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- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window Academic Video Online delivers more than 67,000 titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. It includes documentaries, films, demonstrations, and other content types. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume I-II: Foundational Films This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. I-II: Foundational Films contains classic and contemporary ethnographies, documentaries and shorts from every continent, providing teachers visual support to introduce and contextualize hundreds of cultural groups and practices around the world.
- BU Libraries Search (BULS) This link opens in a new window BU Libraries Search provides a single place to search for a wide variety of academic material provided by the library. The material covered by the search includes books, journals, scores, video and audio recordings, and other physical items held by the library. The search also covers ebooks and ejournals owned by the library, as well as online material provided by the library from a variety of sources.
Browse Films
- Future of Work: Futureproof (Academic Video Online) Can we future-proof jobs against robots, AI, racial & economic disparities, and pandemics?
- Future of Work: Changing Work, Changing Workers (Academic Video Online) As the landscape of work shifts, do we need a drastic rethinking of social safety nets?
- Future of Work: The New Industrial Revolution (Academic Video Online) The pandemic has been a driver of changes to the already shifting world of work.
- American Portrait: I Work (streaming, Academic Video Online) People share self-shot stories about their jobs and careers as they navigate the changes they’re experiencing and the goals they’re working towards. From teachers to truck drivers, they explore what it really means to work in America today.
- American Experience: Tupperware! (dvd) This program documents the story of the Tupperware empire, began by the unlikely partnership of Earl Silas Tupper, a reclusive small-town inventor, and Brownie Wise, a self-taught marketing whiz. In the 1950s, American women discovered they could earn thousands of dollars from selling bowls in the nation's living rooms - selling efficiency and convenience to their friends and neighbors through home parties. In this documentary, archival footage of Tupperware parties, annual Tupperware Jubilees, and home movies are interwoven with the thoughtful, often humorous recollections of Tupperware salespeople and executives who experienced firsthand the company's meteoric rise.
- Silkwood (dvd) Meryl Streep stars in this unforgettable film as Karen Silkwood, a flirtatious, difficult, yet likeable young divorced woman who works in her Oklahoma town's plutonium plant. Sharing a house with two other co-workers, Silkwood's routine of punching in and out of work and living for the weekends is suddenly changed when she becomes contaminated withplutonium and launches a crusade against the company's unsafe conditions.
- Serpico (dvd) Director Sidney Lumet's film is based on the true story, told in Peter Maas' book, of a New York policeman who discovers that honesty is not expected to be part of his job. Al Pacino stars as Serpico.
- The Corporation (dvd) n this documentary from mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbot and Joel Bakan, forty corporate insiders and critics - including Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, author Naomi Klein and economist Milton Friedman - explore the nature and spectacular rise of the most pevasive institution of our time. Combining analysis with footage from advertising, television news and industrial films, THE CORPORATION is a look at the inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures of the modern global conglomerate.
- Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (dvd) Based on the best-selling book by FORTUNE reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, the documentary details the inside story of one of history's greatest business scandals. Unimaginable personal excesses, and a moral vacuum that posed as corporate philosophy, led to top executives of America's seventh largest corporation walking away with over one billion dollars while investors and employees lost everything.
- Her Brilliant Career This film examines discrimination in the workplace and politics, and introduces the viewer to a controversial program for women executives. What exactly is the glass ceiling that for so long challenged women and allowed so few to rise to power? Even though there are more opportunities for women now than a generation ago, there still is a state of mind among both men and women that can hold women back.
- Yes, Ma'am Filmed in the stately mansions of New Orleans, Yes, Ma'am shows the role of the black domestic workers in keeping up the gracious lifestyle so closely associated with the old South. On the surface there is a harmonious relationship between employer and employee, but probe a little deeper and grievances emerge. The maids often feel cut off from their own children as they take care of other people's youngsters. The work is physically hard and they are poorly compensated. They have not had an effective labor organization.
- My Millennial Life There are approximately 1 million unpaid interns in the United States. 60% of millennials rely on some form of financial assistance from their parents. 44% of recent college graduates are working in low-wage or part-time jobs. This documentary follows five recent graduates as they struggle to land professional positions and move into financial independence. The film is honest, unflinching, and emotional, as these young adults struggle with a difficult job market, rising debt, and a widening generation gap.
