The Associated Press has acquired the British Movietone archive of newsreel footage of historic moments from the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and the 1966 World Cup final to Beatlemania and visits to the UK by celebrities including Muhammad Ali and Marilyn Monroe.

AP, the largest news agency in the US, secured the archive of almost a century of footage from Newsreel Archive for an undisclosed sum.

“The British Movietone archive is a gem of visual heritage and an incredible resource for content creators,” said Gary Pruitt, chief executive of Associated Press.

For the last five years Associated Press has had a partnership with Newsreel Archive to make the British Movietone collection available internationally, including via a free YouTube channel that offers a selection of clips.

AP already has about 2,200 hours of footage digitised for clients to license but estimates that about 15% of the collection has never been seen before and remains in its original 35mm format.

Alwyn Lindsey, AP’s vice-president of sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said taking full ownership of the collection made the agency the “foremost supplier of news and historical video”.

The British Movietone archive was originally shown in UK cinemas twice a week and was a key source of audio-visual news for the public until TV news began to take the place of cinema newsreels in the 1950s and 1960s.

From that point its hard coverage of news was increasingly accompanied by features on social issues, entertainment, lifestyle, sports and lighthearted stories as a differentiator to mainstream TV news.