New Additions To The National Film Registry Include 'The Silence Of The Lambs,' 'El Mariachi,' 'Forrest Gump'

By Russ FischerDec. 28, 2011 6:00 am EST

In 1988, the National Film Preservation Act create the National Film Registry, which selects a couple dozen films each year for preservation in the Library of Congress. Up to 25 films are selected annually as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films." These have to be at least ten years old, can be feature, short experimental or 'other' — anything that is film, really — and are chosen from a list of films nominated by the public.

This year, 2228 films were nominated by the public and twenty-five were selected for preservation. Among those are the big Oscar winner The Silence of the Lambs, everyone's favorite autistic history hero Forrest Gump, Charlie Chaplin's The Kid and one of the greatest (and earliest) train movies ever made, John Ford's The Iron Horse.

We've got a more complete list below.

The New York Times has the rundown on some of the new inductees, which will be fully announced today. We'll update when the full list is available, but for now we know that the following films have been set for the National Film Registry:

A Computer Animated Hand (1972, Ed Catmull)

A Cure for Pokeritis (1912, Laurence Trimble)

Allures (1961, Jordan Belson)

Bambi (1942, David Hand)

El Mariachi (1992, Robert Rodriguez)

Faces (1968, John Cassavetes)

Forrest Gump (1994, Robert Zemeckis)

The Iron Horse (1924, John Ford)

The Kid (1921, Charlie Chaplin)

The Lost Weekend (1945, Billy Wilder)

Norma Rae (Martin Ritt, 1979)

Porgy and Bess (1959, Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme)

War of the Worlds (1953, George Pal)

...and home movies made by dancer/choreographers Fayard and Harold Nicholas between the '30s and '40s.

Neat to see Pixar's Ed Catmull in there with an early work, and Norma Rae, the pro-union film I remember from my childhood (yeah, I saw Norma Rae as a kid, so what?) is a pretty timely inclusion. And given the wholesale endorsement given to The Silence of the Lambs when it won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay in 1992, you had to figure the film would end up in the Library of Congress eventually.

This is a solid list of films. Don't get too wound up about what isn't included yet, as there should be another ten inclusions announced, but what hasn't been voted in yet that you think should be included? (Cross reference the existing list here.)

In 1988, the National Film Preservation Act create the National Film Registry, which selects a couple dozen films each year for preservation in the Library of Congress. Up to 25 films are selected annually as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films." These have to be at least ten years old, and are chosen from a list of films nominated by the public.

This year, 2228 films were nominated by the public and twenty-five were selected for preservation. Among those are the big Oscar winner The Silence of the Lambs, everyone's favorite autistic history hero Forrest Gump, Charlie Chaplin's The Kid and one of the greatest train movies ever made, John Ford's The Iron Horse.