The Dan Andries Collection is a collection of 16mm and 8mm films, some of which were produced by Fred Niemann Productions and sponsored by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Dan Andries found this collection of mid-20th century films outside of the radio station WFMT, the likely previous home of these films. Alongside these films were labels and shot lists suggesting the films’ content as prohibition melodrama, various depictions of urban life, shoreline vistas, and even some footage shot outside Illinois: Florida, California, Alaska.

Morton & Millie Goldsholl ran Goldsholl Design & Film Associates, one of Chicago’s leading graphic design studios in the 1950s through 1970s. The studio became recognized for their animations, progressive hiring practices and developing corporate branding packages for various companies. Their collection, donated to CFA in 2006 and 2010, contains commercials and industrial films that Goldsholl Associates made for their clients, experimental films and animations made by both Morton and Millie, unedited travel films shot by Morton and Millie and films (primarily animated) that the two collected over the years.

This collection of films contains prints and elements of industrial films made by the International Minerals & Chemical Corporation (IMC Global). Formerly headquartered in Lake Forest, Illinois, International Minerals & Chemical Corp was a mining and production company that was once among the world's leading producers of phosphate and fertilizer. The company was originally founded in 1909 as International Agricultural Corporation. In 2004, IMC Global merged with Cargill, Inc.'s crop nutrition division to form The Mosaic Company, a crop nutrition company.

The Charles E. Krosse Collection contains films produced and/or distributed by a Peoria film production company, C.L. Venard Productions, a company that became known for its educational films dealing with agricultural subject matter. It was donated to CFA by Charles E. Krosse, who previously worked in the Marketing division at Caterpillar. The collection contains both 16mm and 35mm films, a number of which may also be titles that Venard employees collected. Included in the collection are promotional and in-house training films made for Caterpillar, a fundraising film made for the city of Peoria, some soft-core erotic shorts, animated shorts, silent film comedies, and home movies.

The LaRue Collection consists of films and film technology made and collected by two generations of Chicago-based motion picture engineers, Mervin W. LaRue Sr. and Jr. The elder LaRue filmed news subjects for Pathé in Canada before moving to Chicago to work for Bell & Howell and later establish a medical film business. His films include a mix of home movies from Toronto and Chicago, medical films depicting experiments in obstetrics and anesthesia, and Burton Holmes travelogues of Ethiopia, Bali, and Holland. A VHS copy of the film Those Roos Boys and Friends (1987), directed by Barbara Boyden, is included, featuring LaRue and his colleagues Charlie and Len Roos in Canada. The younger LaRue was also an engineer at Bell & Howell, as well as for Ampex in the 1960s. His films include home movies that show the family at home in then-unincorporated North Barrington, IL, celebrating birthdays and weddings, and traveling to Iowa and Colorado. Also included in the collection is a 16mm projector equipped with a lenticular lens to project Kodacolor.

This collection consists of "orphan" films and is named after William O'Farrell, a Canadian moving image archivist and champion of the neglected, lost film and regional archives in general.

Spanning 5 decades and a wide range of subjects and styles, the Rhodes Patterson Collection documents the rapidly developing city of Chicago during the mid-century and the fascinating life of Rhodes Patterson, a designer, cinematographer, photographer and writer. Patterson’s diverse subject matter and style reflect the interconnected communities of industrial and graphic design, commercial and industrial film production, fine art, and architecture in Chicago during this period. Whether made “just for fun,” as documentation, or for commercial purposes, Patterson’s films reflect his humor, interest in art and design, imagination and creativity. The collection includes footage of Mae West from 1938; numerous films Patterson shot while stationed as a WWII reconnaissance photographer on the Island of Tinian; the construction of the Marina City Towers, Playboy building and various skyscrapers in Chicago; films made during the early development of the Aspen Institute; commercial footage shot while Patterson was working at the Container Corporation of America; documentation of the construction of the Playboy West complex and grotto; early Playboy footage and burlesque films; footage of Lincoln Park, Lake Michigan and people on the streets of Chicago; and various home movies, commercial projects, and amateur and personal films.

The Rainbow Productions Collection consists of unedited B-roll footage from three travel films made by filmmaker Dirk Wales, founder and president of Rainbow Productions. Formed in 1972, Rainbow Productions was a Chicago-based industrial production company that specialized in educational, documentary, medical and sponsored films. The footage in the Rainbow Productions Collection was shot by Wales in California, New Orleans, and New England, with the intention of creating a travel series on these regions, but the project was never completed.