archive.org/details/prelinger

One of the key collections of the vast open access resource that is the Internet Archive is the astounding collection of films that Rick Prelinger has been acquiring since 1983. Over 2,000 ephemeral films – home movies, educational, advertising and industrial titles, from a period that spans the 1920s to the 1980s – are free for every filmmaker with a penchant for appropriation to watch, download, reinvent and then upload to the site in the Prelinger Archive Mash Ups section if one so chooses too. And there are some great lessons to be learned to from the films of the past; whether it’s how to survive germ warfare or why loose girls aren’t popular or how ants repair their cities there’s a vast array of movies to check out.