The 2024 class of the National Film Registry breaks out today, featuring recent award-winners, touching indie hits, family films and, perhaps the pick with the most punch, the horror landmark “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced the annual list of 25 films today, naming inductees as prominent as “The Social Network,” “No Country for Old Men,” “My Own Private Idaho,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Mi Familia” as well as documentaries, student films and cinematic milestones.
“Films reflect our nation’s history and culture and must be preserved in our national library for generations to come,” Hayden said. “This is a collective effort in the film community to preserve our cinematic heritage, and we are grateful to our partners, including the National Film Preservation Board.”
The selections span from 1895, with a silent film created to entice audiences at the dawn of cinema, to 2010, with a film about the dawn of social media. All are judged to be of cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to the nation’s film heritage. The NFR now has 900 titles.
In an interview with the Library, Aaron Sorkin recalled the making of “The Social Network,” about the origins of Facebook, and his collaboration with director David Fincher. Sorkin wrote the screenplay with his trademark rapid-fire dialogue based on the 2009 book “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich.
“It felt like a good courtroom drama to me,” Sorkin said. “I didn’t know it was going to be a lot more than that at the time.”
He compared writing dialogue for the screen to making music.
“Anytime speech is used for the sake of performance, it has all of the same qualities and rules that music does. It is music. It has tone and pitch and rhythm,” Sorkin said. “So what a line sounds like is as important to me as what it means.”
The public submitted more than 6,700 nominations this year. Several selected titles received strong public support, including “Chainsaw,” “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and “Dirty Dancing.”
Turner Classic Movies will host a television special Wednesday, Dec. 18, starting at 8 p.m. ET to screen a selection of this year’s inductees. Hayden will join TCM host and film historian Jacqueline Stewart, who is chair of the National Film Preservation Board, to discuss the films.
“The wealth of American film history is sometimes rather overwhelming, and people often wonder: How do you recommend this film or that film?” Stewart said. “It’s through a lot of research, conversation and discussion, and it’s through a commitment to showing the true diversity of filmmaking. I’m thrilled that we recognize student films and independent films, animation, documentary and experimental works, as well as feature length narrative drama, comedy, horror and science fiction on the registry this year.”
Five films selected this year include prominent Hispanic artists or themes, and two feature the work of Edward James Olmos: “Mi Familia” and “American Me.” This brings Olmos to eight films on the registry as an actor, and “American Me” is his first appearance as a director.
Director Gregory Nava now has three renowned explorations of the Hispanic experience on the NFR, with “Familia” joining previous selections “El Norte” and “Selena.”
Two films this year also feature actor Cheech Marin: “Up in Smoke” and “Spy Kids,” his first films on the registry. In an interview with the Library, Marin recalled making the Cheech & Chong comedies, including “Smoke.”
“The level of improv that we brought to those movies is what gave it a spontaneity,” Marin said. “And that’s why people thought they were happening for the first time. Because in many instances, it was happening for the first time.”
This year’s complete list, in chronological order:
- Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895)
- KoKo’s Earth Control (1928)
- Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
- Pride of the Yankees (1942)
- Invaders from Mars (1953)
- The Miracle Worker (1962)
- The Chelsea Girls (1966)
- Ganja and Hess (1973)
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
- Uptown Saturday Night (1974)
- Zora Lathan Student Films (1975-76)
- Up in Smoke (1978)
- Will (1981)
- Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (1982)
- Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
- Dirty Dancing (1987)
- Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989)
- Powwow Highway (1989)
- My Own Private Idaho (1991)
- American Me (1992)
- Mi Familia (1995)
- Compensation (1999)
- Spy Kids (2001)
- No Country for Old Men (2007)
- The Social Network (2010)
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Comments (2)
Very excited to see some incredible films on here! Small note, the 1974 Texas Chain Saw Massacre title is written as “Chain Saw” and not “Chainsaw.”
Hi there,
There ARE some great films and thanks for your interest! On “Texas” — it is very confusing, as the 1974 film is often rendered both ways, even in original billing and advertising. The first edition movie poster has it as “Chainsaw,” while IMDB lists the official title as “Chain Saw.” Likely this is the result of copy editing on a low budget film. We’ll do some more research and see if Tobe Hopper had a definitive take after it achieved fame. For now, since it isn’t clear which is correct, and since all the other films have it as “Chainsaw,” we’ll hold w this for now.
Best,
Neely