MATRIX, CHRISTMAS STORY, DIRTY HARRY And More Named To National Film Registry

From a film of a 19th century boxing match to an epic showdown inside cyberspace, the films named to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry once again cover a wide range of the American experience.

The titles added today range from blockbusters like The Matrix to popular comedies like A League Of Their Own to classics like Sons Of The Desert, Dirty Harry, Breakfast At Tiffany’s and the western 3:10 To Yuma. Of historical importance are the films The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Title Fight (1897) which featured a boxing prize fight filmed in Carson City, Nevada and Kodachrome Color Motion Picture Tests from 1922. Also on the list is the more experimental Hours For Jerome from director Nathaniel Dorsky.

Other films named to the list include The Middleton Family At The New York World’s Fair, a 1939 short film produced by the Westinghouse company for their World Fair pavilion. Produced and directed by Melton Barker, The Kidnappers Foil was a series of short films shot in various small towns throughout the country using the same script and local actors. Many of these have been lost, though some still exist in local in vintage movie houses or historical societies.

The complete list is below. Those marked with an asterisk are available to view at the bottom of the post.

The National Film Preservation Act, passed in 1988 by the Library of Congress, established the National Film Preservation Board. Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, the Librarian of Congress is tasked with choosing 25 “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant films to be added to the National Film Registry each year. Started in 1989, the titles announced today bring the total number of films on the Registry to 600. This year’s films were selected from a list of nearly 1,000 titles. Once films are named to the Registry, the Library of Congress works to ensure that the film is preserved under the terms of the Preservation Act, whether through the Library’s own film preservation program or in collaboration with other archives or film studios.

The films on the Registry range from silent classics Intolerance (1919) and It (1927) to popular blockbusters like Star Wars (1977) and Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) to historically important film footage such as the Hindenburg Disaster Newsreel Footage (1937) and Abraham Zapruder’s infamous home movie footage of the John F. Kennedy assassination.

The complete list of films named to the National Film Registry this year –

• 3:10 To Yuma (1957)
• Anatomy Of A Murder (1959)
• The Augustas (1930s-1950s)
• Born Yesterday (1950)
• Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961)
• A Christmas Story (1983)
• The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Title Fight (1897)*
• Dirty Harry (1971)
• Hours For Jerome: Parts 1 And 2 (1980-82)
• The Kidnappers Foil (1930s-1950s)*
• Kodachrome Color Motion Picture Tests (1922)*
• A League Of Their Own (1992)
• The Matrix (1999)
• The Middleton Family At The New York World’s Fair (1939)*
• One Survivor Remembers (1995)
• Parable (1964)
• Samsara: Death And Rebirth In Cambodia (1990)
• Slacker (1991)
• Sons Of The Desert (1933)
• The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973)
• They Call It Pro Football (1967)
• The Times Of Harvey Milk (1984)
• Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1914)*
• The Wishing Ring; An Idyll Of Old England (1914)