DIRTY DANCING & More Added to National Film Registry for Preservation
The selections bring the number of titles in the registry to 900.
By: Josh Sharpe Dec. 17, 2024
Twenty-five films have been selected for the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 2024 due to their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to preserve the nation’s film heritage, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has announced.
The new selections date back nearly 130 years and include a diverse group of films, filmmakers and Hollywood landmarks. The selections span from a silent film created to entice audiences at the dawn of cinema in 1895 to the newest selected film from 2010, a drama about social media.
Popular Hollywood releases selected this year include the dance musical Dirty Dancing, the first Star Trek film added to the registry with “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” from 1982, as well as Eddie Murphy’s first feature film on the registry, “Beverly Hills Cop.”
The public submitted nominations of more than 6,700 titles for consideration this year. Several selected titles this year received strong public support, including: “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” “No Country for Old Men,” “The Social Network,” and “Dirty Dancing.”
The selections bring the number of titles in the registry to 900. Some films are among the 2 million moving image collection items held in the Library of Congress. Others are preserved in coordination with copyright holders or other film archives.
“Films reflect our nation’s history and culture and must be preserved in our national library for generations to come. We’re honored by the responsibility to add 25 diverse new films to the National Film Registry each year as we work to preserve our cultural heritage,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “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.”
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will host a television special Wednesday, Dec. 18, starting at 8 p.m. ET to screen a selection of films named to the registry this year. Hayden will join TCM host and film historian Jacqueline Stewart, who is chair of the National Film Preservation Board, to discuss the films.
Films Selected for the 2024 National Film Registry
- 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)
About Dirty Dancing (1987)
“Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” and if you were a child of the 1980s, this is one PG-13 musical you begged your parents to watch, despite the tough topics the film tackles: pregnancy out of wedlock, abortion, classism and anti-Semitism. Patrick Swayze (Johnny Castle) and Jennifer Grey (Frances House) sizzle on screen as the unlikely leading lovers. Though set in the Catskills resorts of the 1960s, more than a bit of a 1980s ethos finds its way into the film, updating “West Side Story’s themes of young love breaking down societal barriers through music and dance. Teen musical genre films of the 1980s like “Footloose” and “Dirty Dancing” remain influential and imitated to this day, but there is no parallel to Baby and Johnny on the dance floor.
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