About the Streaming Media, DVD, and Video Collections

The NC State University Libraries Streaming Media, DVD, and VHS Collections provide access to tens of thousands of films and videos in support of teaching and learning at NC State. We welcome your suggestions for items to add to the film collection. 

Instructors who have multiple film requests for a class can use our streaming media request form.

If you are interested in organzing film viewings with Libraries' collections that are non-course related, please review our public performance rights (PPR) frequently asked questions. 

Streaming Video

The NC State University Libraries provides a rapidly expanding collection of online videos in support of online education and on-campus teaching. Search the Libraries' catalog to find cataloged online film using the online and video facets, or search directly in one of our streaming film platforms below. 

Several databases offer additional streaming video options:

  • Academic Video Online (AVON)
    • Over 70,000 titles spanning a wide range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. 
  • Alexander Street Video Collections
    • Search across 11 video collections from Alexander Street. Specific collections are also linked below. 
  • Ambrose Video
    • Includes The BBC Shakespeare Plays, The Long Search, and Miracle Planet 
  • American History in Video
    • Offers 2,000 hours and 8,000 titles that allow students and researchers to analyze historical events, and their presentation over time, through commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and documentaries.
  • Criterion-on-Demand
    • Provides access to feature films and documentaries from the world's top studios
  • Dance Online: Dance in Video
    • Provides videos covering the full scope of 20th and 21st century dance. The collection includes performances, documentaries, interviews, and instructional videos from the most influential performers and companies
  • Digitalia Film Library
    • Multinational, multilingual collection of feature films and documentaries from South America, Asia, and Europe
  • Docuseek
    • Streams essential independent, social-issue and environmental films 
  • Engineering Case Studies Online
    • Comprehensive and authoritative database that includes video content providing in-depth, impartial analysis of key engineering failures.
  • Ethnographic Video Online: includes Foundational Films, Indigenous Voices, Festivals and Archives
    • Comprehensive online resource for the study of human culture, behavior and society around the world, includes ethnographic films, documentaries, select feature films, and previously unpublished fieldwork
  • Feature Films for Education
    • Includes over 600 current and hard-to-find titles including dramas, literary adaptations, blockbusters, classics, and Academy Award winners.
  • Food Studies Online
    • Database that includes video content exploring the social, historical, economic, cultural, religious, and political implications of food.
  • Films on Demand
    • This collection provides over 21,000 thousand high quality streaming videos on business & economics, health & medicine, humanities & social sciences, and science & mathematics, as well as travel and fitness programming, home and how-to videos, indie films, and popular music performances. 
  • Independent World Cinema: Classic and Contemporary Film
    • Premium films from every era and from across the globe
  • Kanopy
    • Kanopy is a streaming video service for educational institutions that works directly with filmmakers and film distribution companies to offer thousands of award-winning documentaries, training films and theatrical releases across diverse subjects and disciplines. Collections include titles from the DEFA Film Library, ArtMattan Films, HBO, Frameline, Ruscico, Pragda, BBC, Flicker Alley, National Film Board of Canada, First Run Features, Cinema Libre Studio, and New Day Films 
  • LGBT Studies in Video
    • Cinematic survey of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as well as the cultural and political evolution of the LGBT community.
  • Media Education Foundation (MEF)
    • The Media Education Foundation produces and distributes documentary films and other educational resources to inspire critical thinking about the social, political, and cultural impact of American mass media. The Libraries owns a selection of Media Education Foundation titles. 
  • National Theatre collection
    • Drawing on 10 years of NT Live broadcasts, alongside high-quality archive recordings never previously seen outside of the NT’s Archive, the National Theatre Collections 1 and 2 are now complete and offer a total of 50 filmed performances.
  • New Day Films
    • Filmmaker-run distribution company providing social issue documentaries to educators since 1971. The Libraries owns a selection of New Day titles. 
  • Psychotherapy.net
    • Features demonstrations and counseling sessions with participants on a host of therapeutic topics. This is a resource for teaching and training in psychotherapy practice and for education about psychology.
  • Royal Shakespeare Company Live
    • ​​​​​​​The RSC Live Collection offers students worldwide their own seat in the renowned Royal Shakespeare Company theatre.
  • SAGE Video
    • Covering multiple disciplines, SAGE Video includes documentaries, case studies, tutorials illustrating practical applications of methods, lectures for course instruction, interviews with leading experts on key topics, practitioner demonstrations of theories and techniques, and conference presentations.
  • Shakespeare's Globe on Screen
    • 30 plays recorded live on the Globe stage. Each performance transports viewers directly into the standing yard of the world famous Globe or the magical candlelit interior of the captivating new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
  • Stratford Festival Shakespeare Collection
    • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Located in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, the Stratford Festival is the largest classical repertory theatre company in North America. Each season, they present a dozen or more productions in different venues. 
  • Swank Digital Campus
    • Provides access to over 1000 feature films and documentaries from the world's top studios.
  • Television News Archive
    • Begun decades ago as an index to news broadcasts by the major networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) from 1968 to present, this resource also provides streaming video content from CNN (one hour per day since 1995) and Fox News (since 2004).
  • Torch Films: Gender & Sexuality Collection
    • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Non-fiction works of distinguished quality that introduce stories & perspectives from around the world.
  • World History in Video
    • This database contains over 1,600 searchable documentaries covering history from the earliest civilizations to the late 20th Century in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania.

For information about using films in Distance Education courses, please see this page.

Circulating DVD Collection

This collection includes a wide array of DVDs, from documentaries to award-winning foreign films to seasons of TV shows, and more. These DVDs supplement and complement students' classroom experiences across all subject areas, including providing access to popular media that inform general cultural literacy. Items in this collection circulate for 7 days.

The collection is housed in the Ground Floor Reading Room of D. H. Hill Jr. Library and in the Oval View Reading Lounge on the 4th floor of Hunt Library, with titles displayed in alphabetical order within four categories: TV Series; Documentaries; Feature Films; and South Asian Films (a large selection made possible by South Asian studies grants). 

You can browse all of our DVDs here.

Teaching DVD Collection

This collection directly supports course-related instruction. DVDs circulate to instructors for 30 days, or may be placed on Reserve for classes. DVDs placed on Reserve may be checked out and viewed within the libraries by individuals or small groups for 3 hours at a time. Any non-faculty can check out movies in this collection for a 3 hour period. The collection is located behind the D. H. Hill Ask Us center.

Some foreign DVDs may be in non-U.S. region codes. To view such DVDs contact Jason Evans Groth (See FAQ for more information).

Other video resources

The Libraries also holds video materials in other formats (e.g., VHS). These items are listed in our online catalog. VHS players for North American Tapes are available for use in Hill Library's Digital Media Lab (DML) and the Media Production Rooms (4215 and 4217) at the Hunt Library.  Please see Ask Us staff for more information.