newsreel

American  

[nooz-reel, nyooz-] / ˈnuzˌril, ˈnyuz- /

noun

1. a short motion picture presenting current or recent events.

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newsreel British  

/ ˈnjuːzˌriːl /

noun

1. a short film with a commentary presenting current events

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Etymology

Origin of newsreel

First recorded in 1915–20; news + reel ¹

Explanation

A newsreel is a short, informative documentary film. In the early part of the twentieth century, newsreels were usually shown before movies in theaters. In the early 1900s, newsreels ran (often along with a cartoon) before a film. During World War Two, newsreels gave movie-goers news about the war as well as current events at home. The word dates from about 1915, from news and reel, the cylinder that film was wound around for being projected onto a screen.

Example Sentences

The product wasn’t profitable, and every user who spliced themselves into a World War II newsreel or Hollywood chase scene drew down a finite resource.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 30, 2026

Kyiv was in the depths of a frigid winter so monochrome that the scene on the platform could have been an old newsreel, but it was 2022 and happening in a technicolour, digital age.

From BBC • Feb. 24, 2026

The movie’s square-framed cinematography, too, reminiscent of a staged newsreel, is another subtle touch — one imagines Panh rejecting widescreen as only feeding this evil regime’s view of its own righteous grandiosity.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 20, 2025

Burstein amply and nimbly illustrates the conversation with film clips, newsreel footage, photographs and interviews.

From Salon • Aug. 3, 2024

They, too, are snacking on candies for emotional reasons; they, too, are searching the grainy newsreel for the faces of fiances.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides