2012 National Film Registry
This year's entries range from Hollywood blockbusters, romantic comedies and technological advances, to religious allegories, home movies and sporting events, dating from 1897 to the 1990s - an eclectic and mesmerizing list that celebrates the art of cinema.
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan
Left: Decomposing nitrate of a film produced by Thomas Edison in 1896, "Clark's Thread Mill."
As films are added to the National Film Registry, the Library of Congress works with production studios and archives to ensure that original versions are safeguarded. This year's additions bring the total number of films on the Registry to 600.
The newest titles on the Registry are ...
"3:10 to Yuma" (1957)
"Anatomy of a Murder" (1959)
The story, adapted from a novel by Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker (writing under the pseudonym Robert Traver), was based on a true-life case on which Voekler was defense attorney, and was shot on location in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
The script's frankness was matched by the freshness of its innovative musical score by jazz great Duke Ellington. Gracing the film were opening titles created by Saul Bass, who also designed the distinctive movie poster.
"The Augustas" (1930s-1950s)
You can view this 18-minute compilation online by visiting the University of South Carolina's Moving Image Research Collections.
"Born Yesterday" (1950)
"Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961)
In addition to costars George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Martin Balsam and Buddy Ebsen, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" also features the music of Henry Mancini, whose "Moon River" became an Oscar- and Grammy-winning hit.
"A Christmas Story" (1983)
This gentle comedy from director Bob Clark (previously known for the very-R-rated "Porky's") has become a holiday favorite; the house in Cleveland where it was filmed is now a museum; and the movie has recently spawned a Broadway musical.
"The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Title Fight" (1897)
This film is unique for having documented the entirety of the 14-round event, making the 100-minute feature the longest movie produced up to that time. (Sadly, only part of the footage survives).
It was also shot in a new widescreen, 63mm format called Veriscope, which required a special projector to exhibit (thereby eliminating the possibility of bootleg copies).
"Dirty Harry" (1971)
After becoming a star in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, Clint Eastwood launched a new franchise as San Francisco cop "Dirty Harry" Callahan, in director Don Siegel's violent tale of vigilante justice. The gritty urban crime drama of a homicide detective who bends, folds, spindles and mutilates the rules in his pursuit of a serial killer was a box-office hit, and led to several further adventures with Callahan, including "Magnum Force," "Sudden Impact" and 'The Dead Pool."
"Hours for Jerome: Parts 1 and 2" (1980-82)
"The Kidnappers Foil" (1930s-1950s)
Only a handful of prints produced have survived, but the Texas Archive of the Moving Image has posted several online, so that budding talents from such towns as Childress, Texas (c. 1936, 1948), Grand Island, Neb. (1938), Shawnee, Okla. (1940s), Reidsville, N.C. (c. 1948), or Pine Bluff, Ark. (1952) can relive their youthful performances.
Kodachrome Color Motion Picture Tests (1922)
To view video of the 4.5-minute test visit the Kodak channel on YouTube.
"A League of Their Own" (1992)
"The Matrix" (1999)
The Oscar-winning special effects team created a process referred to as "bullet time" in which combatants appear almost frozen within their environment, leaving the camera free to drift within the scene.
Written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving as the mysterious Agent Smith, and featuring a stunning atonal score by Don Davis, "The Matrix" honored the aesthetics of Hong Kong action films at the same time it created its own, unmistakable look and sound - a look and sound that have been repeatedly imitated ever since.
"The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair" (1939)
"One Survivor Remembers" (1995)
"Parable" (1964)
Co-directed by Rolf Forsberg and Tom Rook for the Protestant Council of New York, the dialogue-free film certainly looked inspired by the surrealism of Federico Fellini, and received several honors at international film festivals. But its debut at the 1964 N.Y. World's Fair was met with angry protest, with one minister even threatening to riddle the screen with shotgun holes if the film were shown. In the words of one aggrieved critic, "No one is going to make a clown out of my Jesus."
Forsberg went on to produce other dramas and documentaries, many with religious themes, including "Antkeeper," "Ark," and ''The Late Great Planet Earth." Among the cast of "Parable" were Indian-born actors Saeed Jaffrey and Madhur Jaffrey, whose later film roles include Merchant-Ivory productions, "A Passage to India," and "Gandhi."
"Samsara: Death and Rebirth in Cambodia" (1990)
You can view the half-hour "Samsara" by visiting the Journeyman Pictures Channel on YouTube.
"Slacker" (1991)
"Slacker" epitomized Austin as a haven of unconventional dreamers and strivers (perhaps more dreaming than striving). Linklater later directed "Before Sunrise," "Dazed and Confused," and "Waking Life."
"Sons of the Desert" (1933)
"The Spook Who Sat by the Door" (1973)
Directed by Ivan Dixon (best known as an actor from "Nothing But a Man" and the TV series "Hogan's Heroes"), the movie starred Lawrence Cook, Paula Kelly, Janet League and J.A. Preston, and featured a score by jazz composer Herbie Hancock. Critics pilloried the film as sanctioning violence, and United Artists withdrew it from theaters after only a few weeks.
"They Call It Pro Football" (1967)
"The Times of Harvey Milk" (1984)
"Two-Lane Blacktop" (1971)
This existential road movie celebrates Route 66 - and also that peculiar style of '70s filmmaking in which unprofessional actors are handed script pages daily, not knowing in advance where they're headed, just like the characters they play.
Directed by Monte Hellman, "Two-Lane Blacktop" bombed on its original release (Universal Pictures didn't even bother to publish newspaper ads for it), but it has since attained cult status and a Criterion Collection DVD release.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1914)
The Wishing Ring: An Idyll of Old England (1914)
"The Wishing Ring" was believed to be a "lost" film, until historian Kevin Brownlow uncovered a 16mm print in England.
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan
More galleries:
2011 National Film Registry additions
2010 National Film Registry additions