Audio-Visual Resources at TMU Library
Search for Films
Streaming videos and DVDs are listed in Catalogue along with a variety of other materials. Use this search box to locate videos.
Videos and other audiovisual materials are also searchable using Search Everything.
AV Materials are located on the 5th floor and 2nd floor on Reserve. You also have access to many video databases through TMU Library for streaming films and documentaries. A full list, with links is available on our A-Z listings.
Suggest a Title for Purchase Request Form
Online Streaming Resources
- Audio Cine Films This link opens in a new window
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Audio Cine Film is a digital streaming platform with access to thousands of movie and documentary titles from film studios and producers such as Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstones Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Columbia Pictures and MGM Studios. - Criterion on Demand This link opens in a new window
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Criterion-on-Demand represents a large number of feature film producers, including, but not limited to: Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage, DreamWorks SKG, Mongrel Media, Sony Pictures Classics, Alliance Films, Miramax Films, Warner Brothers, Lionsgate Films, The Weinstein Company, as well as a smaller number of independent producers. Our title selection includes 1920 classics, new releases, foreign films, literary adaptations, documentaries, animated titles, and independent features.
Will Criterion-on-Demand work on my mobile device?
All movies available on Criterion-on-Demand Digital Rights Management (DRM) for playback. Unfortunately, Apple’s IOS, Google’s Android, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 operating systems do not officially support DRM – therefore Criterion on Demand will not work on a mobile device.
Does Criterion-on-Demand support playback via screen sharing apps?
Criterion-on-Demand does not support playback of feature films via screen sharing apps such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, and others.
Asian Film Online offers a view of Asian culture as seen through the lens of the independent Asian filmmaker. Through a selection of over 1,000 narrative feature films, documentaries and shorts curated by film scholars and critics, the collection offers highly relevant perspectives and insights onto themes relevant across Asia.
FILM PLATFORM is an innovative collaboration between leading filmmakers and film distributors from around the world bringing the finest documentary films to an academic audience. Our global selection of films includes many Oscar nominated documentaries and film festival winners.
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new window
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Films On Demand is a Web-based digital video delivery service that allows you to view streaming videos. Toronto Metropolitan has access to Master Academic Collection and World Cinema Collection. Master Academic Collection is a video collection of 39K titles, with many well-known producers, such as A&E, PBS,National Geographic, TED, and HBO Documentary Films. World Cinema has 1000+ foreign language films. - Kanopy Streaming This link opens in a new window
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Kanopy is a streaming service that provides the platform to a host of educational video productions covering a wide range of subjects, from arts, humanities, health, business, education and more. The collection has over 800 video titles from various producers.
The majority of the videos are closed captioned and clip-making is allowed. - Qwest TV This link opens in a new window
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Streaming video service created by Quincy Jones. It features documentaries, concerts, archives and other content as they relate to “jazz and beyond.”
Co-founded by music legend Quincy Jones and jazz impresario and producer Reza Ackbaraly, Qwest TV features a diverse collection of hundreds of concerts and documentaries, with a focus on Jazz, Soul, Funk, Blues, African music, Latin music, Indian music and more.
*Please click on the Access hotlink to link to the site. This resource should then open in a new tab. Please note that if your browser uses pop-up or ad blockers you may get prompted to access the resource in a new tab.
- Curio This link opens in a new window
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Curio.ca includes news reports, documentaries, and archival material, as well as programs like The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, Doc Zone with Ann-Marie MacDonald, and Enquête with Alain Gravel. The portal has seven main subject categories – Arts, Business, Education, History and Geography, Health, Science, and Social Sciences.
Curio - News in Review is now available through Toronto Metropolitan's Curio subscription. Access Curio - News in Review.
- National Film Board of Canada
Canada’s public producer and distributor, the National Film Board of Canada creates interactive works, social-issue documentaries, auteur animation and alternative dramas that provide the world with a unique Canadian perspective. The collection includes documentaries, animations, experimental films and fiction. NFB showcase films that take a stand on issues of global importance that matter to Canadians: stories about the environment, human rights, international conflict, the arts and more. TMU’s subscription to NFB education gives you access to 500 films not available to the general public.
TVO DocumentariesStream thought-provoking full length documentaries. May we have a moment of your time? Our public funding only covers some of the cost of producing high-quality, balanced content.
Free Online Film Websites
- Films For Action
Films for Action is a community-powered learning library for people who want to change the world. Films For Action has cataloged over 1,500 of the best films and videos that can be watched free online. These films address social, environmental, and media-related issues. - Goethe Institut
Over 100 German films – classic movies as well as current productions – are available for free on our eMedia platform, the eLibrary. - Internet Archive Moving Image Archive
This library contains digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download. - Prelinger Archives
Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 60,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. In 2002, the film collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. - UbuWeb: Film & Video
Educational resource for avant-garde film and video.
Other Library Collections
- Toronto Public Library Film & Video collection
Includes holdable DVDs that can be reserved online and non-holdable DVDs that you need to find at a library branch, DVDs that have recently become available for reserving online. Borrow movies and TV shows to stream in your web browser or enjoy offline on your smartphone or tablet.
Local Film Theatres & Resources
- Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema
It is a year-round home for first-run Canadian and international documentaries, as well as special documentary presentations and showcases, including the popular Doc Soup screening series. Continuing its longstanding role as a community cinema, it also hosts many of the city’s independent film festivals and offers audiences some repertory and specialized fiction film programming. - The Revue Cinema
The Revue has occupied its Roncesvalles Avenue location since 1912, and until June, 2006, never closed its doors. That gave it the distinction of being one of the oldest continuously running movie theatres in the country. The Revue Film Society, formed by residents and cinephiles upset that their much-loved cinema was closing, raised close to $130,000 to support a rescue effort. Early in October, 2007, The Revue re-opened with a gala screening of Billy Wilder's Some Like it Hot and a post-screening celebration. The next chapter in the theatre’s history has now begun, using the new motto: Reel Diversity, Real Community. - The Royal
Originally built in 1939, The Royal Cinema is an historic Art Moderne movie house located in the heart of Little Italy. The 390-seat theatre was known as the Pylon when it first opened in 1939. Over time, it’s become one of Toronto’s most cherished landmarks. - Toronto Reference LibraryIn the Arts Department on the 5th floor of the Toronto Reference Library you'll find an extensive collection of materials about the art and business of film and television. The collection includes: books and periodicals on the history of cinema, film genres, biographies, film criticism, directors and filmmaking, independent and documentary film, film budgeting, Screenplays and screenwriting manuals, dictionaries, indexes, filmographies, and manuals, industry directories, film reviews, clipping files on Canadian personalities and organizations, posters and still photos, movie soundtracks and classic radio programs, and documentary films on video.
- TIFF Cinemateque
TIFF's year round programming provides a platform to watch, discover, and discuss classic and contemporary cinema. Through film screenings and retrospectives, subscription series, and on-stage conversations with expert guests, we invite audiences to deepen their engagement with the moving image. - Vtape
Vtape is a vibrant distribution organization that represents an international collection of contemporary and historical video art and media works by artists. We make this collection accessible to curators and programmers, educators, scholars and public audiences worldwide. In addition to providing a distribution framework for established and emerging artists, Vtape is committed to establishing video art preservation and exhibition standards, and strives to support hybrid practices in an increasingly complex technical milieu.
Toronto Film Festivals
- Cinéfranco!
Cinéfranco is the most important International Francophone Film Festival in English Canada. Founded in 1997 by Marcelle Lean, it became an essential spring event for movie lovers and French film-enthusiasts. Cinéfranco promotes the diversity and richness of Francophone movies in order to increase their appreciation and give them more exposure in an English speaking environment. All films are screened in their original language with English subtitles. - DOC NOW
DocNow 2016 is one of Canada’s most exciting interdisciplinary documentary festivals created by the next generation of artists and activists. Now in its eighth year, it features innovative work from the twenty graduates of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Master of Fine Arts in Documentary Media. - European Union FIlm Festival (EUFF)
The European Union Film Festival is a Not-for-Profit organization, it's the unique cultural collaboration of EU Consulates and Cultural Institutes in Toronto. Celebrating cinematic excellence with national and international award-winning films, the festival takes place in November every year at The Royal Cinema. - Hot Docs
Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, offers an outstanding selection of over 200 films from Canada and around the world to Toronto audiences of more than 200,000. - Images Festival
Established in 1987, the Images Festival is the largest festival in North America for experimental and independent moving image culture, showcasing the innovative edge of international contemporary media art both on and off the screen. Images has presented thousands of vanguard media-based projects in its 28-year history and is committed to an expanded concept of film and video practice: Alongside film and video screenings (ON SCREEN), the festival presents groundbreaking live performances (LIVE IMAGES), media art installations (OFF SCREEN) in local galleries and new media projects by Canadian and international artists. Images provides audiences with an annual array of contemporary moving image culture. - imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival launched in 2000 and celebrates 17 years in October 2016. The Festival was founded to support the diverse, contemporary work of Indigenous directors, producers and screenwriters working in film, video, audio and digital media. We also present the annual imagineNATIVE Film + Video Tour (to primarily northern and First Nations communities) and the indigiFLIX Community Screening Series to multi-ethnic community centres in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area. - Inside Out LGBT Film Festival
For more than two decades, Inside Out has brought Toronto's LGBT community together in celebration of the best queer film from Canada and around the world. Through our annual Festivals in Toronto and Ottawa, our filmmaker initiatives, our youth engagement and our year-round events and screenings, Inside Out is engaged every day in challenging attitudes and changing lives. - Reel Asian Film Festival
he Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival® is a unique showcase of contemporary Asian cinema and work from the Asian diaspora. Works include films and videos by East, South and Southeast Asian artist in Canada, the U.S., Asia and all over the world. As Canada’s largest Asian film festival, Reel Asian® provides a public forum for Asian media artists and their work, and fuels the growing appreciation for Asian cinema in Canada. - Reel Indie Film Fest (RIFF)
Created in 2013 as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations for Indie Week, the Reel Indie Film Fest (RiFF) seeks to cover the gamut of musical inspiration. The festival brings filmmakers and musicians together for its annual program of music related dramatic and documentary films, shorts and music videos. - ReelWorld Film Festival
Now in its 16th year, the Reelworld Film Festival is dedicated to harnessing the power of film as a force for social good. We believe great stories are the beginning of great solutions. Our mission is to unlock the power of film by connecting inspired people to inspired partners. Reelworld is for you - a generation of socially engaged citizens who care about how your lives impact your community and the planet. - Toronto After Dark Film Festival
Horror, science-fiction, action and cult film festival held in Toronto since 2005. - Toronto Animation Arts Festival International (TAFFI)
TAAFI's mandate is to showcase and celebrate the best of animation arts from around the world in one of the leading animation hubs in North America: Toronto, ON, Canada. - Toronto Black Film Festival
The Toronto Black Film Festival is dedicated to giving unique voices in cinema the opportunity to present audiences with new ways of looking at the world. A dynamic, refreshing and audacious Festival whose ambition is to encourage the development of the independent film industry and to promote more films on the reality of Black people from around the Globe. ,a href=http://torontoblackfilm.com/about-us/who-are-we/#.V7NQ6Gb-N4s>See more. - Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)
Starting out in 1976 as a collection of films from other festivals — a "festival of festivals" — the Toronto International Film Festival has become one of the most beloved cinematic events in the world, universally regarded as an ideal platform for filmmakers to launch their careers and to premiere their new work. The Festival has been described as "the most important film festival in the world — the largest, the most influential, the most inclusive." - Toronto Jewish Film Festival
The Toronto Jewish Film Festival presents the best feature films, documentaries and shorts from Canada and around the world, on themes of Jewish culture and identity. The Festival is dedicated to using film for its contemporary popular value and accessibility, - Toronto Palestine FIlm Festival
The Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization dedicated to bringing Palestinian cinema, music, cuisine and art to GTA audiences. TPFF was conceived in 2008 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Al-Nakba.