The National Film Preservation Board has made their annual announcement of which films are being added to The National Film Registry.

Back to the Future (1985)
Bullitt (1968)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
Dances With Wolves (1990)
Days of Heaven (1978)
Glimpse of the Garden (1957)
Grand Hotel (1932)
The House I Live In (1945)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Mighty Like a Moose (1926)
The Naked City (1948)
Now, Voyager (1942)
Oklahoma! (1955)
Our Day (1938)
Peege (1972)
The Sex Life of the Polyp (1928)
The Strong Man (1926)
Three Little Pigs (1933)
Tol’able David (1921)
Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son (1969-71)
12 Angry Men (1957)
The Women (1939)
Wuthering Heights (1939)

More than usual in the “I’ve never heard of this” category than usual, but that’s somewhat the point of this whole project; to make sure that these films are available for future generations to enjoy.

In the Hollywood Reporter article on the story, the most interesting part to leap out at me was this:

“Our Day” is one of those films that are most at risk. A home movie made by Wallace Kelly in 1938, it depicts a day in the life day-in-the-life portrait of his family shown in both idealized and comic ways. The silent 16mm home movie uses creative editing, lighting and camera techniques comparable to what professionals were doing in Hollywood.

“They have some pretty serious filmmakers in their leagues,” said Dwight Swanson, an archival consultant and board member at the Center for Home Movies. “The way they depict themselves and show their lives is more direct and honest than what Hollywood was doing at the time.”

Swanson hopes the entire Kelly archive will be deposited into the Center of Home Movies collection and will be preserved at the Library of Congress facility near Washington.

“That way we will be ensured that it will be available for people to see,” he said.

While I am glad to see them using some discretion in which home movies they choose, it thrills me they would even consider this. What a wonderful way to preserve glimpses from a bygone era.