National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Walt Disney Pictures released Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in the summer of 2003, adapting a theme park attraction into a full-scale adventure film that few expected to succeed. Directed by Gore Verbinski, it became a genuine phenomenon, launching one of the studio's most durable franchises and earning Johnny Depp an Academy Award nomination for his lead performance.

This cell, titled Jack Sparrow and Will Turner, captures the two central figures of the film together in a port or dock setting, preserved across three frames of continuous 35mm footage. The sequence shows Jack Sparrow and Will Turner in medium shot, the framing nearly identical across each frame as the scene progresses — a quiet moment between the story's unlikely partners.