Research Guides @ Fordham: Film & Television Studies: Finding Primary Sources

Primary Sources in Film & Television Studies

Primary sources are original items created during the time period or subject under examination. In Film and Television Studies, primary sources could be films, television programs, advertisements, scripts, posters, production stills, press releases, manuscripts, costumes, articles from newspapers or magazines, interviews with directors, screenwriters and others working on the production or topic under review, and more possibilities.

This page offers a selection of resources to help locate primary sources. Other pages on this guide might also help in your search.

Search Tips

Use specific terms (film title, director name, actor name, production company, etc.) rather than general terms when searching for primary sources.

Searching on the open web for primary sources? Use our Evaluating Websites handout to help you decide if the content you found comes from an authoritative source.

Ask a Librarian for advice if you need additional help.

Open Access Digital Collections

Digital Public Library of America
Best place to search for digital collections across many libraries, museums, and historical societies.
Academy Collections
Offers digital collections from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences including posters, manuscripts, oral histories, production art, and more. (See the Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections for additional items.)
Lantern -- Media History Digital Library
Features millions of digitized pages of magazines and books from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound.
Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections
The main repository of materials from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences featuring selected digitized items. (See the Academy Collection for additional items.)
Domitor Journals Project
Provides links to historical film periodicals from a selection of countries curated by the International Society for the Study of Early Cinema.
Black Film Center/Archive -- Image Collections
Provides access to digitized content from the Black Film Center/Archive at Indiana University.
Women Film Pioneers Project
Offers essays, research tools, and bibliographies to help locate primary sources by women in the early film industry. Includes resources from many countries in multiple languages.

Oral History, Interview, and Speech Collections

Academy Conversations
Filmmakers discussing their films at Academy screenings.
Academy Awards Acceptance Speech Database
Offers transcriptions of over 1,500 onstage acceptance speeches from award winners and acceptors.
The Interviews: An Oral History Of Television
Provides in-depth video conversations with key figures in television, both in front of and behind the camera, from the Television Academy.
Writers Guild Foundation Videos
Offers oral histories and conversations with prominent screen and television writers.

Podcast Interview Searching

Listen Notes
Billing itself as "The Best Podcast Search Engine," this online tool supports searching across multiple platforms for podcasts by keyword.

Subscription-based Collections

Artstor (Platform Ends 7/31/24 - SEE JSTOR)
Hundreds of thousands of online images and other types of archival content. *Disable your popup blocker and create an account for best results.*

Newspaper Collections
See the full list of current and historical newspaper collections available through Fordham University Libraries.

Scripts & Screenplays

NYPL Archives & Manuscripts Division
Search archival collections held by NYPL for scripts and other content.
Scripts on Screen
A script search engine to help locate free and paid scripts from multiple websites.
Internet Movie Script Database
Free website offering drafts and final scripts for selected film and television programs.
BBC Script Library
Offers a selection of scripts from BBC programs.

WorldCat FirstSearch This link opens in a new window
Try the subscription-based version of WorldCat to locate scripts.

Film & Television Studies: Finding Primary Sources