I just found out about the National Film Registry and National Film Preservation Board, a part of the Library of Congress. Every year, up to 25 films are nominated because they are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant.”Anyone can nominate any film, it just has to be at least 10 years old. You can email dross@loc.gov with up to 50 nominations/year. I perused the films that have been nominated since 1989, the year the registry started. I was curious about which ones were so impacting as to be nominated at the 10- or 11-year mark, and below is a list:
Do the Right Thing 1989 1999
Goodfellas 1989 1999
Beauty and the Beast 1991 2002
Boyz in the Hood 1991 2002
Schindler's List 1993 2004
Hoop Dreams 1994 2005
Toy Story 1995 2005
Fargo 1996 2006
I'd never heard of the first one, but the rest I could easily guess why they were nominated and selected within such a short time frame.
Tons of other films were nominated that I thought were well-deserving. Here's a sampling of fifty films (that I liked in particular!) in order of release date:
Scarface
Gone with the Wind
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
Meet Me in St. Louis
National Velvet
It's a Wonderful Life
Miracle on 34th Street
The African Queen
A Streetcar Named Desire
Singing in the Rain
Roman Holiday
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Oklahoma!
Rebel Without a Cause
Jailhouse Rock
Gigi
Porgy and Bess
Psycho
West Side Story
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Lawrence of Arabia
The Music Man
To Kill a Mockingbird
Dr. Strangelove
The Sound of Music
Bonnie and Clyde
Cool Hand Luke
2001: A Space Odyssey
Planet of the Apes
M*A*S*H
Dirty Harry
Caberet
The Godfather
The Exorcist
Blazing Saddles
Jaws
Rocky
Taxi Drive
Saturday Night Fever
Star Wars
Alien
Airplane!
Raiders of the Lost Ark
E.T.
A Christmas Story
The Terminator
Back to the Future
Hoosiers
Dances with Wolves
For a complete list, click here.
Let's Analyze
It's late as I'm typing this up, and I'm curious if there is such an equivalent for books? Anyone? Anyone?
