Confessions

This melodrama about an actress in love with a playwright and the stage manager blackmailing her for her affections offers a unique glimpse into Chaney’s career before his classic performances in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. Preserved and restored by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

The short film was made from material shot for a Levi’s commercial on which Gus Van Sant was given complete freedom. Van Sant delivered the ad, and separately made his own short film; one that feels complete in and unto itself. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

As the west rapidly becomes civilized, a pair of outlaws in 1890s Wyoming find themselves pursued by a posse and decide to flee to South America in hopes of evading the law.

The staff of a Korean War field hospital use humor and hijinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war.

From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.

As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

Apu, now a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer, is invited to join an old college friend on a trip up-country to a village wedding.

Apu and his family have moved away from the country to live in the bustling holy city of Benares. As he progresses from wide-eyed child to intellectually curious teenager, eventually studying in Kolkata, we witness his academic and moral education, as well as the growing complexity of his relationship with his mother.

An aging, decadent landlord’s passion for music becomes the undoing of his legacy as he sacrifices his wealth in order to compete with the opulent music room of his younger, richer neighbour.

"A feature-length deluge of incessant, brilliant bursts of images (short takes and jump cuts, single frames in series, freeze-frames slightly altered between takes) it creates a Joyce-like dense and sombre mosaic of memory and sensory impressions, a texture instead of a plot, a dream-like flow of visually-induced associations often flashing by faster than they can be absorbed. Described by the director as an 'anxious allegory and chilling album of nostalgia,' its penetrating monomania is unexpectedly — subversively — realized to be a statement about American today: the alienation and atomization o technological consumer society is reflected in the very style of the film." - Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

The film tells a story with no dialogue. The group of boy skaters are suddenly at a point when one of the boys sees a young girl, and becomes interested in her. This causes a rift with the other boys, who challenges him to a skating duel that goes down a hilly street. The young boy loses. However, he gets the girl, and shortly, a few other girls are seen and become interested in the boys, too. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

The Curse of Quon Gwon is the oldest known Chinese-American film and one of the earliest American silent features made by a woman. Only two reels of the film survive, and no intertitles are known to exist, making it difficult to parse out the exact plot. An article in the July 17, 1917 issue of The Moving Picture World states that the film "deals with the curse of a Chinese god that follows his people because of the influence of western civilization." The film also touches on themes of Chinese assimilation into American society. Formally premiering in 1917, no distributor was willing to purchase a Chinese-American film without racial stereotypes. Considered a devastating financial failure, the film was only screened two more times until its rediscovery in 2004. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.

When the Civil War begins, young Billy runs away from home to enlist in the Northern Army as a drummer; he's wounded in battle and taken prisoner. He manages to escape and deliver an important message to his commanding officer, but loses his life in the process. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

When his play closes down, an actor returns home to find that his children are gone. He's then notified that a wealthy relative has died and left him a substantial amount of money. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

Stephen Sorrell, a decorated war hero, raises his son Kit alone after Kit's mother deserts husband and child in the boy's infancy. Sorrell loses a promising job offer and is forced to take work as a menial. Both his dignity and his health are damaged as he suffers under the exhausting labor and harsh treatment he receives as a hotel porter. But Sorrell thrives in the knowledge that his son will benefit from his labors. Sorrell has allowed the boy to believe his mother dead, but when the mother shows up, wanting to re-enter the young man's life, Sorrell must make hard decisions. Preserved and restored by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

A long-married couple embark on one last cross-country journey when it is discovered that the wife is dying. Together they try to reconnect with their estranged daughter before it is too late.

In this Puppetoon animated short film (an Academy Award Best Short Subject, Cartoons nominee), legendary American folklore figure John Henry (voice of Rex Ingram) goes to work for the C&O Railroad, which shortly thereafter buys an automatic steel-driving engine, The Inky-Poo. John Henry matches his strength against the engine, saying that any man can beat a machine because a man has a mind. Can he prevail? In 2015 this film, deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with UCLA Film & Television Archive in 2009.

When illegal card dealer and recovering heroin addict Frankie Machine gets out of prison, he decides to straighten up. Armed with nothing but an old drum set, Frankie tries to get honest work as a drummer. But when his former employer and his old drug dealer re-enter his life, Frankie finds it hard to stay clean and eventually finds himself succumbing to his old habits.

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.