Bradford on Film tells the story of the people, places, industries, traditions, celebrations, major events and everyday working lives across the decades, all captured on film and revealed once again for everyone to see and enjoy.

What is fascinating about these films is that many of them have been made by local people – amateur film makers and home movie enthusiasts – whose collections now sit alongside and complement other treasures in our Archive collections, including pioneering production companies and more recent regional television programmes. Together they create a rich and extraordinary record of life in and around Bradford over the past century.

From days out to Shipley Glen, Haworth, or Saltaire, to life during World War II; Bradford’s industrial heritage and the changes to the city as it expanded and developed, to grabbing a bargain at Kirkgate Market, hopping on the trolley bus, shouting from the rugby and football terraces, the vibrancy the Mela, or the obligatory curry after a dance at the Blue Lace nightclub, it’s all here in Bradford on Film.

These collections have been carefully preserved by the Yorkshire Film Archive and now been woven into a moving image story of Bradford on Film, starting with the black and white flickering images in the Town Hall Square in 1896 and following a whole century of Bradford life on film.