Looking for great cultural and educational video? Then you’ve come to the right place. Below, we have compiled a list of 46 sites that feature intelligent videos. This list was produced with the help of our faithful readers, and it will grow over time. If you find it useful, please share it as widely as you can. And if we’re missing good sites, please list them in the comments below.
ABC Documentaries: This site pulls together some of the best documentaries aired on ABC television in Australia.
Arkive.org: The site gathers together “the very best films and photographs of the world’s species into one centralised digital library, to create a unique audio-visual record of life on Earth.” A great site for naturalists and nature lovers.
Australian Screen Archive: The Australian National Film and Sound Archive provides free and worldwide access to over 1,000 film and television titles – a treasury of down-under video 100 years in the making.
Babelgum: Babelgum’s goal is to act as an international ‘glue’, bringing a huge range of professional and semi-professional content to a global audience – like a modern-day Tower of Babel. They’re also making an effort to get their content to smartphones. They have an iPhone app now, and apps for other phones on the horizon.
BestOnlineDocumentaries: As one reader describes it, “This site is a bit out of date and some of the links are broken, but it’s still a great compilation of online documentaries.” For more documentaries, you should also see Snagfilms mentioned below.
BigIdeas: This show, which comes out of Canada, ”offers a variety of thought-provoking topics which range across politics, culture, economics, art history, science…. The program has introduced Ontario viewers to the impressive brainpower of people like Niall Ferguson on American empire, Daniel Libeskind on architecture, Robert Fisk on the Middle East, George Steiner on the demise of literacy, Camille Paglia on aesthetic education, Tariq Ramadan on being a Western Muslim, Noam Chomsky on U.S. politics, Leon Kass on dying, Janice Stein on accountability and governance.” See the full list of videos here.
BigThink: “Offers high quality video interviews and insight from the world’s most influential experts in business, entertainment, education, religion and media.” BigThink was founded partly with the help of Larry Summers, formerly the president of Harvard, now Obama’s right hand economic man.
Bloggingheads.TV: We had several readers highly recommend bloggingheads.tv. Here is how bloggingheads has been described elsewhere: “a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers.”
Channel N: Get brain & behavior videos with Sandra Kiume. Part of PsychCentral.
CultureCatch: CultureCatch.com has over 160 half-hour interviews with today’s seminal artists in film, theater, music and literature. Here you’ll find in-depth interviews with smart culture individuals dissecting art, comedy, fashion, film, music, politics, television, theater, even cooking.
Edge.org Video: Edge.org is run by John Brockman, literary agent to some of the most important science writers in the US and beyond. You’ll find videos featuring these thinkers on the Edge’s web site.
Europa Film Treasures: Thanks to Europa Film Treasures, you can spend hours looking back through an archive of European film. Theses films range from “comedy to science fiction, from westerns to animation, from erotic to ethnological movies.” Highly recommended by our readers.
Explore.org: A non-profit that showcases the good works of non-profits internationally. Lots of great educational topics from Tiananmen Square to Jerusalem to Orcas. The site itself hosts tons of film and photographs.
Folkstreams: A collection of short films and mini-documentaries on American roots culture, including music, folkart and traditional customs.
Fora.TV: A large site that gathers video from live events, lectures, and debates taking place at the world’s top universities, think tanks and conferences.
Forum Network: PBS and NPR have jointly launched the Forum Network where you will find free lectures online. I expect this to be a rich resource as time goes by.
Free Documentaries Online: The name says it all.
Global Oneness Project: Global Oneness produces documentary films and interviews that are exploring our modern day struggles within the ecological, economical, and social systems and how these battles aren’t isolated but part of a interdependent whole. Features over 200 short films and interviews.
Hulu’s News & Information Channel: Within this channel, you’ll find some intelligent programs. It includes documentaries and biographies, science programs, news, and more. In the past, we pulled together a list of high-quality feature films available on Hulu. Catch it here. And know that Hulu unfortunately limits this programming to a US audience — a policy that really needs to change.
Intelligent Life on YouTube: Yours truly created a handy list of the intelligent video collections available on YouTube. Have a look and also see the list of our favorite individual YouTube videos.
Internet Archive – Feature Films: This archive of feature films contains some important classics from the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s. We’ve featured ten good ones in a previous post.
Learner.org: Annenberg Media presents an impressive video collection that will appeal to lifelong learners and teachers. It includes a lot of high quality programming on American history, world literature and music, science and much more. Thanks Julie for the tip.
LinkTV: “Global and national news, uncompromising documentaries, diverse cultural programs, connecting you to the world.”
Living Room Candidate: Television ads have changed our political system, and this site maintains more than 300 commercials from every presidential election since 1952.
Long Now Seminars: Stewart Brand’s Long Now Foundation presents monthly talks that provide a counterpoint to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and promote “slower/better” thinking. Theses talks given by prominent thinkers are hosted by FORA.TV.
MeaningofLife.TV: Sponsored by Slate, this site brings you “cosmic thinkers” on camera. Here, you’ll find talks by Karen Armstrong, Freeman Dyson, Stephen Pinker and others.
MITWorld: MIT World “hosts lots of inspiring talks by some of the most innovative thinkers and doers in town.” – Tony
Moving Image Collections: A window to the world’s moving images.
NFB.ca: NFB.ca is a web site where you can watch films produced by the National Film Board of Canada. Offers access to 100s of documentaries, animated films and trailers. You can also access this collection via a free iPhone app.
One World TV: A unique public platform for filmmakers, video journalists, NGOs and just about anyone with an interest in video and a concern for a better world.
Open Book TV: Open Book focuses on the writers and other storytellers living and working in a different spot on the planet each week.
PBS Video: Everyone knows that PBS regularly produces intelligent video. You can watch a good number of their original programs here.
PeoplesArchive: “Dedicated to collecting for posterity the stories of the great thinkers, creators, and achievers of our time.”
Pop!Tech Pop!Casts Videos: Kind of like TED, Pop!Tech features “a community of remarkable people, and an ongoing conversation about science, technology and the future of ideas.” Scroll down to the find their videos.
Psychlectures.com: Reader says: “Although this website doesn’t host video, it brings together all sorts of media (including courses) on the topic of psychology, neuroscience, and psychiatry, for those interested.”
Research Channel: Based out of the University of Washington, the ResearchChannel brings together content from leading research and academic institutions (see member list here), and distributes it to consumers mostly through satellite and cable, but also via the web. iTunesU is a fairly new distribution channel. And even newer is YouTube. (See their channel here.) Get more info on The Research Channel here.
ScholarSpot: A new web site that promises a “free university.” Site is live in beta. Stay tuned for more.
Science Network: As the title suggests, lots of good science here. You can start with this popular program, Beyond Belief, which we previously mentioned on this blog.
SnagFilms: SnagFilms “finds the world’s most compelling documentaries, whether from established heavyweights or first-time filmmakers, and makes them available to a wide audience.” You can watch full-length documentary films for free. Currently includes over 550 films. And, as one reader notes, “The best part … is you can give back to the charitable foundations behind each one of the documentaries.”
Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive: This online catalog “provides access to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive. The Archive serves as a comprehensive informational and archival resource worldwide for moving image materials pertaining to the Holocaust and related aspects of World War II. ”
TED Talks: Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world. The talks largely come from the big annual TED conference. And, hands down, this site is the most frequently recommended by our readers. You can find a handy spreadsheet listing every TED video here.
UbuWeb: “A completely independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts.”
UChannel: Spearheaded by Princeton University, this video service presents talks on international/political affairs from academic institutions all over the world.
UCTV: Launched in January 2000, University of California Television (UCTV) is a non-commercial channel featuring 24/7 programming from throughout the University of California, the nation’s premier research university made up of ten campuses, three national labs and affiliated institutions.
UWTV: UWTV is an award-winning television channel brought to you by the University of Washington. Offers original, non-commercial educational programming — 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A unique educational resource, UWTV provides its audience with direct access to world-renowned scientists and researchers whose insights and discoveries are changing our world.
VideoActive: Video Active presents a vast collection of television programmes and stills from audiovisual archives across Europe. It also provides articles and comparative analysis on European TV history.
VideoLectures.Net: Based in Eastern Europe, this site provides free access to high quality video lectures presented by distinguished scholars from many fields of science.
WGBH Video Lectures: “The WGBH video collections brings together talks from the world’s leading scientists, educators, policymakers, artists, and authors. Some pieces come from PBS, NPR, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and The Lowell Institute.”
YouTube hosts a number of intelligent properties worth giving your time to. Some key properties are:
- YouTube Edu: Finally, YouTube gave us an easy way to separate the wheat from the chaff. Now you can easily watch videos from hundreds of universities worldwide. Includes a large number of free courses. More info here.
- YouTube Screening Room: The Screening Room presents high quality, independent films to YouTube users and promises to roll out four new films every two weeks. More info here.
- @Google Talks: Some of the world’s leading thinkers and political players make a point of speaking at Google. You can catch them all here.
- Intelligent Video Collections: Over time we have created a long list of the smarter video collections available on YouTube. It now features close to 100 video channels. Have a look and let us know what we’re missing.
MIT World also hosts lots of inspiring talks by some of the most innovative thinkers and doers in town:
http://mitworld.mit.edu/
Thanks Tony for that addition. It’s now added!
man…what a great effort….thanks for compiling such a nice list…
Hulu blocks access to people outside the United States. How can anything associated with Hulu even be mentioned in relation to Open Culture?????
Stephen, I year you. Including Hulu was debatable, and I mentioned the geoblocking issue in the description. But it was recommended by some readers, and I went ahead and included it. Ultimately, I completely agree that Hulu is not doing the right thing here and should change its policies.
Dan
CultureCatch.com has over 160 half-hour interviews with today’s seminal artists in film, theater, music and literature. Dusty Wright, the host, does an excellent job discussing the artist’s works and other passions. We’ve really tried to provide in depth cultural conversations. We’re the opposite of the press junket interviews you’ll find on the networks. I’m confident you’ll enjoy our vidcasts!
Richard
Hey guys, just recently I came across this fantastic list of docus on gvideo: http://free-university-in-internet.blogspot.com/
Let’s not forget “Organic Living TV with the Hippy Gourmet” http://www.YouTube.com/HippyGourmet – featuring global videos from exotic locations that highlight organic, sustainable and planet-friendly stories, as well as wonderful how-to recipes that bring families back together in their kitchens!
Our list of the world’s best websites:
http://www.blumail.org/favorite_websites.html
Education For All: Education For All combines and organizes educational resources from universities such as MIT, Stanford, Berkeley and Yale into courses to enhance effectiveness and facilitate easy access. It not only includes video lectures but also lecture notes, slides, online textbooks, etc. Please check it out at http://www.edforall.net.
Very good collection. I added many of these to my own social bookmarks at http://delicious.com/jguterman
I am unsure if you people already had this, but i am convinced it is of value to everyone.
Its not my own but i have seen the documentairy and its clear and revealing on the subject.
Regards- Daniel.
Pardon, i had filed the url under website, ill post it again; http://www.thecorporation.com/
Thanks for adding us to your list. I’ve just posted a fab interview with TILDA SWINTON. And we have GLENN TILBROOK playing a very rare song recorded at our last Music Salon. Plus tons of written reviews in all areas of the arts.
same goes for this one
same goes for this one
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/documentaries/online/
I highly recommend http://explore.org – a non-profit that showcases the good works of non-profits internationally. Lots of great educational topics from Tiananmen Square to Jerusalem to Orcas. The site itself hosts tons of film and photographs.
A very helpful list. I’m a big fan of online documentary and educational video and I’ve been waiting for a comprehensive list like this.
I’d also like to recommend our online video project. We produce documentary films and interviews that are exploring our modern day struggles within the ecological, economical, and social systems and how these battles aren’t isolated but part of a interdependent whole.
We have over 200 short films and interviews that are free to watch and we even have two DVDs that we ship out to anywhere in the world for free as long as you share and “pay it forward”.
The project is the Global Oneness Project and the URL is http://www.globalonenessproject.org
Cheers and thanks for this great resource.
Shawn
Check out http://www.streetfilms.org
i love these compilations! i think next you should consider one on intelligent conversation on the internet (forums, blogs, etc).
keep up the good work
Great list! Two additions:
1. 0xdb: http://0xdb.org/
From Berlin with love: 0xdb collects information from numerous sources including allmovies, wikipedia and the internet movie database, amongst others, and offers users the chance to search and organise it in interesting ways. Where geographical data as to shot locations is available, for example, this can be plotted on google maps.
At this moment: 6,921 Movies
2. Pad.ma: http://pad.ma/
PAD.MA – short for Public Access Digital Media Archive – is an online archive of densely text-annotated video material, primarily footage and not finished films. The entire collection is searchable and viewable online, and is free to download for non- commercial use.
Ooh, and let’s not forget Video Active, http://www.videoactive.eu/
VideoActive presents a vast collection of television programmes and stills from audiovisual archives across Europe. It also provides articles and comparative analysis on European TV history. Video Active makes available resources to explore the development of television in Europe, but also the televising of cultural and historical events within and across nations.
The Massachusetts School of Law produces two television shows, Books of our Time- interviews with some of today’s most notable authors and The Educational Forum, interviews with experts on a multitude of topics, from presidential power, to the history of sports in America, to intelligence theories to American history. We are a member of the youTube EDU program, and upload new videos almost daily.
You can find our youTube EDU channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/mslawdotedu
thanks!!!
Kathryn Jones
Massachusetts School of Law
Hey this a very great list! Thanks!
I would add at least two:
1. reason.tv
It has hundrets of talks and discussion with some of the smartes ppl on earth.
2. getdocued.net
It is a mashup of all the good sites listed above. It tries to collect and review just the best of the best documentaries, lectures and talks from all ressources available.
p.s. shouldn’t it be archive.org rather then arkive.org?
Maybe you should add:
reason.tv
great site with talks about the various fields of society
getdocued.net
a mashup of all the great documentary and lecture sites. Just the best of the best.
p.s. shouldnt it be archive.org instead of arkive.org?
A great list. You should consider adding UCTV, http://www.uctv.tv/
the Mental Health Commission of Canada: http://tinyurl.com/lj336p
and Teacher Tube:
http://www.teachertube.com/
Tim
Fantastic list! Two more I recommend are UWTV, and UCTV.
http://www.uwtv.org/
http://www.uctv.tv/
As well, Channel N is a guide to brain and behaviour videos online.
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/channeln/
Great list. Thanks for all your work in compiling this information, and for sharing it.
Thanks for adding my suggestions. One more is the Vision lecture series from RSA, an “exciting series of video lectures from the world’s most inspiring thinkers.” Great stuff.
http://www.thersa.org/events/vision
…and a few more from my bookmarks:
Dana Centre UK Webcasts, archives of public science education events
http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/webcasts
Journal of Visualized Experiments, a video science journal with pubcasts
http://www.jove.org
NIH Videocasting & Podcasting, National Institutes of Health lectures
http://videocast.nih.gov/
Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, seminar videos
https://redwood.berkeley.edu/all_seminars.php
Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health, media collection
http://www.scattergoodethics.org/?q=media
SciVee, video sharing site for science research
http://www.scivee.tv/
SEED Video Podcasts: Science is Culture, nicely produced discussions & interviews
http://seed-magazine.blip.tv/
UCLA Semel Institute Psychiatry Grand Rounds, professional lecture vodcast & podcast series since 1996
http://www.psychiatrygrandrounds.com/
UCSD-TV, University of California San Diego TV, original programming for viewers online & off.
http://www.ucsd.tv/
Stanford Health Video Library, “prominent doctors presenting the latest health research”
http://healthlibrary.stanford.edu/videolibrary/index.html
Vega Science Trust Videos
http://www.vega.org.uk/video/
NFB.tv, National Film Board of Canada, featuring documentaries and high quality entertainment programs
http://nfb.tv/
There are more, including an endless number of events archived, but I have to stop somewhere.
If only there was a search engine that spanned all these sites and excluded the many irrelevant videos on sharing sites…
Forum Network is also an informative lecture video website. The Forum Network offers quality content produced by public broadcasting stations in collaboration with mission driven non-profit and educational community partners. Talks are easy to search through and can be found on topics relating to local, national and global issues. Speakers include the world’s foremost scholars, Authors, artists, scientists, professors ,policy makers and community leaders. http://www.forum-network.org
Excellent list. Thank you.
Dan and readers – coming to this late, but this is a nicely curated list!
There are some great resources here – just wanted to add a select few from the hundreds we come across, including the one I work on:
The Hub – aggregating and curating human rights video online – from human rights organisation WITNESS
- http://hub.witness.org
VODO – docs by BitTorrent, supported by the filmmakers
- http://vodo.net/VODO
- Isuma TV – indigenous video-sharing community
http://www.isuma.tv
- Channel 19 from Video Volunteers in India
http://www.ch19.org/
WOW – this list is amazing. You’ve just destroyed the rest of my “productive” day…
Two I’d add:
- Netflix’s digital collection: Has a lot of great documentaries and other educational videos. Of course, you have to have a Netflix subscription.
- eduFire videos: Has full recorded eduFire classes from the best teachers / classes. Some really cool classes up, depending on what you’re interested in.
Thanks for the time put into building this list, seriously awesome!