And the 25 films added to the National Film Registry in 2007 are... (1 Viewer)

[Brandon Conway]

Not sure if this is the right board to discuss this, but it seemed the best choice.

• 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)

The selections were made as part of a program aimed at preserving the nation’s movie heritage. Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act of 1992, each year the Librarian of Congress, with advice from the National Film Preservation Board, names 25 films to the National Film Registry to be preserved for all time. The films are chosen because they are “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant. This year’s selections bring to 475 the number of motion pictures in the registry.

Link

The list of the previous 450 films included from 1989-2006 can be found here.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Surprised that 12 Angry Men and Close Encounters weren't already in the registry.
Glad to see Back To The Future. It's not the first film you think of as a great film, but I think it is deceptively good. Excellent performances, confident direction, and one of the tightest scripts I have ever seen.
Not happy to see Dances With Wolves - surely there are better films that that that deserve to be listed.

 

[TravisR]

Over the summer, I watched Back To The Future for the first time in years and was impressed by how good of a movie it really is. It's not just a good blockbuster- it's also a good movie.

I'm also happy to see Bullitt get some attention too.

 

[Robert Crawford]

 

[Robert Crawford]

I agree, both of these fine films meet the National Film Registry criteria without question. Both of them have influenced greatly how films are made today.

 

[Michael Elliott]

I've never really understood the backlash against DANCES WITH WOLVES but I think a lot of it is the "ORDINARY PEOPLE Syndrome". OP beat RAGING BULL so today people trash OP. The same with WOLVES, which seems to take a beating because it beat GOODFELLAS.

Even if someone didn't enjoy the movie it certainly belongs on the list under the rule that Robert highlighted. It was the first mainstream Western that showed Indians in a different light that drunks, rapists or savages. Under those terms I think it is a very important film. There might have been Westerns before it that didn't show Indians in a negative way but this was the film that every did see when it was released.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Without Dances with Wolves you would never have Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, or Lord of the Rings, and several other prominent epic films that came after it. Heaven's Gate had ruined United Artists, and had "proved" to Hollywood that making an epic was financial suicide.

Dances with Wolves not only totally reversed this thinking by being a box office smash, but it garnered universal praise and astounding critical acclaim. And let's not forget the wonderful cinematography, excellent score, and superb art direction. It also features many subtitles for a non-English language in an American film, which has also been greatly influential. Mel Gibson owes a lot to Dances with Wolves.

And make no mistake - it's Oscar wins over GoodFellas were no upset. Dances with Wolves was the favorite to win all its awards by anyone's estimations in early 1991.

GoodFellas is a wonderful film. So is Dances with Wolves. Both are masterpieces of cinema, for many different reasons. I still say the exhilaration of the buffalo hunt has been rarely matched, and I think people forget the variety and complexity of the characters.

 

[Edwin-S]

I would like to know how a film named "The Sex Life of a Polyp" would be significant to U.S film history. The first porn film?

Seriously though, what would its significance be? Use of time lapse, extreme closeup, or what?

 

[Brandon Conway]

The Sex Life of the Polyp (1928)
Humorist Robert Benchley’s career was both varied and distinguished: essayist, member of the Algonquin Round Table, writer for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, actor in Hollywood features ( “Foreign Correspondent”) and several dozen short comedy subjects. “The Sex Life of the Polyp,” Benchley’s second short (following “The Treasurer’s Report”) features him as a daft doctor delivering a droll but earnest lecture on polyp reproductive habits to
a women’s club.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Okay, you make some good points about Dances WIth Wolves. Perhaps I need to revisit it.

 

[Edwin-S]

Thanks for that. I sure made myself look like a goof. I should have looked up what the film was about first. I just assumed that it was some type of early nature documentary. Bloody brilliant of me. .