masterpiece on the small screen.
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The Book Group: Sword of Honour
An edition looking back at Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy.
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The Book Group: Wuthering Heights
An essential guide to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights as seen on screen.
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Boom Britain: We Can Work It Out
A selection of innovative and rarely screened industrial films.
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A special collection for younger audiences (and nostalgic grown-ups).
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Celebrate 60 years of cutting-edge couture with a trip down the catwalks of post-war British fashion.
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A vast collection of film and TV titles set in the countryside, or dealing with rural life (many unavailable online or on DVD).
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Voyage through decades of artists’ film with this meditation on who we are and where we live.
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Cape to Cairo: Moving Images of Colonial Africa
We examine the relationship between Britain and its African colonies, and the complex representation of this in film and television.
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Cinema of Tomorrow: BFI Production 1952-2000
A collection charting the BFI’s legacy of innovation in British cinema.
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We turn the spotlight to Britain’s rich legacy of dance on screen
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A selection of documentaries and interviews that throw light on Dennis Potter’s bold and challenging drama.
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Ealing Studios: Propaganda Shorts
Some truly exotic and barely known Ealing fare, released by the studio between 1939 and 1946.
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A portrait of Cambridge and the East of England on screen.
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What is being British all about? Over 100 films and TV programmes taking us from Glasgow to Stonehenge, hockey sticks to the hijab.
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This collection explores one of the most shameful episodes in Britain’s past – its role in the Atlantic slave trade.
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100 of the best and the rarest feature films from the many thousands preserved in the BFI National Archive.
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A collection exploring life on the WWI home front and beyond, from astonishing non-fiction footage to epic film and TV dramas.
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A tribute to Britain’s favourite female comedians and comic actresses.
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Watch out! It’s Britain’s answer to the femme fatale…
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A terrifying Yuletide treat from the BFI National Archive.
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From houses and landscapes to spectres of the past, we pay homage to the Haunted in British film and TV.
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Our final collection marking the major BFI project Gothic exposes the darker side of love.
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Gothic: Monstrous and The Dark Arts
We celebrate the BFI’s Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film season with two monstrously dark collections.
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Unique perspectives on Britain’s social history, we celebrate the work of non-professional filmmakers.
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Hard Times: Dickens on Screen – part 1
We celebrate the bicentenary of a true giant of English literature.
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Hard Times: Dickens on Screen – part 2
Our second collection celebrating Charles Dickens’ bicentenary features television adaptations of his work.
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Heartlands: A Portrait of Derby and the East Midlands
Explore the landscapes, meet the locals and discover the rich heritage of the East Midlands.
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Into the White: 100 Years of Polar Exploration on Screen
Documentaries, newsreels and dramatisations of the ‘heroic age’ of popular imagination.
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A survey of sex education through the ages.
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We mark Ken Loach’s 75th birthday with an expansive retrospective of his hard-hitting work in film and television.
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Our celebration of Ken Russell brings together a rich selection of television titles spanning five decades.
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The best of British children’s television from the 1950s to the 1990s.
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An insight into life in Tibet before the Chinese occupation.
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In our second Hitchcock collection, we delve deeper to uncover the man behind the myth.
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March Hares and Easter Bunnies
We pay homage to Lewis Carroll’s fantastical creations and their more benign bunny brethren.
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Missing Believed Wiped: The Library of Congress Discoveries
A remarkable range of literary adaptations and original plays, unseen since their first broadcast.
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Once Upon a Time in the North West
To mark the opening of the BFI Mediatheque at Manchester’s stunning new Central Library, this collection looks to the UK’s North West.
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We celebrate life on two wheels.
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A collection uncovering insights, injustices and hidden histories across a century of Jewish representation on British screens.
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A dip into the world of the odd, the esoteric, the delightful and the downright dangerous.
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A survey of domestic architecture in Britain since the 1930s, shaped by turbulent times and interpreted by our filmmakers.
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Explore 100 years of the British documentary.
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We look at some joys – and miseries – of the festive season.
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An extensive collection to immerse the viewer in life north of the border.
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The Shaping of Alfred Hitchcock
Five surviving films from the very beginning of Alfred Hitchcock’s career.
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Take a trip back to a time before ‘talkies’.
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Enter the lives of some of the most memorable characters on British television.
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A century of sport and exercise around the UK.
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Kick off your Birkenstocks, wear flowers in your hair and remember how Britain marked the Summer of Love.
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We go underground to explore a century of coal mining on screen, looking at Britain’s mining history from multiple perspectives.
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Delve into the world of steel.
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This Working Life: Tales from the Shipyard
A major celebration of our shipbuilding heritage on screen.
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Through the Dragon’s Eye: Wales on Screen
A multi-faceted look at a beautiful and proudly historic nation.
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A collection of major works from the influential film and television producer.
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Toyland Tales and Happy Endings: The Legacy of Enid Blyton
We delve into the life and work of the bestselling author.
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The Mediatheque gets amorous.
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Specially curated highlights from the National Media Museum’s archive of TV treasures.
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Unlimited: Disability on Screen
We examine the portrayal of disability on British screens across the last century.
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Dramas that collectively transformed British TV from 1964 to 1970.
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Welcome to the Dream Palace: British Cinema of the 1930s
Disappear in a decade of escapism with our crash course in ’30s British features.