Skip to Main Content
Find Films
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.
Kanopy This link opens in a new window
Kanopy is a provider of documentaries, training films, and theatrical releases available as streaming video. Clips from the videos can be embedded in presentations or shown in class. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
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 Selected Films
American Masters: Rothko: Pictures Must Be Miraculous (streaming, Academic Video Online)
Painter Mark Rothko is one of the most renowned figures of the Abstract Expressionist movement. This film explores Rothko’s journey and includes interviews with his children, Academy Award-nominated writer John Logan, and many others.
Biography: Jackson Pollock (streaming, Academic Video Online)
This episode of Biography paints a portrait of abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock, a pioneer of the action painting technique.
Roy Lichtenstein (streaming, Academic Video Online)
Blondes, superheroes and Mickey Mouse – with his drastically enlarged comic subjects, Lichtenstein caused a commotion in the art world of the 1960s. In 1964, a New York Times headline read: “One of the Worst Artists in America.“ Since then, the American artist who died in 1997 has come to rank as one of the greatest icons of pop art next to Andy Warhol.
American Masters: John James Audubon: Drawn From Nature (streaming, Academic Video Online)
Examine life on the American frontier, and how people (on both sides of the Atlantic) regarded nature. John James Audubon: Drawn from Nature creates a meaningful portrait of Art and Science in the first decades of the 19th century.
Thomas Hart Benton (dvd)
The life and work of artist Thomas Hart Benton as shown through his paintings, through old newsreels, and through interviews with people who knew him.
Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (streaming, Academic Video Online)
The Academy Award-winning documentary is about sculptor and architect Maya Lin who, at age 21, designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The film tells the gripping story behind the Vietnam Memorial and explores a decade of her creative work. Maya Lin's design of the Civil Rights Memorial, the Yale Women's Table, and the Juniata Peace Chapel reveals her ability to address major issues of our times through the healing power of art.
American Masters: Pedro E. Guerrero: A Photographer's Journey (streaming, Academic Video Online)
The American Masters series and Latino Public Broadcasting’s VOCES series join forces for the first time to explore the life and work of photographer Pedro E. Guerrero (September 5, 1917 – September 13, 2012), a Mexican American, born and raised in segregated Mesa, Arizona, who had an extraordinary international photography career.
American Masters: Wyeth (streaming, Academic Video Online)
Andrew Wyeth was one of America’s most popular, but least understood artists. Through unprecedented access to family members, archival materials, and his work, WYETH presents the most complete portrait of the artist.
American Masters: Keith Haring: Street Art Boy
International art sensation Keith Haring blazed a trail through the legendary art scene of 1980s New York and revolutionized the worlds of pop culture and fine art.
Edward Hopper (streaming, Academic Video Online)
Nighthawks, New York Movie... Edward Hopper showed the world an America of late-night bars, lonely hotel rooms, sunlit buildings and moody, isolated figures. This profile tells the story of the great Modernist artist and paints a picture of an austere and unidealized American.
Agnes Martin - With My Back to the World (streaming, Kanopy)
A moving documentary on the internationally renowned painter, designated by ARTnews Magazine one of the world's top-ten living artists. This documentary was shot over a period of four years, from 1998 through 2002, Agnes Martin's ninetieth year. Interviews with Martin are inter-cut with shots at work in her studio in Taos, New Mexico, with photographs and archival footage, and with images of her work from over five decades.