Earlier this year I had the pleasure of seeing These Amazing Shadows, a documentary about the National Film Registry, and it made a strong case for the creation of such a registry by Congress being an important (if not all encompassing) step for the medium being recognized as a lasting and important high art. Lists of this sort are a dime-a-dozen, but there is something honorable about our government’s highest representatives (setting aside the depths of popular approval they are currently wallowing in) mandating that the country’s symbolically permanent and complete library indexing motion pictures as they would any of the finest literature or most important national documents.

Each year the National Film Registry adds a new block of films to the list and while each year is led by a few that resound with a thunderous “DUHHHHH,” it’s always cool to see the variety of time periods and formats that are included, and the occasional oddball pick. This year includes major blockbuster films, historical art films,  documentaries, shorts, silents, and even an experimental digital short… the first 3D rendered short from Pixar creator Ed Catmull. This is Pixar’s 2nd contribution though, as Toy Story is already a part of the registry.

40 Year Old 3D Computer Graphics (Pixar, 1972) from Robby Ingebretsen on Vimeo.

Also included on the list are landmarks like Forrest Gump (likely a controversial pick among film geeks these days), The Big Heat, El Mariachi, Bambi, War of the Worlds (’53), and Silence of the Lambs. You can read an article that brings up some interesting controversies that still surround the list–namely the alleged under-representation of films with a LGBT concern–from the Washington Post. This year’s list is below, and you can see the previous 550 films selected since 1989 at the Library of Congress website.

Finally, note that you can see the excellent These Amazing Shadows on PBS tonight at 10pm, and I encourage you to check it out.

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The 2011 National Film Registry list

“Allures” (1961)
“Bambi” (1942)
“The Big Heat” (1953)
“A Computer Animated Hand” (1972)
“Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment” (1963)
“The Cry of the Children” (1912)
“A Cure for Pokeritis” (1912)
“El Mariachi” (1992)
“Faces” (1968)
“Fake Fruit Factory” (1986)
“Forrest Gump” (1994)
“Growing Up Female” (1971)
“Hester Street” (1975)
“I, an Actress” (1977)
“The Iron Horse” (1924)
“The Kid” (1921)
“The Lost Weekend” (1945)
“The Negro Soldier” (1944)
“Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies” (1930s-’40s)
“Norma Rae” (1979)
“Porgy and Bess” (1959)
“The Silence of the Lambs” (1991)
“Stand and Deliver” (1988)
“Twentieth Century” (1934)
“War of the Worlds” (1953)