THE SHINING and JURASSIC PARK, Among Others, Join the National Film Registry

Year after year, we in the horror community continue to see our genre get the respect that it so rightfully deserves. Our films get nominated for, and sometimes win, awards. We remain some of the most profitable movies when looking at budget vs. box office. And over the past few years (and hopefully this is a trend that continues for a long, long time), we see some of Hollywood’s most respected and venerated stars choose to be a part of horror titles (Helen Mirren in Winchester, for example). We’ve been battered, we’ve been maligned, and we’ve been cast aside. But, much like zombies, we just keep coming back.

Some wonderful support for us comes this year as the United States National Film Registry from the Library of Congress has released this year’s entrants and both Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park have been added. An interesting aspect to these films is that they also fall under “derivative works still under copyright protection”, something the Library of Congress’ Alison Hall explains in her blog post about this year’s selections.

While Stephen King is notoriously known to abhor Kubrick’s adaptation of his novel, I think it’s fair to say that it still remains one of the most recognizable and popular horror films of all time. That it’s getting the attention and prestige it so rightfully deserves is a good thing, no matter which way you slice it. As for Jurassic Park, a movie about cloned dinosaurs ripping off Samuel L. Jackson’s arm has been deemed of having “…cultural, historic and aesthetic importance to the nation’s film heritage.”

Hell. Yes.

Here’s the full list of the 25 films that were added to this year’s National Film Registry:
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Broadcast News (1987)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Cinderella (1950)
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Dixon-Wanamaker Expedition to Crow Agency (1908)
Eve’s Bayou (1997)
The Girl Without a Soul (1917)
Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy-Headed People (1984)
Hearts and Minds (1974)
Hud (1963)
The Informer (1935)
Jurassic Park (1993)
The Lady From Shanghai (1947)
Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Monterey Pop (1968)
My Fair Lady (1964)
The Navigator (1924)
On the Town (1949)
One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
Pickup on South Street (1953)
Rebecca (1940)
The Shining (1980)
Smoke Signals (1998)
Something Good – Negro Kiss (1898)

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