National Film RegistryLibrary of Congress · Inducted 2019
“A hilarious, in-your-face, bawdy-yet-provocative look at two sardonic young slackers (Dante and Randal). One toils as a New Jersey convenience store clerk while his alter-ego video store friend works when the mood strikes him.”
Selected for preservation as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
Directed by
Kevin Smith
Studio
Miramax · View Askew Productions · 92 min
Box office
$3.2M worldwide on a $28K budget
Honors
Sundance Filmmaker Trophy Dramatic — 1 winAll 1 wins · 0 nominations on record
Sources: Wikidata · Library of Congress · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Clerks arrived in 1994 as a black-and-white feature shot on a shoestring budget in the same New Jersey convenience store where its writer-director, Kevin Smith, worked. Distributed after a stir at Sundance and picked up by Miramax, it became a defining document of independent American cinema in the nineties, proving a film could run on dialogue, wit, and low-budget nerve rather than spectacle. Its success helped establish the View Askewniverse and launched Smith's career, making it a touchstone for a generation of filmmakers and audiences drawn to scrappy, dialogue-driven storytelling shot on real locations with real jobs at its center.
This piece preserves the opening identification of the film itself, the title card that greets viewers before Dante, Randal, and the rest of the Quick Stop crew ever appear onscreen. Title cards from a film's original release prints are prized by collectors because they mark the exact threshold between silence and story, the moment a picture announces its name before anything else unfolds. For Clerks, that announcement carries the weight of independent film history, a single frame standing in for the entire scrappy, landmark production that followed it.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm colour release print of Clerks (1994).
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced and cleanly punched with no visible torn or deformed holes.
Soundtrack
Not visible in this capture; the area beside the picture frames is obscured by the curl and dark surround.
Edge print
Upper edge reads, mirrored: 'EASTMAN 2244 248' with a barcode block visible at the right end of that edge.
Base & colour
Base appears clear with a slight warm tint; the dye image shows strong, saturated colour with no visible fading.
Projection history
No scratches, splice marks or cue marks are visible in this capture.
Picture
Positive colour image; all three frames carry the same title-card graphic, consistent with a title sequence from Clerks (1994).
Era check
Eastman 2244 is a colour print stock used through the 1990s, consistent with a mid-1990s theatrical release print of this title.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000063078
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
