Before the Hayes Code was enacted, movies were a lot more brazen than we sometimes tend to think. Director/Producer Lois Weber spent much of her career making movies that challenged audiences. Her film, "Where Are My Children" is no...

The first step to world peace is for people to meet each other. We can't all travel the world at the same time, but we can meet each other in other ways. In this talk, Jehane Noujaim unveils her 2006 TED Prize wish: to bring the world...

Sound design is built on deception -- when you watch a movie or TV show, nearly all of the sounds you hear are fake. In this audio-rich talk, Tasos Frantzolas explores the role of sound in storytelling and demonstrates just how easily...

Movies have the power to create a shared narrative experience and to shape memories and worldviews. British film director Beeban Kidron invokes iconic film scenes -- from Miracle in Milan to Boyz n the Hood -- as she shows how her group...

Film producer Jeff Skoll (An Inconvenient Truth) talks about his film company, Participant Productions, and the people who've inspired him to do good.

Chris Milk uses innovative technologies to make personal, interactive, human stories. Accompanied by Joshua Roman on cello and McKenzie Stubbert on piano, Milk traces his relationship to music and art -- from the first moment he...

Oceanographer Kate Stafford lowers us into the sonically rich depths of the Arctic Ocean, where ice groans, whales sing to communicate over vast distances -- and climate change and human noise threaten to alter the environment in ways we...

Beginning April 13th, join Craig Benzine (the internet's WheezyWaiter) for 16 weeks of Film History right here on Crash Course. He'll look at the history of one of our most powerful mediums. Film has the ability to communicate with...

Nothing changed movies like the arrival of synchronous sound. NOTHING! Acting, directing, cinematography, and presentation all had to be rethought. Some studios were more quick to take on the challenge while others waited until the last...

Cinematic love stories come in all shapes and sizes. Movies are really good at both capturing and projecting emotions. And one of the best directors at the modern love story is Wong Kar-Wai. In this episode of Crash Course Film...

Where are all the women and girls in film? Social scientist Stacy Smith analyzes how the media underrepresents and portrays women -- and the potentially destructive effects those portrayals have on viewers. She shares hard data behind...

Chris Milk uses cutting edge technology to produce astonishing films that delight and enchant. But for Milk, the human story is the driving force behind everything he does. In this short, charming talk, he shows some of his...

Nick Veasey shows outsized X-ray images that reveal the otherworldly inner workings of familiar objects -- from the geometry of a wildflower to the anatomy of a Boeing 747. Producing these photos is dangerous and painstaking, but the...

Filmmaker Penelope Jagessar Chaffer was curious about the chemicals she was exposed to while pregnant: Could they affect her unborn child? So she asked scientist Tyrone Hayes to brief her on one he studied closely: atrazine, a herbicide...

Why is it so hard to find female superhero merchandise? In this passionate, sparkling talk, media studies scholar (and father of a Star Wars-obsessed daughter) Christopher Bell addresses the alarming lack of female superheroes in the...

The dark side of the moon is full of mystery, and according to some, evil robots, but, in 1959 Luna 3 was able to shed some light on it for the first time.

Zombies have a distinct lineage— one that traces back to Equatorial and Central Africa. For three centuries, African people were enslaved and brought to the Caribbean Islands. There, a religion known as vodou developed, along with the...

It's a new series in Crash Course Film as Michael Aranda takes the reins as host for the next 15 weeks to talk about Film Criticism.

The chemistry behind film photography is pretty fascinating. How do film cameras help us turn light into a physical image?

Movies are really good at making us feel. Happy, sad, excited, etc... Part of that is because they use so many different types of media all at once. Photography, music, performance, and editing all play into their ability to communicate...

Netflix changed the world of entertainment -- first with DVD-by-mail, then with streaming media and then again with sensational original shows like "Orange Is the New Black" and "Stranger Things" -- but not without taking its fair share...

On the heels of the breakout success of his film "Crazy Rich Asians," director Jon M. Chu reflects on what drives him to create -- and makes a resounding case for the power of connection and on-screen representation.

How does Hollywood choose what stories get told on-screen? Too often, it's groupthink informed by a narrow set of ideas about what sells at the box office. As a producer, Franklin Leonard saw too many great screenplays never get made...

Brewster Kahle is building a truly huge digital library -- every book ever published, every movie ever released, all the strata of web history ... It's all free to the public -- unless someone else gets to it first.