Unknown Yom Kippur War films

The British Pathé archive holds nearly 90,000 individual clips. Most of the descriptions you’ll see on the website were taken from handwritten notes, composed either by the cameramen at the time Continue reading →

Prince Charles Guest-Edits Countryfile

Last night, the BBC aired a special edition of its popular Countryfile series, guest-edited by Prince Charles. Reviews today have been good and it seems there is agreement that the Continue reading →

The Oscars: We were up all night! But was it worth it?

It was the 85th Academy Awards last night! The winners were all worthy, Daniel Day Lewis was charming as usual, everyone was impeccably dressed, and the great William Shatner made Continue reading →

The 85th Academy Awards

Take our poll! In our opinion, this past year has been a triumph for modern cinema and, as usual, the whole of Hollywood will assemble on 24th February 2013 to Continue reading →

Dressed for the occasion? London Fashion Week Arrives!

The most exciting 5 days in fashion begins today as London welcomes designers, press and fashion icons from all over the world for London Fashion Week. The first fashion week Continue reading →

Scott of the Antarctic

On Sunday, 10th February 2013, it will have been 100 years since Robert Falcon Scott and his colleagues Henry Bowers and Edward Wilson were discovered dead in their tent in the Continue reading →

150 Years of the F.A.

Earlier in January, the Football Association kicked off celebrations to mark its 150th anniversary. The FA was established in 1863 and codified the modern rules of that great English sport. Not too long Continue reading →

The First Annual George Orwell Day!

21st January 2013 is the inaugural Annual George Orwell Day. The date has been chosen for the day of his death (21st January 1950). British Pathé holds three films of Continue reading →

HMV Goes Into Administration

It has been reported in the papers today that high street retailer HMV has gone the way of Woolworths, Jessops, Comet, Zavvi (until rescued by HMV), and Fopp (until rescued by HMV) – Continue reading →

British Pathé Picks: 14th – 31st January 2013

Here’s our selection of British Pathé footage that relates to anniversaries coming up in the next two weeks. Click the links below to take a look! You can also keep Continue reading →

90,000 Historical Newsreels For Use in Your History Lessons

The British Pathé Education service has been nominated for a 2013 BETT Award for its digital resource available to British schools and academies. For any of you who are interested, here’s a Continue reading →

British Pathé Picks: Early Jan 2013

Twice a month we blog about footage in the archive relevant to upcoming events or important anniversaries. There are always plenty, so we can only present a selection and you can search the Continue reading →

Review of the Year 2012 – A Pathé Tradition

From 1922 to 1969, British Pathé produced lengthy round-ups of the year’s news stories that collected together the most dramatic images and covered the most important events. Not confined to Continue reading →

A History of British Invention

2012 has been an ego-boosting year for the British. With the success of the Diamond Jubilee, the Summer Olympics and the Paralympics, it wouldn’t be a bad year to go Continue reading →

British Pathé Picks: Christmas 2012

As we mentioned in late November, we’re now doing a regular blog post pointing out events or anniversaries coming up that the archive holds some relevant footage for. So here are our picks Continue reading →

London: A Tribute

2012, if we do indeed survive the predicted apocalypse, will be remembered for many things, but without a doubt it will be considered London’s year. The Diamond Jubilee, the Summer Continue reading →

British Pathé Spreads Its Wings

This quick message is to tell you about our brand new Social Media pages. Don’t worry, we’re not neglecting the old ones. In fact, we’ve recently updated our WordPress blog Continue reading →

Royal Baby Names: Take the Poll

There’s nothing like a royal pregnancy announcement to get the media’s mouths watering. So we thought we would join in the speculation and fun of guessing the future King or Continue reading →

Twentieth Century Hall Of Fame

Around the time that what was then called “British Pathé News” was producing A Day That Shook The World with the BBC, work also began on a companion series entitled Continue reading →

British Pathé Picks: Early Dec 2012

Earlier in November we blogged about four upcoming anniversaries which may have been of interest (see here). From now on, we’ll be doing this on a regular basis, pointing out events coming Continue reading →

Days That Shook The World – 21st Century Pathé

A few years ago, what was then called “British Pathé News” began a production with the BBC called A Day That Shook The World. Two series were eventually made, the Continue reading →

British Pathé Picks: Nov 2012

Every now and again there are some important anniversaries that are worth blogging about. As it happens, there are four all coming up in the next few days. So here’s some Continue reading →

The Pathé Animation Archive

As well as producing regular news stories, British Pathé often included additional forms of entertainment mixed in to add a bit of variety. These pieces could be more comedic or quirky Continue reading →

Pathé’s Hidden Treasures

“That’s all very well, but what has the Pathé archive got for ME?” It can be tempting to think of the British Pathé archive as being only of interest to those with a passion Continue reading →

Burning Down The House: Dangerous Guy Fawkes Night Videos

Reblogged from The British Pathé Archive Blog: Today is Guy Fawkes day and so we had a dig in the archive for some footage of yesteryear’s heretic-honed celebrations. British Pathé Continue reading →

The Pathé War Archive

We are now entering into the period leading up to Remembrance Day. We have already blogged this week about the history of poppies and why we wear them (see Poppies: Continue reading →

The Girls With Cotton Tails

The 1960s saw Hugh Hefner opening up his Playboy Clubs across the world. Those hostess showgirls wedged in to satin corsets and sprinkled with  bunny ears and bow ties are Continue reading →

Bunny Girls: British Pathé Go Inside The Playboy Paradise (Never To Return)

Reblogged from The British Pathé Archive Blog: Playboy Magazine and the notorious Bunny Girls charmed their way into Metro yesterday with the announcement of a new Mayfair Playboy club opening in Continue reading →

Schwarzenegger Aged 19

Reblogged from The British Pathé Archive Blog: We were searching body builders in the archive today for one of our clients and suddenly stumbled across this freak discovery – a mega Continue reading →

Decline and Transformation: British Pathé from 1958 to the present day

by James Hoyle, archive co-ordinator for British Pathé This post is Part IV of IV. For the years 1895 to 1910, see blog post “Pathé Before British Pathé”. For the Continue reading →

A Golden Age: British Pathé from 1933 to 1958

by James Hoyle, archive co-ordinator for British Pathé This post is Part III of IV. For the years 1895 to 1910, see blog post “Pathé Before British Pathé”. For the Continue reading →

Establishing Itself: British Pathé from 1910 to 1933

by James Hoyle, archive co-ordinator for British Pathé This post is Part II of IV. For the years 1895 to 1910, see blog post “Pathé Before British Pathé”. For the Continue reading →

Pathé Before British Pathé: The Archive from 1895 to 1910

by James Hoyle, archive co-ordinator for British Pathé This post is Part I of IV. For the years 1910 to 1933, see blog post “Establishing Itself”. For the years 1933 Continue reading →

Marilyn Monroe’s Last Night

Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her bedroom on August 5th 1962 by her psychiatrist doctor Ralph Greenson. She was just 36 years old. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office ruled Continue reading →

Vintage Workouts: Shape Up For Summer the British Pathe Way!

The great British summer is here! You might not be able to tell from the sky but there lies a clue in the sudden splurge of diet fads and health initiatives. Food packaging and Continue reading →

Nicole Kidman to play Princess Grace in new film

We learnt today from Ben Child’s film column in the Guardian that Nicole Kidman will be playing Grace Kelly in a new Hollywood blockbuster. The film will be directed by Continue reading →

Balloon Boy Found!

A friend of the archive sent in a link to a Herald Tribune interview with 82-year-old Bill Crawford, discussing his fame as a balloon stunt child star. Crawford used to Continue reading →

British Pathe’s Greek Odyssey

We’ve been enjoying Joanna Lumley’s recent ITV documentary series ‘Joanna Lumley’s Greek Odyssey’, and were motivated by it to dig out our own documentary series on Greece. That’s right, British Continue reading →

Beauty and the Beach: A Guide to Pyjama Dressing

By Amber Butchart, author of Theatre of Fashion and half of Broken Hearts DJ duo. “The seaside became the world’s most glamorous stage on which all who visited it could play whatever Continue reading →

There is a Luxurious Cinema Attached to this Train! (PATHE GAZETTE EXTRAVAGANZA)

Who knew there used to be cinema carriages on trains? Or “saloons” as they were called… Today we came across this exciting poster on the National Archives’ Flickr stream which reads – “There Continue reading →

Extreme Bodies – Gigantism!

Most of us are lucky enough to go about our daily lives fairly inconspicuously but there are some men and women who literally stand out from the crowd. Super sized humans have always Continue reading →

1960s Teen Idols: Life Before Lady Gaga

In 1967 the Daily Mail conducted a survey to establish who teenagers idolised Although Hollywood was already a strong force and pop music had major clout over kids’ imaginations, it Continue reading →

Black Friday: A 1940s Re-Interpretation of Rebecca Black’s famous YouTube video ‘Friday’

British Pathé guest blogger Meghan Purvis has pieced together her own music video for Rebecca Black’s hit ‘Friday’, using 8 fabulous clips from the British Pathé film archive. Here’s what she Continue reading →

MODE magazine’s Rulebook for Men makes sense to the British Pathé film archive

Today one of our archivist’s turned up at work with a magazine called MODE, by the people who make Shortlist, one of those trendy free mags that they distribute outside Continue reading →

Big Fat Gypsy Videos in the British Pathe Film Archive

Big Fat Gypsy Weddings has been a surprise TV phenomenon here in Britain this year, with its sometimes hilarious sometimes sad voyeuristic insight into gypsy life here in the UK. Continue reading →

The King’s Speech Oscar Scoop and James Franco as Marilyn Monroe

We’re thrilled that The King’s Speech scooped four Oscars at last night’s ceremony: Best Picture, Best Actor (Colin Firth), Best Director (Tom Hooper) and Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler). For Continue reading →

All of Yesterday’s Parties: Forgotten Scenesters of the 60s

A lot of people are getting excited today because someone has scanned in their old copies of Smash Hits! Magazine and uploaded the pages as images to FlickR, meaning thirty-somethings Continue reading →

The lovely Audrey Hepburn

There are not many actresses who can claim to have Audrey Hepburn’s timeless appeal and eternal popularity but then again there is something about Audrey that puts her in her Continue reading →