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 independent feature shot on a shoestring budget in the New Jersey convenience store where writer-director Kevin Smith actually worked. Miramax picked it up after its Sundance debut, and the film became a touchstone for a certain strain of scrappy, dialogue-driven American cinema, launching Smith's career and the View Askewniverse alongside it. Its low-fi charm and profane, philosophical banter between retail clerks made it a defining text of nineties indie film culture, still referenced whenever people discuss what a movie can do with almost no money and a lot of nerve.
This cell holds Dante Hicks and Randal Graves, the Quick Stop clerk and his video store counterpart, the two figures whose back-and-forth carries the entire picture. Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson originated these roles and remain inseparable from them for collectors, since the duo's rapport is the film's engine. A 35mm cell pairing both characters together speaks to that partnership itself, the friendship and friction that defines Clerks, a physical fragment of the print connecting directly back to the original theatrical run.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm black-and-white optical-track release print of Clerks (1994).
Gauge
35mm, four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on each edge, evenly spaced; punched edges appear clean with no visible tearing or deformation.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along one edge beside the picture area.
Edge print
EASTMAN 2244 248 1302 118 TN (read as mirrored on the strip).
Base & colour
Base appears neutral to very slightly warm; the black-and-white dye image shows good density with no visible fading.
Projection history
No splices, cue marks, or prominent scratches are visible in this capture.
Picture
Positive black-and-white image; all three frames appear to be from the same continuous shot and are consistent with a black-and-white release print matching Clerks (1994).
Era check
Eastman 2244 stock, variable-area optical soundtrack, and black-and-white positive image are all consistent with a mid-1990s 35mm theatrical release print.
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 000063079
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
