Deutsche Kinemathek estimates that 80–90% of silent films are gone the film archive's own list contains over 3,500 lost films.Ī study by the Library of Congress of 2013 states that 75% of all silent films are lost. Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation claimed in 2017 that "half of all American films made before 1950 and over 90% of films made before 1929 are lost forever". Silent films in particular were once seen as having no further commercial value and were simply junked to clear out expensive storage space. Occasionally, a studio would remake a film and destroy the earlier version. Films have disappeared when production companies went bankrupt. īlack-and-white film prints judged to be otherwise worthless were sometimes incinerated to salvage the meager scrap value of the silver image particles in their emulsions. This type of film is highly flammable, and there have been several devastating fires, such as the Universal Pictures fire in 1924, the Warner Bros./ First National fire in 1933, the British and Dominions Imperial Studios fire in 1936, the 1937 Fox vault fire and the 1965 MGM vault fire. ![]() One major contributing factor is the common use of nitrate film until the early 1950s. For films in which any portion of the footage remains (including trailers), see List of incomplete or partially lost films.įilms may go missing for a number of reasons. At one time a popular player at Fox, all of Valeska Suratt's Fox films are lost.įor this list of lost films, a lost film is defined as one of which no part of a print is known to have survived. This still is from The Miracle Man (1919), a mostly lost film.
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