Since its establishment in 1848 as the first large free municipal library in the United States, the Boston Public Library has remained a research and education mecca for both the immediate Boston community and students, researchers, and visitors who come from far beyond. A selection of 16mm films that once formed their circulating collection can now be found at the Harvard Film Archive. The 1,576 films in the collection date from the earliest days of cinema through 2001, and include features such as Rossellini’s Paisan (1948), Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (1960), G.W. Pabst's The Joyless Street (1925) and John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) among the animated films, experimental cinema, silent shorts and hundreds of documentary and instructional films made for educational purposes.

A list of titles from the collection cataloged in the Harvard Library catalog can be found here.