Today, visitors of Filmmuseum Potsdam have the opportunity to use an extensive collection on film history. Having emerged out of a collection of film and cinema equipment that had been compiled since 1960, the stock increased especially after 1990. The collections department, which is central to the museum′s work, has an exceptional history: From 1977 to 1980, members of the museum staff cooperated with employees of the State Film Archive to do research in all districts of the GDR. The exhibits that were found this way became part of the extensive collections of the State Film Archive of the GDR, while an agreement regulated their availability to the museum. Technical devices, design models and items that had been collected since 1960 were left to the museum. At its opening in the Marstall in 1981, the "Film Museum of the GDR" offered a cinema as well as an exhibition on technical equipment showing the collection′s most prominent items. After the permanent exhibition on film history until 1945 and DEFA feature films had been opened in 1983, collection activities remained rather insignificant.

The breakdown of the GDR brought the integration of the State Film Archive into the Federal Archive. Although preliminary agreements included the privileged access of "Filmmuseum Potsdam" to the stock, the absence of an own collection became painfully evident. Thus, collection activities started already in 1990. The rapidly changing circumstances called for quick action: DEFA was already in the process of liquidation, cinemas closed down and employees of film companies lost their jobs. It was high time to save precious objects from getting lost. During the following years, large quantities of items documenting the GDR′s film and cinema history became property of the museum.

In 1995, the growing collections department moved to adequate facilities and established archives and depots. Step by step, working conditions and preconditions for maintaining and expanding the collections improved. The museum′s restoration workshop was equipped with up-to-date laboratory technology. Today, especially donations and permanent loans contribute to the growth of the collections, a moderate annual budget enables the department to buy items on a regular basis.