Talk:List of films preserved in the United States National Film Registry

Koyaanis Qatsi -- thanks for all your work here. I did the change from all caps to lower case, but I was SO not in the mood to tackle any more.  :-) -- Zoe

It's no problem. And then Ortolan went through and italicized them all. Cooperation, it's a beautiful thing.

---

Does anybody know anything about Rip Van Winkle (1896)? It isn't listed at imdb.com. -- Zoe

It's not in my movie books, either. I'm going to hazard a guess--and bear in mind it's only a guess--that it was the first fiction film. (most films at that time were merely recordings of a short event, e.g. a ship docking or workers leaving a factory). In the meantime I will keep looking, as a list of KQ's guesses about things is not an encyclopedia.  ;-) --KQ 06:14 Aug 27, 2002 (PDT)

Doing a google search, I find the following: The film stars Joseph Jefferson, a famous comedy actor of the time, doing his most famous role. It was shot by early filmer Billy Bitzer. The pages I read about it are not clear on whether it was played out for the camera or shot at a normal theater performance. See also: [1] Andre Engels

There's this article on it:

Johnson, Stephen. "Evaluating Early Film as a Document of Theatre History: The 1896 Footage of Joseph Jefferson's Rip Van Winkle." Nineteenth Century Theatre 20.2 (1992): 101-22.

Unfortunatley my college doesn't have the periodical, though it's on pre-order. I'm not sure if they'll buy older issues, too, or just start a subscription. Probably the latter.

(My university library may or may not have it; the catalog entry is inconsistent, one part says they have issues from 1973 through 1981, another says they have 'em through 1986. With luck they kept getting it for a few more years and forgot to update the records! I'll check when I'm next down that way. --Brion)

Jefferson was American or British (accounts differ on where his family's from) and had Dion Boucicault write a version of the story for Jefferson to perform onstage in London; he later took it to New York. He became famous for the role, playing it over 4,500 times, bought 3,600 acres formerly called Orange Island, Louisiana, later renamed to Jefferson Island, and wrote The Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson, which was published in 1890 by The Century Co. N.Y. No word still on Andre's question above--and, unfortunately, there won't be in his autobiography, either. --KQ 21:38 Aug 27, 2002 (PDT)

Jefferson's daughter-in-law, Eugenie Paul Jefferson, wrote a biography of her father-in-law: Intimate Recollections of Joseph Jefferson, pub. New York; Dodd, Mead and Company: 1909.

This page says that Jefferson performed scenes from the play (and not the whole thing?). --KQ

---

It looks like the most recently made movie is Tin Toy from 1986. Am I correct? Just me being curious... And even more so since it doesn't have an article, and I never heard of it. Tuf-Kat 06:38, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)

A simple search in my browser finds that the most recently made ones are Beauty and the Beast and Boyz N the Hood, both from 1991. According to IMDB, Tin Toy is a five minutes animation movie on which Toy Story is based. Andre Engels 13:41, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Red links

Arbitrarily picked a few of the red linked films, and made them into stubs (Clash of the Wolves, Film Portrait and Daughters of the Dust, and fixed and expanded Empire). Every movie on this list should have an article, so I'll probably try and turn a few more into stubs as time goes on. List is nice, but also massive ... do we need to have the movies listed both alphabetically AND by year of addition to the Registry? Proto 10:51, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Would any film pass the notability criteria for Wikipedia simply by being in this list? Shawnc 12:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Additional information

I wonder if it would be useful to include a bit more information on each film. For example, would it make sense to include, in addition to the title and the year, the director and the genre? This information might be useful for people who are interested in finding certain movies that they might like to rent or buy on video or DVD. -- Major Kong 17:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

A question

Uh... Why isn't I'm dreaming of a nigger Christmas part I (1938) or any of the sequels on here? --205.188.117.14 01:15, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Because if it is going to be on this list, his has to:

• 1) Exist

• 2) Be preserved in the NFR

Don't vandalize. --BLuToRsE 03:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Great List But... Discrepancies on Feb 3, 2007

sect    In	Made		    Title
3 13	1997	1925		Ben-Hur (1925)                       (1925 or 1926?)
1 13	1997	1925		Ben-Hur (1925) (inducted 1997)
2 2	1997	1926		Ben-Hur (1926)
2 2	2005	1940		Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort, (missing in 2 sections)
3 t	2002	1966		Endless Summer (1966)                (Title: The?)
2 t	2002	1966		Endless Summer, The (1966)
1 t	2002	1966		The Endless Summer (1966) (inducted 2002)
3 31	2004	1977		Eraserhead (1977)                    (1977 or 1978?)
1 31	2004	1977		Eraserhead (1977) (inducted 2004)
2 2	2004	1978		Eraserhead (1978)
2 2	1993	1972		Godfather, The Part II (1972)        (1972 or 1974?, comma)
3 13	1993	1974		Godfather, The, Part II (1974)
1 13	1993	1974		Godfather, The, Part II (1974) (inducted 1993)
2 23	2005	1926		Hands Up (1926)                      (missing in 1 section)
3 23	2005	1926		Hands Up (1926)
2 12	1998	1971		Last Picture Show, The (1971)        (missing in 1 section)
1 12	1998	1971		Last Picture Show, The (1971) (inducted 1998)
3 t	1993	1938		March of Time: Inside Nazi Germany (1938)  (dashes in title)
1 t	1993	1938		March of Time: Inside Nazi Germany (1938) 
2 t	1993	1938		March of Time: Inside Nazi Germany--1938 (1938)
3 t	2005	1928		Power of the Press, The (1928)       (title: The)
1 t	2005	1928		Power of the Press, The (1928) (inducted 2005)
2 t	2005	1928		The Power of the Press (1928)        
2 23	2004	1918		The Blue Bird (1918)                 (missing in 1 section)                
3 23	2004	1918		The Blue Bird (1918)
2 23	1994	1963		Zapruder Film (1963)                 (missing in 1 section) 
3 23	1994	1963		Zapruder Film (1963)

For this kind of stuff, Wiki needs a sorted list or other data manipulation kind of gizmo.

MartinGugino 08:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

---

Did a little searching and found the following details:

• Ben Hur (1925, December) [2]
• The Endless Summer [3]
• Eraserhead (1977) [4]
• Godfather: Part II, The (1974) [5]
• March of Time: Inside Nazi Germany (1938) [6]
• Power of the Press, The (1928) [7]

I've updated the table to reflect these, and now that it's one table there should be no missing titles (I added "Hands Up" and "Commandment Keeper" which were missing from the alpha sort). Zarius^т 14:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd advise caution in using IMDb as a source; much of its trivia conflicts with the details given in primary documents (e.g. at the actual National Film Registry site in its press releases for each year); and in many cases, more reliably rigorous sources such as the Criterion Collection disagree about things like running times or the release dates of obscure films. Just a thought; and I'm aware that no source is 100% reliable. Koyaanis Qatsi 01:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorted table

I've replaced the 3 lists with a sortable table, if there are any objections feel free to revert it (though please leave a note here about your objections).

Advantages:

• consolidates duplications of data into one table - easier to add entries, reduces contradiction/consistency issues
• data sortable, so still viewable in the previous formats (and now in _reverse_! - as useful as that may be :))

Disadvantages:

• no links to sections #A, #B, #2005, etc. - not sure how (if possible) to fit this is
• only one table for print versions (though it could still be printed three times in different sort orders).

I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, especially decreasing the potential for discrepancies. I've taken the table data from the alphabetical list (adding "Hands Up" as it was missing from the alpha list). I used regular expressions (regexp) to convert the data so most of the work was writing the regexp and then a little cleanup. Zarius^т 14:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

New list?

If a new list is released every year, then what time of the year is it usually released? BlueVelvet86 16:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)