The British Film Institute is a film and television charitable organisation founded in 1933 which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom.
Most commonly credited on releases as the owner of copyrights, the British Film Institute also acts as a label - BFI - with its own catalogue of audiovisual releases.
The British Film Institute maintains the world's largest film archive, the BFI National Archive, previously called National Film Library (1935–1955), National Film Archive (1955–1992) and National Film and Television Archive (1993–2006). It also runs the BFI Southbank (formerly the National Film Theatre (NFT)) and London IMAX cinema, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London.