Being selected for preservation by the National Film Registry, which is part of the Library of Congress, is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on any movie, with a maximum of 25 new additions on an annual basis. The criteria to be deemed worthy are those with cultural, historic and aesthetic significance, and the library of 800 titles contains almost all of the finest works from throughout the entire history of cinema.
The class of 2021 has now been announced and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is one of the new titles being added to the Registry. Arguably the greatest comic book movie ever made and one of the most influential blockbusters of the 21st Century, the middle chapter in Nolan’s seminal trilogy is only the second superhero film to be added to the collection after Richard Donner’s Superman, the third pic to have made over a billion dollars at the box office behind Titanic and Jurassic Park, and will mark just the eighth sequel in the library.
Ten years need to have passed since a movie was in theaters for it to be considered, which also makes The Dark Knight the most recent fictional title in the National Film Registry, with 2010 documentary Freedom Riders also going in next year to become the freshest face in a catalogue that dates all the way back to 1891’s silent short Newark Athlete.
Other favorites set to be added include A Clockwork Orange, Grease, The Blues Brothers and bizarrely enough, Shrek. As for The Dark Knight, though, it made a seismic impression on cinema when it arrived back in 2008, and its influence can still be felt today in any number of dark and gritty studio movies. As such, you can’t argue that it fully deserves to be placed among such esteemed company.