National Film RegistryLibrary of Congress · Inducted 2020
“Even by DreamWorks standards, the charm and magic of "Shrek" seemed extraordinary upon its initial release almost 20 years ago — and its power has yet to diminish in the intervening years.”
Selected for preservation as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
Directed by
Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson
Studio
DreamWorks · DreamWorks Animation · Pacific Data Images · 90 min
Box office
$488.4M worldwide on a $60M budget
Honors
Academy Awards — 1 win, 2 nominationsAnnie Awards — 1 winBritish Academy Film Awards — 1 winCritics' Choice Movie Award — 1 winAll 4 wins · 3 nominations on record
Academy Awards: Best Animated Feature
Annie Awards: Best Animated Feature
British Academy Film Awards: BAFTA's Children & Young People Award - Feature Film
Critics' Choice Movie Award: Best Animated Feature
Scholarship
Named in the title of 17 peer-reviewed works
Examples
Sources: Wikidata · Library of Congress · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Shrek arrived from DreamWorks Animation in 2001, a computer-animated feature that reshaped what family films could look and sound like. Directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, it paired fairy-tale pastiche with contemporary humor, earning the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and establishing DreamWorks as a genuine rival to Disney's storytelling dominance. Its irreverent tone, built on subverting classic fables, became a touchstone of early-2000s animation and family entertainment.
This cell brings together Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, characters borrowed from the fairy-tale canon that Shrek so playfully upends. Their presence together points to the film's ongoing joke of placing storybook royalty and folklore into Shrek's swamp-bound, self-aware world. Collectors prize this pairing because it captures the film's signature blend of homage and parody in a single frame of animation history. As a piece of 35mm from the era, it preserves a fragment of the film's visual identity during its theatrical run, a keepsake from the moment fairy tale met farce on the big screen.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm Dolby Digital theatrical release print of Shrek (2001).
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges; spacing appears even and the punched edges look clean with no torn or missing perforations visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along one edge beside the picture area, consistent with an analog stereo print; Dolby Digital pixel blocks appear present in the inter-perforation gaps on the same edge, indicating a Dolby Digital SR·D composite track.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read manufacturer codes or key numbers.
Base & colour
The base shows a slight warm-amber tint typical of processed color print stock; the dye image appears fully saturated with no visible fading or color shift.
Projection history
Light longitudinal scratches are visible running the length of the strip, consistent with a print that has passed through a projector gate.
Picture
Positive color image; all three frames appear to be consecutive frames from a single shot, and the animated characters visible are consistent with the DreamWorks animated feature on record.
Era check
The composite Dolby Digital SR·D optical track format and color print stock are consistent with a 2001 theatrical release print, as that format was standard for major studio releases of that period.
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 000063139
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
