From The Vaults
Films from the Museum’s extensive moving-image archive
About
As part of The Met’s 150th anniversary in 2020, the Museum began releasing films from the Museum’s extensive moving-image archive, which comprises over 1,500 films, both made and collected by the Museum, from the 1920s onward. This includes rarely seen artist profiles and documentaries, as well as process films about art-making techniques and behind-the-scenes footage of the Museum.
Episodes
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In the 1920s The Met began to explore filmmaking as part of its educational program, and in 1924 it released two films about Arms and Armor.
October 23, 2012
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Produced for the 1974 exhibition Masterpieces of Tapestry, this short form recounts the tale depicted in “The Unicorn Tapestries” and explains the symbolic meaning of these mythic creatures, including their purifying and restorative powers.
April 17, 2013
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From ancient Chinese sculpture to the modern Broadway stage, cats have long been a source of inspiration for artists.
January 24, 2020
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Sumptuously shot in richly contrasting black and white, this lyrical series of vignettes provides a window into the hidden workings of the Museum.
January 31, 2020
Each month in 2020, The Met will release three to four films from the Museum’s extensive moving-image archive.
Christopher Alessandrini, Robin Schwalb, and Stephanie Wuertz
January 31, 2020
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This short documentary follows the custom installation of Isamu Noguchi’s beloved sculpture Water Stone and offers a special opportunity to witness a living artist interact with staff as their work is prepared for display.
February 7, 2020
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This impressionistic visual diary is a quirky love letter to the Museum featuring long-time employee and artist Ray Cusie.
February 14, 2020
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This lyrical portrait of the Cathedral of Chartres was produced for the 1970 exhibition The Year 1200, a centerpiece of The Met’s centennial celebration.
February 21, 2020
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Warps, wefts, heddles, and leashes: Learn how tapestries were made, across time and across cultures, in this mesmerizing short film.
February 28, 2020
In the beginning, there was analog—and it was good
Robin Schwalb
March 2, 2020
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This captivating documentary about the rituals, myths, and traditions of Indonesia incorporates Old Javanese poetry, sculpture, and music alongside performances by traditional artists and healers.
March 6, 2020
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In this charming silent film, a drawing student’s daydream at The Met brings the ancient Greek myth of Perseus to life.
March 13, 2020
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“It seems funny to say it, but long before there was an ‘art world,’ there was art in the world.”
March 20, 2020
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The artist Louise Nevelson was known for her elaborate and monumental sculptures made of found materials such as discarded wood and scrap metal.
March 27, 2020
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This ghostly romance tells the story of two young lovers in medieval France.
April 3, 2020
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“Curator” comes from the Latin word “cura,” meaning “to take care.”
April 10, 2020
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“We discovered that art history was not the best handle by which to reach a kid.”
April 24, 2020
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This outrageous and slyly self-aware documentary revisits The Costume Institute’s 1982 exhibition La Belle Époque, from the decadence in fin-de-siècle Paris through the global pandemonium of World War I.
May 1, 2020
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A gem of analog animation, George Griffin’s Head offers a delightfully snarky and clever self-portrait of the artist as a not-so-young man, undone by his own cartoon surrogate.
May 8, 2020
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An elderly woman brings her granddaughter to a pottery studio in search of a new pitcher—but the mischievous youngster has other plans.
May 15, 2020
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Follow a pilgrimage across Europe to the shrine of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
May 21, 2020
Take a deeper look at Flaherty’s enigmatic short and learn about the new score by Ben Model.
Christopher Alessandrini, Robin Schwalb, and Stephanie Wuertz
May 22, 2020
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The American sculptor George Grey Barnard—known as the “modern Michelangelo” for his ambitious, often larger-than-life marble sculptures—perfects several projects in this charming vignette, including two massive busts of Abraham Lincoln.
May 28, 2020
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This enigmatic short film presents 50 Egyptian funerary portraits from the region of Fayum.
June 26, 2020
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Filmed in East Harlem just after the end of World War II, In the Street is a dynamic, tender, and often humorous portrait of life in New York City.
July 2, 2020
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Near the end of his life, Vincent van Gogh moved from Paris to the city of Arles in southeastern France, where he experienced the most productive period of his artistic career.
July 10, 2020
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Perhaps the most famous wrought-iron monument is the Eiffel Tower in Paris. But you can also find wrought iron all around you on the streets of New York City, decorating balconies, staircases, windows, and doorways.
July 17, 2020
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The American Impressionist painter Childe Hassam is known today for his depictions of New England landscapes and portraits of life in turn-of-the-century New York.
July 24, 2020
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Shot on location in Istanbul, Edirne, and the Turkish countryside, and narrated by Ian McKellan, this documentary explores Süleyman (or Süleiman) the Magnificent, the longest-reigning emperor of the Ottoman empire.
July 31, 2020
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This short film presents rare footage of 12th-century Romanesque apse at its original site in the Castilian countryside, where dismantling the structure required meticulously numbering and crating each of its nearly 3,300 stone pieces.
August 14, 2020
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Let Al Jarnow’s entrancing short film take you to the beach.
August 21, 2020
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In this thought-provoking film, musicians such as Ellie Mannette and Pete Seeger talk shop and explain what they love about the steel drum, from its origins in Trinidad and Tobago to its status as one of the world’s most popular musical instruments.
September 3, 2020
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In this dazzling short animation by the Brothers Quay, learn about the illusionistic technique known as anamorphosis, in which a hidden image only becomes visible when viewed from a different angle or in a curved mirror.
September 15, 2020
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This atmospheric short film presents the many wonders of France’s Cathedral of Saint Peter of Beauvais, from its intricate stained glass to its soaring, vaulted interior.
October 2, 2020
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In this short feature, produced to accompany a 1993 LACMA exhibition of Jacob Lawrence’s series on Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, hear from the artist and those who knew him well.
October 9, 2020
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When this film was made a century ago, Cairo was much smaller, and to Western visitors the way of life along the Nile River appeared to resemble that of Pharaonic Egypt.
October 16, 2020
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Since the 1970s, the artist Charles Simonds has created enigmatic dwellings for an imaginary civilization of “Little People.”
October 23, 2020
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Superstition and fear ran rampant in 17th-century New England, causing many people to conjure up visions of spectres—which they believed could only be exorcised with certain rites.
October 30, 2020
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The painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun once wrote of the 18th century, “Women reigned then; the Revolution dethroned them.”
November 13, 2020
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The artist and musician Richard Lippold is perhaps best known in New York City for his spectacular Orpheus and Apollo (1962), a five-ton chandelier made of shimmering metal ribbons that once hung in the lobby of the New York Philharmonic.
November 20, 2020
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Flowers are more than merely decorative. People throughout time have used them as storytelling devices.
December 4, 2020
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Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the oldest surviving full-length animated film.
December 11, 2020
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A self-proclaimed “collector of souls,” the American painter Alice Neel is known today for her powerful, psychologically rich portraiture.
December 18, 2020
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On February 7, 1963, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa made her public debut at The Met.
January 8, 2021
From the Vaults resurfaces selections the Museum’s extensive moving-image archive of over 1,500 film.
The Digital Editors
March 3, 2021
Filmmakers Margaret Murphy and Lucille Rhodes discuss their portrait of the celebrated artist—and what it was like to be painted by her.
Christopher Alessandrini and Stephanie Wuertz
March 24, 2021
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Using time-lapse footage of New York City, the filmmaker Hilary Harris imagines the metropolis as a living organism.
May 28, 2021
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“The only pleasure you can get from creating something is the pleasure you have in doing it, not the final product even,” the photographer Berenice Abbott once said of her work.
July 30, 2021
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Born in the Bronx on Labor Day in 1914 to recent Italian immigrants, the self-taught American painter Ralph Fasanella is known today for his bustling tableaux of working-class city life.
September 6, 2021
Two filmmakers reflect on the pioneering artist, whose feminist thought informed her understanding of the natural world.
Christopher Alessandrini and Stephanie Wuertz
October 20, 2021
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Anita Thacher's enigmatic short film "Homage to Magritte" (1974) comprises five vignettes inspired by the painter's disarming sensibility.
October 29, 2021
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Spirals (1970), a mesmerizing short film by Joyce Chopra, was commissioned for The Met's first mobile exhibition, "Eye Opener: The Spiral Show."
November 12, 2021
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What’s life like behind the scenes at a museum? This documentary offers a rare glimpse at the inner workings of several North American institutions.
January 7, 2022
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The artist, educator, and activist Benny Andrews in candid conversation about his life and work.
February 4, 2022
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In this mesmerizing short film about Japanese pottery and porcelain, the human hand and machine work in harmony. Follow the creative process from start to finish—gathering and preparing raw clay, wedging, throwing, firing, glazing, and later presenting finished work in the showroom.
March 25, 2022
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Learn the history of the Ukrainian art of pysanka, or decorating eggs, a custom that predates the Christian era.
April 15, 2022
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This enigmatic short film imagines Edouard Manet's interior monologue as he painted the 1867 execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.
May 20, 2022
Filmmakers Martha Wheelock and Kay Weaver discuss their memories of living and working with the legendary photographer.
Christopher Alessandrini and Stephanie Wuertz
June 24, 2022
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Watch a silent film of the photographer couple, Bernd and Hilla Becher, on a road trip through the American heartland.
Max Becher
November 1, 2022
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How do you make a monument? Produced by the Museum in 1922, this short film follows the American artist Alexander Phimister Proctor’s process of sculpting Theodore Roosevelt.
January 24, 2023
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This short film from 1983 documents the installation of a Ming-style garden courtyard at The Met, the first permanent cultural exchange between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.
May 16, 2023
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“When I see birches bend to left and right / Across the lines of straighter darker trees, / I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.” On April 7, 1955, Robert Frost delivered a poetry reading at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
March 26, 2024
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Art critic Aline B. Saarinen offers a poetic consideration of the moon’s significance across time and cultures.
January 16
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Listen to an optical poem illustrating W. H. Auden’s recitation of “Woods” with artworks from The Met collection, juxtaposed with footage of wildlife in Kingston, New York.
February 21
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Photographed in Ahmedabad, India, this short film follows a Dalit woman as she makes a bean-bag parrot from scavenged materials.
March 21
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