Educational
see all genres ›Educational films bring a cautionary or well-intended “instructional” perspective to topics ranging from driver safety to dating. Classroom films fueled a robust industry entirely independent from Hollywood for decades. As styles and social mores have changed, however, they've often acquired a delicious camp appeal.
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Genres / Ephemera / Educational
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Spectres of the Spectrum
The director of TRIBULATION 99 and SONIC OUTLAWS returns with his grandest work to date! SPECTRES OF THE SPECTRUM plunders Craig Baldwin's treasure trove of early television shows, industrial and educational films, Hollywood movies, advertisements and cartoons, combining these...Watch Movie
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The Voyagers
In the summer of 1977, NASA sent Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on an epic journey into interstellar space. Together and alone, they will travel until the end of the universe. Each spacecraft carries a golden record album, a massive compilation of images and sounds embodying the best of Planet Earth....Watch Movie
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The Smell of Burning Ants
THE SMELL OF BURNING ANTS is a haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. The film provokes the viewer to reflect on how our society can deprive boys of wholeness. Through formative events of...Watch Movie
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The Big Bounce
An exploration of the visual, political and scientific development of satellite communications from the first message bounced off a balloon to the current communication industry. The first message sent to the other side of the world was developed during the 1950s and Eisenhower administration...Watch Movie
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Command Performance
A must-see for audiophiles and vinyl hounds, this promotional film brings the viewer inside RCA Victor's teeming record plant. Behind steel doors "guarded day and night," we tour a vast archive of master discs, an orchestra standing ready with the "The Blue Danube" and the...Watch Movie
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Otto Asks a Riddle
Otto the Auto, Winky the Traffic Light and the local pedestrian Safety Patrol all agree on one thing: getting kids safely across intersections is their number one priority. But what happens when a storm temporarily knocks out Winky's green, yellow and red lights? Lesson: look...Watch Movie
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Inky and Blinky
Produced by leading auto insurer AAA, this exercise in simple animation is aimed toward very young children. Otto the Auto, "as friendly a car as there ever has been," is best friends with Blinky the Owl and Inky the pitch-black kitten. When the latter is nearly mowed down by a car at night, he...Watch Movie
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Power and the Land
This historically important documentary, narrated by Walter Cronkite, tells the story of the Parkinson family, farmers in rural Ohio who electrified their farm with the help of a Rural Electrification Administration loan. Before the electrification of their farm, work was done...Watch Movie
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Battle of the Centuries
This "Pictoreel" studies a "fantastical world of romance in which tragedy reigns supreme." Or so says the narrator of our setting, a mere "old tree stump" that hides a termite city. Their insect society is divided between workers and soldiers, the latter seen fiercely...Watch Movie
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The Car Ahead
This instructional short from the National Safety Council (a now century-old non-profit advocate for injury prevention at home and the workplace) and Pilot Productions is part of their series on "Techniques of Defensive Driving." After illustrating the six likeliest accident-causing situations,...Watch Movie
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Passing and Being Passed
The road is a perilous place, in part because there are so many jerks behind the wheel. As the narrator informs us, "Do anything you can to rid yourself of schoolboy competitiveness...driving in today's traffic is not for children. Fortunately, even the most infantile...Watch Movie
