• Lilo & Stitch (2002): When Lilo tries to make Stitch become a model citizen by making him be like Elvis Presley, she happens to own a real photograph of Presley on it.
• Wizards has the wicked wizard Blackwolf project old Nazi propaganda films onto clouds to give his armies heart for battle (they normally chicken out). This includes Adolf Hitler giving an impassioned speech to his armies. It doesn't matter that none of the mooks speak German; they take courage from the fervency of the Nazi troops and their wehrmacht.

In General

• Of course, documentaries make extensive use of that. Same for period pieces where it uses photographs or a short clip in the opening scene helps to anchor down the exact time and place. (See the numerous British World War II dramas that invariably begin with a speech by Winston Churchill or pieces that take place in The '60s America that start with a speech by Martin Luther King Jr.). A special genre, the historical docudrama, where the plot follows a select few persons navigate the time period is almost built around this.
• World War II-set movies, particularly those set in Europe, will typically have at least one archive footage of Adolf Hitler (unless the man himself is played by someone in the cast, though some have both) as a quick and easy/surefire indicator of the era, typically explaining either how he came to control Germany and bend it to his twisted will or how he crushed Poland and Western Europe in 1939-1940 then turned on USSR in 1941. Oftentimes it's through theater newsreels a character goes to watch.

Specific Examples

• In Alien Nation, archival footage of a Ronald Reagan speech is shown on a TV and recontextualized as a declaration allowing the aliens who crash-landed on Earth to live in the United States.
• All the President's Men: A lot of politicians and reporters appear as themselves in archival footage, including President and Mrs. Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Ron Ziegler, Walter Cronkite, etc.
• Atomic Blonde opens with Ronald Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" speech.
• The Big Lebowski opens with footage of George H. W. Bush's speech on Iraqi aggression against Kuwait in the lead-up to the Gulf War, in which he says "This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait", a sentiment echoed by the Dude throughout the movie ("this aggression will not stand").
• The Atrocity Montage at the start of Black Widow (2021) depicts multiple real-world persons meeting with General Dreykov.
• In Contact (1997), President Bill Clinton delivers a televised speech after Earth makes First Contact with an alien civilization. The footage of Clinton was taken — without permission — from a press conference about the (now disputed) discovery of microfossils on a Martian meteorite.
  Clinton: If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered. Its implications are as far-reaching and awe-inspiring as can be imagined. [...] We will continue to listen closely to what it has to say as we continue the search for answers and for knowledge that is as old as humanity itself, but essential to our people's future. Thank you.
• Da 5 Bloods uses archival footage of historical events and speeches and ends the film with a montage of real people who weren't previously involved in the plot.
• A Dangerous Life uses the footage of Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr.'s final interview before he stepped out of the plane, leading to his assassination.
• Forrest Gump: Throughout the film, Forrest gets involved in many historical events; to give it authenticity, many scenes have Tom Hanks digitally inserted into archival footage of the period.
  • Although Elvis Presley is played by an actor while interacting with young Forrest, a video of the real Elvis performing is later seen on a Storefront Television Display, in which he showcases the dance moves Forrest taught him earlier.
  • During his college years, Forrest shows up at the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, where George Wallace tried to prevent two African-American students from enrolling at the University of Alabama. He's inserted into footage of the real event, walking after Vivian Jones to return a book she dropped.
  • When he makes it into the All-America football team, he gets to visit the White House and briefly meets President John F. Kennedy (who, as a bonus, keeps a photo of Marilyn Monroe in his private bathroom). He even shakes hands with him, which involved a ton of trial and error and digitally removing a whole person from the original video so Forrest could take her place.
    JFK: Congratulations, how do you feel?
    Forrest: I gotta pee.
    JFK: Heh heh, I believe he said he had to go pee!
  • Forrest later meets President Lyndon B. Johnson, who shakes his hand and gives him the Medal of Honor for his work in Vietnam. When LBJ jokingly asks to see the bullet wound on Forrest's butt, Forrest happily obliges.
    LBJ: [chuckles] Goddamn, son...
  • Later, Forrest joins the US Army's Special Services, providing entertainment to wounded veterans. In one such event, footage of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon plays on a TV at the corner of the room, which is completely ignored as they're all too busy watching Forrest play ping-pong.
  • He goes on to become a key figure in ping-pong diplomacy, which wins him an interview on The Dick Cavett Show (with Cavett playing himself) alongside archival footage of John Lennon.
    Forrest: In the land of China, people hardly got nothing at all.
    Lennon: No possessions?
    Forrest: And in China, they never go to church.
    Lennon: No religion, too?
    Cavett: Oh. Hard to imagine.
    Lennon: ...Well, it's easy if you try, Dick.
  • Forrest and his ping-pong team then meet President Richard Nixon, who recommends that Forrest stay at the Watergate Hotel. After Forrest kickstarts the chain of events that led to the Watergate scandal, the following scene opens with a shot of a TV playing footage of Nixon's resignation speech.
    Nixon: So are you enjoying yourself in our national capital, young man?
    Forrest: Yes, sir.
    Nixon: Well, where are you staying?
    Forrest: It's called the Hotel Ebbott.
    Nixon: Oh, nononono, I know of a much nicer hotel. It's brand-new, very modern. I'll have my people take care of it for you.
  • News footage of Ronald Reagan's assassination attempt plays on Forrest's TV as he receives a letter from Jenny asking him to come visit.
• France (2021) uses very clever editing of high definition footage and audio of French President Emmanuel Macron to include him as a character in the film at a conference and have him address the film's fictional journalist by her name.
• In Good Night, and Good Luck., all of the appearances of Senator Joseph McCarthy throughout the film were done through archival footage of his television interviews. Ironically, one of the big complaints critics had of the film was that the "actor" playing McCarthy was overacting his role as the man who became the symbol of the Red Scare.
• The Men Who Stare at Goats features the lead character being inspired to go to Iraq to cover the war after watching George W. Bush's speech declaring war on terrorism.
• The 1991 film, JFK, uses footage and photographs taken from the John F. Kennedy assassination.
• Archival footage of Lyndon Johnson appears in Nixon, a 1995 biopic directed by Oliver Stone, released after Richard Nixon's death.
• Official Secrets shows Katharine Gun, as played by Keira Knightley, watching news footage from 2003 about the buildup to the Iraq War, including appearances by then-US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Additionally, the conclusion of the film briefly shows news footage of the real-life Katharine Gun (who looks nothing like Knightley) commenting to reporters about her acquittal.
• Pacific Rim: Though mostly set 20 Minutes into the Future, the film's opening depicts the very first Kaiju attack occurring in 2013 complete with a montage of news media coverage of the event, including Stock Footage of U.S. President Barack Obama addressing the nation.
• Reagan, being a Biopic, makes extensive use of this, sometimes in rather creative ways. Along with completely straight examples such as use of Bernard Shaw's CNN reportage on the March 30, 1981 assassination attempt and clips of the 1976 Republican Convention and news reports on the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, archive footage is also blended into the film at certain points allowing Dennis Quaid as Reagan to interact after a fashion with the Real Life Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale at their respective debates in 1980 and 1984.
• The Right Stuff uses archival footage of John F. Kennedy congratulating Alan Shepard and his wife (played by Scott Glenn and Kathy Baker, respectively) after Shepard completes his successful mission.
• Ted: During the montage of Ted becoming a celebrity after coming to life in the 1980s, there's a scene of him appearing as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The footage of Carson was taken from a 1983 episode, with Ted inserted over the actual guest, Emmanuel Lewis.
• The prologue to Transformers: Dark of the Moon, focusing on the real purpose of the Apollo 11 mission, naturally uses historical footage of various public figures (Walter Cronkite, Richard Nixon, etc.), with John F. Kennedy being portrayed through a combination of archive footage and actor Brett Stimely.
• The Woody Allen film Zelig is a Mockumentary consisting primarily of the title character interacting with various historic events, in all cases inserting him into archival footage.

• Arrested Development: Then-president Donald Trump appears on a television when Lucille watches his infamous “We need to build a wall” speech, when she comments that she came up with the idea first.
• A plot point in Bye Bye Birdie is an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The musical is set in 1958, the stage show premiered in 1960 and the first movie came in 1963, all of which are well within the run of The Ed Sullivan Show, and Ed Sullivan appears as himself in the movie. When the TV remake came along in 1995 Sullivan had been dead for decades, so the role was reduced to a bit of stock footage on screens and Sullivan no longer travels to Sweet Apple, Ohio himself; the Conrad Birdie/Kim MacAfee segment will be filmed by a separate film crew and the footage broadcast to New York City.
• Happy!: The episode "Arlo and Marie" has Orcus revealing that he has manipulated many historical figures, which also has a montage showing the Wishees photoshopped into pictures with JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and others.
• Done frequently in JAG including with footage of then-president Clinton, using a clip where he's jogging; we're to believe main character Harm is in the security detail jogging along with him. JAG also used a lot of clips of real military maneuvers and equipment, with amusingly grainy image quality that stands out from the rest of the episode.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: On the episode "2020: A Year In Review," Rudy Giuliani appears in archive footage of his Four Seasons Total Landscaping speech, with Frank added in the background. The episode reveals that Frank is his hairdresser and is responsible for his hair dye running. In other scenes, he appears as a Fake Shemp.
• Micro Men: As the home computer market turns sour, Alan Sugar appears by way of an archived interview.
• Red Dwarf: "Timeslides" had Adolf Hitler appear in archive footage, which Lister is inserted into. This leads to a humorous opening with "Tonight's Special Guest Star: Adolf Hitler As Himself”.
• The Umbrella Academy:
  • Season 2 takes place in 1960s Dallas, Texas around the time of the JFK assassination, which is the center topic of the season. Despite this, Kennedy himself doesn't make physical appearances outside of archive footage taken of him from that day, not even in the episode "743", which takes place on the day of his assassination.
    • JFK also appears as archive footage in the season 1 episode "Number Five" in a throwaway moment where Five explains how he got back to the present day.
  • Jacqueline Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson both appear in the series as archival footage as well. The former appears only in footage with JFK while footage of the latter appears on a television screen after JFK dies.
• Witchblade: Sara spends one season two episode having a long chat with a man seated such that his face is hidden by the shadows. At the end of the episode, he leans forward to reveal the face of John F. Kennedy, whose face has been unconvincingly superimposed over the actor from news footage.

• Call of Duty: Black Ops
  • The ending of the game reveals that Alex Mason was present in the background of numerous photos and clips taken during the assassination of John F. Kennedy, heavily implied to have been under the influence of the numbers brainwashing program and also involved in his death. JFK himself, in contrast to his earlier depiction in the level "U.S.D.D." (complete with a voice actor and a full character model), is the actual JFK as depicted in the archival footage of the time.
  • Archive footage of Lyndon Johnson appears in the game, which takes place during The Vietnam War. Members of his cabinet appear in an in-game cutscene, though the scene takes place back when Kennedy was still in office.
• News footage of then-President George W. Bush giving his infamous "Mission Accomplished!" speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln can be seen playing on a television set during the start of The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes, setting the game's timeline days after the US Military's victory over Iraq in 2003.
• The opening cinematic for Command & Conquer: Generals shows brief live-action clips of prominent War on Terror figures such as George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. They otherwise don't appear (or are referenced) in-game. But it still drives home the point that the game is a Post 9/11 Terrorism Video Game.
• Commandos used stock footage from World War II in its intro sequences and endings with the first game having stock footage cutscenes at various points in the game when the commandos get sent to different theatres of operations (Norway, North Africa, France, and Germany) as the war progresses. A controversial change to the remaster of Men Of Courage saw Adolf Hitler removed from its intro sequence as part of the port's No Swastikas policy.

• Inside Job (2021): A Freeze-Frame Bonus occurs in the form of glitched images that appear at the very beginning of each episode just after the "A Netflix Series" title card ends. Three of them that appear in the episodes "Clone Gunman", "Buzzkill", and "Inside Reagan" show edited photographs of John F. Kennedy, Buzz Aldrin, and Ronald Reagan respectively.
• Ready Jet Go! has access to NASA's archives, which allows them to use such footage. In "A Hammer and a Feather", they showed a video of David Scott dropping a hammer and a feather on the moon at the same time. Both "Earth Mission to Moon" and "One Small Step" show footage of the Apollo 11 launch, as well as Neil Armstrong's famous 'one small step' quote.
• The Simpsons: In the episode "Gone Boy", Bart watches footage of John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address after falling inside of a bunker.