December 21, 2015 | SuzyQ
The National Film Registry of the Library of Congress has just announced it's list of inductees for 2015. Established in 1989, the films are selected for their enduring importance to United States culture. For a history of the Film Registry you can watch the fascinating documentary These amazing shadows: the movies that made America. Titles available in the Library's collection can be found below. The entire list — complete with film history — can be found here.
Circumstances propel a feeble-minded gardener, whose entire knowledge of life comes from watching television, into becoming adviser to a powerful but dying tycoon. Starring Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine.
Commercial motion pictures were invented at the Edison Laboratory between 1888 and 1893. Perhaps none of the component parts were strictly new, but the ability of Edison and his staff to reorganize them for a specific purpose was an extraordinary cultural achievement. In 1894, Edison was the sole producer of motion pictures in the world. Many Edison films continue to be impressive as the company employed such accomplished early directors as John Collins and Alan Crosland. This film made in January 1894 by W.K.L. Dickson, is also known as "Fred Ott's Sneeze" or simply "The Sneeze" and is one of the earliest film recordings, as well as the oldest surviving copyrighted motion picture.
When ghosts go on a rampage, only three men can save the world. Soon every spook in the city is loose and our heroes face the supreme challenge If you want your spirits raised, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! Starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis.
A quirky soldier gets an unexpected homecoming when a group of uproarious Marines decides to "make" a hero out of the comic misfit. Starring Eddie Bracken and William Demarest.
The story of two widows and their troubled daughters. In the search for success as an actress, Lora neglects her daughter. Lora's black housekeeper's daughter repudiates her mother by trying to pass for white. As the years pass, each of the four women realizes that she has been living an emotionally fruitless existence. Starring Lana Turner, John Gavin, and Juanita Moore.
Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slaying of the patrons at an all-night diner. A tribute to tough film noir crime films. Starring Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, and Guy Pearce.
Desperate to escape his dreary, dead-end life, an aging banker succumbs to a mysterious organization's offer of a new identity and a fresh start. Surgically transformed into a handsome, young man, he begins a jet-set existence among a shadowy community of similar "reborns." But his heady exhilaration spirals into a heart-stopping terror as he discovers that his newly purchased life carries a terrifying price. Starring Rock Hudson and Will Geer.
"Red" Redding is a lifer who knows the ropes at Maine's Shawshank State Prison. New inmate Andy Dufresne is a quiet banker, unjustly convicted of murder. Andy's indomitable will earns Red's friendship and his resourcefulness brings hope and change to the entire prison.Starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.
A daredevil Navy pilot striving to be the best at a Top Gun flight school doubts his abilities when his best friend is killed in training. Starring Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, and Val Kilmer.
An engaging frontiersman attempts to track down his father's murderer and the whereabouts of his one-of-a-kind rifle, the Winchester '73, as it passes among a rogue's gallery of owners including a crazed highwayman, an immoral gunrunner, a young Indian chief, and Stewart's own murderous brother. Starring James Stewart and Shelley Winters.