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 comedy built on fairy tale characters twisted against expectation, and it landed as a cultural turning point for animated features. It won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, brought irreverent humor and pop soundtrack cues into a genre previously dominated by traditional studio sentiment, and established DreamWorks as a genuine rival to Pixar and Disney. Its success proved audiences wanted animation that could be sly, self-aware, and adult-adjacent while still working for children.
This cell centers on Lord Farquaad's Guards, the anonymous enforcers serving the film's small, tyrannical antagonist. They appear throughout Duloc's sequences, functioning as faceless muscle whose uniform presence reinforces Farquaad's obsession with order and control. Collectors seek these frames because supporting cast material from Shrek is scarcer than pieces built around Shrek, Donkey, or Fiona, and guard imagery captures the film's satirical edge toward authority and pageantry. As a 35mm cell, it represents a physical fragment of the animation's original film-based production era, before digital intermediate workflows became standard.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm 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, evenly spaced; punched edges appear clean with no visible tearing or distortion.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible along one edge, accompanied by what appears to be a Dolby Digital data block pattern in the inter-perforation gaps on the same edge; a DTS timecode line also appears present as a fine dotted line along that edge.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read manufacturer text or key numbers.
Base & colour
Base shows a light cyan-blue tint consistent with a colour print stock; dye image appears neutral with no obvious red shift or fading.
Projection history
Light vertical scratching is visible running through 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 rendered animated imagery is consistent with the CGI animated feature on record.
Era check
The combination of Dolby Digital inter-perforation data blocks, DTS timecode line, and variable-area optical track is consistent with a theatrical release print from 2001, when tri-format sound headers were standard.
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 000063201
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
