Internet Archive — Borat
When someone types "Borat Internet Archive" into a search bar, they are usually looking for one of three specific things—though they often find a fourth they didn't expect.
1. The Primary Film (The Obvious) The Internet Archive hosts hundreds of copies of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. These range from 480p .AVI files ripped from DVDs in 2006 to higher-definition scans. Because of its "library" ethos, the Archive allows users to borrow or sometimes directly download copies of the film, especially public domain or creative-commons adjacent versions (though the film itself remains under strict copyright, so these are usually user-uploaded backups subject to removal).
2. The Deleted Scenes & Alternate Takes This is where the Archive shines. The theatrical cut of Borat is 84 minutes long. The footage left on the cutting room floor? Over 400 hours. Sacha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles shot so much material that entire subplots and legendary interactions never saw the light of day. The Internet Archive holds grainy, second-generation VHS rips of these deleted scenes that didn't even make it onto the 2006 DVD release. borat internet archive
3. The "Borat!" Television Era (Da Ali G Show) Before the film, there was Da Ali G Show on HBO and Channel 4. The Archive contains complete, unedited episodes of these series. In these files, you see the evolution of Borat: a rougher, less polished persona who was merely a supporting character to Ali G. Watching these pre-archive artifacts reveals how the jokes were originally structured for British and American audiences.
If you truly want to dive into the depths of the Borat Internet Archive, hunt for these three Holy Grails: When someone types "Borat Internet Archive" into a
The presence of Borat on the Internet Archive is also a testament to the ongoing tension between copyright enforcement and digital preservation.
Since the release of the 2006 film, 20th Century Fox (now Disney) has been aggressive in policing the intellectual property of the character. Links to the full film are frequently taken down due to DMCA notices, creating a digital game of Whac-A-Mole. However, the Internet Archive operates differently than a standard streaming site. Because it functions as a library, items that are "abandoned" or uploaded for research and educational purposes often persist in the grey areas of the platform. These range from 480p
Users searching for "Borat" will find not just the movie, but a litany of related ephemera: old radio interviews with Sacha Baron Cohen (in character), rare promotional appearances, and documentaries analyzing the satire. These items, often ignored by official streaming services, find a permanent home in the Archive, protected by the ethos of "Universal Access to All Knowledge."
The US DVD had one set of deleted scenes. The UK DVD had a different set. The Japanese "Collector’s Edition" VHS (yes, VHS) contained a 12-minute segment of Borat attempting to buy a "sexy time clock" from a bewildered Amish man. The Borat Internet Archive has all of them—digitized, uncut, and tagged by region.
In 2006, Sacha Baron Cohen recorded four radio IDs for a fictional "Borat Radio Network." These 30-second clips—featuring Borat giving weather reports ("Is cold. Is very cold. You will freeze and die.")—were played exactly once on The Howard Stern Show. A Redditor digitized a cassette tape of that broadcast in 2019. That MP3 now lives in the Archive.