The Croatian Cinematheque was founded as the national film archive by the Cinematography Act of 1976. Since 1979, it has operated as a separate department of the Croatian State Archives.

The Croatian Cinematheque collects domestic film productions, foreign films distributed and screened in Croatia, and accompanying film material documenting the emergence of a cinematic work (scripts, recording logs, film still photographs, movie posters and other advertising publications), audio records on various media as well as projection and camera shooting techniques; it also preserves, processes and implements measures to protect and restore audiovisual material as part of the overall archival material of the Croatian State Archives. From its establishment to the present, approximately 15,000 titles have been collected from domestic and foreign film production companies for the preservation of audiovisual heritage, which is an indispensable resource for studying and understanding national history, culture and social life in general.

An important segment of Croatian Cinematheque is publishing; together with its umbrella institution, the Croatian State Archives, Croatian Cinematheque publishes books on Croatian film history as part of the series "Sources for the History of Croatian Film and Cinema." Furthermore, it also publishes DVD releases with selected programs from the Croatian film heritage, which is digitized and digitally restored, and thus re-presented to the public. Among others, the oldest preserved feature-length Croatian film, Lisinski by Octavian Miletić from 1943, was also released, followed by selected titles from Zagreb Film - "Zagreb Films from 1915-1945" - and the compilation "Oktavijan Miletić: AMATEUR FILMS".

Cinematheque also features the film heritage of Nikša Fulgosi, which includes his films and written materials such as screenplays and other documentation.