The National Film Registry Inducted 5 Classic Latino Films to the List in 2024
- Michellas Baca
- May 11
- 2 min read
By Michellas Baca
The National Film Registry was founded in 1988, with support from Hollywood’s finest, Frank Capra and Martin Scorsese. They advocated for a registry to be maintained by the Library of Congress that would work to preserve films that best depict culture, history and aesthetic within American Film. Since then, the NFR has grown to include around 900 films and contains a variety of visual media like newsreels, student and experimental films, short and feature length films, music videos, and even home movies.
The Library of Congress keeps submissions open and public throughout the year, which allows for Americans to pick the movies they believe best represent them, their culture and values. Last year 5 classic Latino films were welcomed into the registry: American Me, Spy Kids, Up in Smoke, Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan and Mi Familia. These movies are beloved by many in the community for the way they depict hispanic family values, life and humor and have been watched by many generations over the years. Even better, is how two Ricardo Montalbán movies got inducted together last year. Though this was a win for hispanic media, there is still a major lack in representation.
Though the main goal of the NFR is to collect and preserve films that depict culture, there is only a small portion of those films that depict Latino culture in America. Out of the 900 films listed in the registry, only 90 are films that depict POC cultures (Library of Congress) and only 30 of those films are Latino. This means that Hispanic films represented are only 3.3% in the collection (Acevedo, 2024). This number, however low it may seem, does not mean that there aren’t enough films that depict hispanic culture out there, and since submissions are open to the public, we are able to nominate more of our films to be preserved.
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