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 reworked classic fairy tale material into something wry and self aware. Built around Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz, it became a defining project for the studio, earning the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and setting a template for family films that appealed equally to children and adults through pop culture jokes and subverted storybook tropes.
This cell brings together Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, figures pulled from the oldest layer of fairy tale tradition and reintroduced here inside Shrek's fractured storybook world. Collectors seek them out because they represent the film's method of borrowing familiar characters and placing them into new company, a shorthand for the movie's larger joke about fairy tale conventions. A 35mm cell holding this group preserves a moment where old folklore figures share space within Shrek's reworked universe, a small artifact of how the film reassembled classic characters for its own purposes.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print of Shrek (2001).
Gauge
35mm, four perforations per frame visible on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges; spacing appears even and the punched edges appear clean.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along one edge beside the picture area, consistent with an analog stereo print; a Dolby Digital pixel block appears present in the inter-perforation zone on the same edge.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read any key numbers or manufacturer text.
Base & colour
The base shows a light blue-cyan tint typical of Estar or acetate safety stock; the dye image reads warm amber-brown with no visible fading or red shift.
Projection history
Light horizontal scratching is visible across the frame area, 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 Shrek (2001).
Era check
The combination of analog variable-area optical track, Dolby Digital inter-perforation data blocks, cyan-tinted safety base, and warm dye image is consistent with a theatrical release print from the early 2000s.
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 000063142
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
