The 2023 NFR Inductees

It’s that time of year again; the annual 25 films inducted into the National Film Registry have now been announced for 2023. Here are a few that personally resonate with me.

12 Years a Slave (2013)

I worked in a movie theater when this film premiered in 2013 (which I can’t believe was 10 years ago!). This was one of the biggest movies of the year and we played it practically every hour on the hour to sold out crowds. Which meant I had to watch it over and over again during my theater checks. I’ll be honest, I got sick of watching the same thing again and again especially seeing such heartbreak and violence all day. But there was no denying that this film was something special. Audience reactions were passionate to say the least. The horror of slavery brought many to tears, some left in disgust at the harsh reality, and applause could often be heard in the lobby as the credits rolled. I’m glad it has been added to the registry because it certainly delivered a timely message about slavery and how the mistakes of the past were not so long ago.

Home Alone (1990)

I’m a proud 90s kid and there’s nothing more Classic 90s Christmas than Home Alone. And what perfect timing as Macaulay Culkin just received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with his Home Alone co-star Catherine O’Hara giving a speech in his honor. I guess 2023 is the Year of Macaulay.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Looks like 2023 is also the Year of Catherine O’Hara as two of her films made it into the registry this year, Home Alone and The Nightmare Before Christmas (It seems the registry decided to honor some classic Christmas movies in 2023). As the frazzled mom in Home Alone and the haunting voice of lovelorn Sally in Nightmare, O’Hara tugged at 90s kids heartstrings. Sally always resonated with me because she was so smart, strong, and sweet yet wonderfully weird and creepy-beautiful, an icon of 90s girlhood.

Fame (1980)

🎶 (Fame!) I’m gonna live forever. I’m gonna learn how to fly. 🎶 An ode to the heartache, hard work, and glory of performance life Fame is gonna live forever in the National Film Registry. As it should.

The Wedding Banquet (1993)

This is my favorite of director Ang Lee’s “Father Knows Best” Trilogy. Lee completed this trilogy of unrelated but similarly themed films at the beginning of his career in the early 1990s. The other two films in the trilogy are Pushing Hands (1991) and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994). The themes include East meets West, generational clashes, and parent (especially father) child relationships. As a mixed race child whose family history could be described with these same themes, I find Lee’s trilogy especially valuable. The Wedding Banquet is charming and timeless. An interracial gay couple try to pull the wool over the one partner’s very traditional Taiwanese parents’ eyes by passing off their mainland Chinese tenant as his fiancé and get her a green card in the process; there’s romantic love, friendship love, and family love. This banquet has it all. And who doesn’t love an adorable wedding movie? 

Lady and the Tramp (1955)

Speaking of adorable, can it get any cuter or more romantic than two dogs having a candlelit dinner, scooting meatballs to each other, and “accidentally” meeting in the middle of an extra long noodle for a startled kiss? No it can not. There goes the Walt Disney company teaching us the ways of romance yet again.