What the archive contains
The BFI National Archive holds one of the world’s largest and most significant collections of film and television material. This includes:
- 60,000 fiction film titles, including features, on all gauges of film and formats of videotape.
- 120,000 titles broadly tracing the history of the use of the moving image in non-fictional settings and for non-fiction purposes.
- An estimated 750,000 television titles off-air recordings as seen by the viewer, as well as production and transmission material.
- Audio and video recordings of Parliamentary proceedings (Lords, Commons and Committees).
- Extensive audio collections including the Gifford and BECTU oral history recordings, NFT interviews and commentaries.
- 45,000 books, some 5000 periodical titles (many hundreds of thousands of volumes and issues) and extensive collections of press cuttings.
- 20,000 unpublished scripts, from first drafts to release scripts, relating mainly to British and American film and TV titles.
- 25,000 pressbooks and 2,000 items of cinema ephemera such as programmes, tickets, autographed letters, promotional material and personal memorabilia.
- 600 ‘special collections’ – personal and company papers reflecting the history of British film and television production from the earliest days to the present.
- Approximately 4 million still images from or related to films and television programmes, including publicity material, production shots, and portraits.
- 15,000 posters.
- 3000 animation cels.
- 13,000 objects in the former MoMI (Museum of the Moving Image) collection including film and TV cameras, projectors, television sets, production equipment, props and costumes.