The Treasures from American Film Archives series of DVDs is produced by the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF), a nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress in 1997. The NFPF publishes these DVD sets, with accompanying booklets and extensive commentary, to promote public access to the films preserved by the American archival community.

The NFPF's inaugural DVD set — Treasures from American Film Archives, issued in 2000 — was the first video anthology sampling the range of films preserved by American cultural institutions. Featuring home movies, avant-garde films, documentaries, government films, cartoons, newsreels, political ads, and silent-era narratives saved by 18 archives from Alaska to West Virginia, the set presented 50 historically significant works that had never been available before on video. By providing these examples on video, the set helped popularize the idea of the orphan film. When the first edition went out of print in 2005, it was reissued as the Encore edition.

Since 2000, the NFPF has issued five other box sets, each with a specific theme. More Treasures from American Archives, 1894–1931 showcases the creative range of American motion pictures in their first four decades through examples preserved by the nation's leading silent-film archives. It was the first NFPF set to feature audio commentary. Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900–1934 looks at socially inflected films during the formative years cinema, when virtually no issue was too controversial for the big screen. Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947–1986 is the first multi-artist survey of the avant-garde film movement in the years following World War II. Treasures 5: The West, 1898–1938 explores how the West was imagined and documented in early cinema. Lost and Found: American Treasures From the New Zealand Film Archive presents a sampling of repatriated American films previously existing only in foreign archives.

Disc 4
Peepshow Kinetoscopes
Luis Martinetti, Contortionist (1894, 1 min.), directed by W. K. L. Dickson.
Caicedo, King of the Slack Wire (1894, 1 min.), directed by W. K. L. Dickson.
Interior New York Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street (1905, 5 min.), trip on the new IRT filmed by G. W. Bitzer.
The Land Beyond the Sunset (1912, 14 min.), slum kids dream of a better life; directed by Harold Shaw.
I'm Insured (1916, 3 min.), cartoon by Harry Palmer.
Snow White (1916, 63 min.), the earliest film version; starring Marguerite Clark and directed by J. Searle Dawley.
From Beautiful Japan (1918, 15 min.), travel-lecture film by Benjamin Brodsky.
From Rural Life in Maine (ca. 1930, 12 min.), home movies by Elizabeth Woodman Wright.
The News Parade of 1934 (1934, 10 min.), Hearst Metrotone News recap of the year.
Rose Hobart (1936, 19 min.), found footage; Joseph Cornell's obscure but entrancing surrealist collage classic.
The Autobiography of a 'Jeep' (1943, 10 min.), celebration of the indestructible World War II vehicle; directed by Irving Lerner and narrated by Robert Sloan who assumes the role of the Jeep itself.
From Marian Anderson: the Lincoln Memorial Concert (1939, 8 min.), newsreel reconstruction of this key event in Civil Rights history.