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United States National Film Registry films

  • Psycho (1960 film)Psycho, the 1960 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, opens on a specific Friday: December the Eleventh, in Phoenix, Arizona.
  • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs arrived at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles on the 21st of December, 1937, and the audience rose to its feet before…
  • Alien (film)Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film that begins with a single, deceptively quiet transmission. A commercial starship called the Nostromo is hauling…
  • The Outlaw Josey WalesForrest Carter was the name on the 1972 novel that inspired this film. That name belonged to Asa Earl Carter, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and speechwriter…
  • Vertigo (film)Vertigo, the 1958 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, opens with a rooftop chase gone fatally wrong. A San Francisco detective named John…
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the RingThe Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring opened on the 19th of December 2001, and within its first five days in the United States and Canada it had…
  • Blade RunnerBlade Runner arrived in theaters on the 25th of June, 1982, a date producer Alan Ladd Jr. chose deliberately because the 25th of the month had been his lucky…
  • Star Wars (film)Star Wars opened on the 25th of May 1977, in just 32 theaters across the United States. The cast and crew believed it would be a failure.
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey2001: A Space Odyssey premiered on the 2nd of April 1968 at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C., before an audience that included critics who were, in…
  • The TerminatorThe Terminator arrived in American cinemas on the 26th of October 1984, and it began with a nightmare. Director James Cameron had fallen ill in Rome during…
  • National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry holds nearly a thousand films chosen not for box office success, not for awards, but for their cultural, historical, and aesthetic…
  • Jaws (film)Jaws, the 1975 thriller directed by Steven Spielberg, begins with a simple and terrifying image: a young woman swimming alone at night, and then something…
  • Toy StoryToy Story arrived in theaters on the 22nd of November 1995, and nothing in cinema looked quite like it. For the first time, a feature film had been built…
  • A Clockwork Orange (film)A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film that opens with a young man staring directly into the camera, a glass of milk-plus raised to his lips, and the audience…
  • Ben-Hur (1959 film)Ben-Hur, the 1959 epic directed by William Wyler, arrived at a moment when Hollywood was fighting for its life. Television had eaten into ticket sales, and…
  • Return of the JediReturn of the Jedi opened in American theaters on the 25th of May 1983. Lucas booked that date deliberately, exactly six years after the original Star Wars…
  • Mary Poppins (film)Mary Poppins, the 1964 film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney, had its premiere on the 27th of August 1964 at Grauman's Chinese…
  • Apocalypse NowApocalypse Now arrived in theaters on the 15th of August 1979, and it carried on its back over a million feet of film, a near-fatal heart attack, a typhoon…
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest arrived in cinemas on the 19th of November 1975 and within months had become one of the highest-grossing films in American…
  • The Day the Earth Stood StillIn 1951, a flying saucer landed on the National Mall in Washington D.C. The United States Army surrounded it with tanks and soldiers.
  • InceptionInception begins with a question that Christopher Nolan first put to paper around 2001: what if someone could steal your secrets while you slept?
  • The Empire Strikes BackThe Empire Strikes Back opens with a single haunting image: probe droids scattered across the galaxy, hunting. It was the 21st of May 1980, and audiences…
  • Gone with the Wind (film)Gone with the Wind premiered on the 15th of December 1939, and on that single night, roughly 300,000 people packed the streets of Atlanta for seven miles…
  • Apollo 13 (film)Apollo 13, the 1995 film directed by Ron Howard, opens on the night of the 20th of July, 1969, with astronaut Jim Lovell watching Neil Armstrong take his…
  • City LightsCity Lights opened on the 30th of January 1931 at the Los Angeles Theater, with Albert Einstein and his wife sitting as guests of honor.
  • Titanic (1997 film)Titanic, the 1997 film written and directed by James Cameron, began not on a Hollywood lot but at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
  • Taxi DriverTaxi Driver opens on a pair of eyes in a rearview mirror, catching the city through a fog of steam. The man behind those eyes is Travis Bickle, a Marine…
  • Annie HallAnnie Hall arrives on screen in 1977 with Woody Allen staring directly into the camera, ignoring every convention of moviegoing in the process.
  • The GodfatherThe Godfather opened in five New York theaters on the 15th of March 1972, the morning after its premiere at the Loew's State Theatre, and ticket prices had…
  • Flash Gordon (serial)Alex Raymond launched the Flash Gordon comic strip in 1934, introducing readers to a hero who would soon conquer cinema.
  • Badlands (film)In 1959, Holly Sargis narrates the film as a fifteen-year-old living in Fort Dupree. This dead-end South Dakota town serves as the starting point for her…
  • Citizen KaneCitizen Kane opens on a dying man in a vast Florida mansion called Xanadu, clutching a snow globe as he whispers one word: "Rosebud." That single utterance…
  • Paths of GloryPaths of Glory opens in 1916, in the trenches of Northern France, with a snare drum playing rhythms that recall wartime newsreels.
  • The Birth of a NationThe Birth of a Nation arrived in American theaters in 1915 and immediately changed what cinema could do. D. W. Griffith directed this silent epic, and within…
  • Easy RiderEasy Rider opened on the 14th of July 1969 at the Beekman theater in New York City and broke the house record in its first week.
  • Groundhog Day (film)Groundhog Day, the 1993 film directed by Harold Ramis, opens on a man who is wrong about the weather. Phil Connors, a Pittsburgh weatherman, confidently…
  • High NoonHigh Noon opens on a town marshal who has just gotten married and is minutes away from a peaceful retirement when word arrives that a killer named Frank…
  • The Shawshank RedemptionThe Shawshank Redemption opened to mostly empty theaters in September 1994. On opening night, director Frank Darabont and producer Liz Glotzer visited the…
  • American GraffitiGeorge Lucas sat in a Modesto, California diner during the early 1960s and watched teenagers cruise Main Street. He later explained that cruising was gone by…
  • The General (1926 film)The General, released in 1926, was Buster Keaton's most ambitious film and, at the time, his most catastrophic financial disappointment.
  • Glory (1989 film)Glory, the 1989 war drama directed by Edward Zwick, was still filming in Savannah, Georgia, on the 16th of February 1989.
  • Harold and MaudeHarold and Maude is a 1971 American romantic black comedy-drama that opens with a young man hanging himself in the family living room.