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 in 2001 as DreamWorks Animation's answer to the fairy tale formula, a Mike Myers vehicle that skewered the very Disney conventions it borrowed from. Directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, it became a cultural landmark, winning the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and proving that computer animation could carry irreverence alongside spectacle. Its blend of pop music, celebrity voice casting, and subversive humor reshaped what family animation could be, opening the door for a franchise that still resonates decades later.
This cell isolates one of the film's sharpest comic exchanges, Lord Farquaad's interrogation of the Gingerbread Man. Farquaad, the diminutive tyrant obsessed with order and appearances, represents the film's satirical target, while the Gingerbread Man stands among its most beloved side characters, a cookie with genuine nerve under pressure. Collectors prize this pairing for capturing the movie's signature tone, where menace and absurdity share the same frame. As a 35mm artifact, it preserves a physical trace of that scene's place in the finished film.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm Dolby hybrid 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 appear clean with no visible tearing.
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, suggesting a Dolby SR/Digital hybrid track.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to quote any text or key numbers.
Base & colour
The base appears with a slight warm-neutral tint; the dye image shows saturated colour with no visible fading or red shift.
Projection history
Light vertical scratching is visible across the frame area, consistent with a print that has passed through a projector gate.
Picture
Positive colour image; all three frames appear to be consecutive frames from a single shot, and the animated character and stylised rendering are consistent with the CGI animated feature on record.
Era check
The Dolby SR/Digital hybrid optical track format and the saturated polyester-base colour stock are consistent with a theatrical release print from 2001.
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 000063184
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
