Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Dedicated to the preservation, restoration, documentation, exhibition and study of motion pictures, the Academy Film Archive is home to one of the most diverse and extensive motion picture collections in the world, including the personal collections of such filmmakers as Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil B. DeMille, George Stevens, Fred Zinnemann, Sam Peckinpah and Jim Jarmusch.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences was founded in 1927 and began acquiring film material in 1929.  The Academy Film Archive, established in 1991, holds all of the Academy Award-winning films in the Best Picture category, all the Oscar-winning documentaries and many Oscar-nominated films in all categories.

Housed in four climate-controlled vaults, the Archive’s collection includes:

• Private home movies of Hollywood legends like Steve McQueen, Esther Williams and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
• A wide range of documentaries, including the International Documentary Association Collection as well as approximately 800 documentaries produced and distributed by the National Council on American-Soviet Friendship and World War II-era propaganda and informational films.
• Early cinema, including the Lumière, Méliès and Blackhawk collections, and the Paper Print collection, a result of the Academy's early collaboration with the Library of Congress.
• Visual effects reels, makeup and sound test reels, and film and video documentation of the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards.
• Film, kinescope and videotape of Academy Awards ceremonies extending back to 1949, along with additional news material and special coverage of the Awards show.
• Ongoing film festival collections, including the Latino International Film Festival and the PXL This! Pixelvision Film Festival.