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"Before Stonewall" and "Boys Don't Cry" Added to National Film Registry

But the registry's board admits: "We have a long way to go in terms of reflecting LGBTQ+ experiences."

The National Film Registry has announced the list of 25 films it will add to its library this year, including Purple Rain, She's Gotta Have It, and Sleeping Beauty.

Two queer-interest titles were among the new additions: The 1984 documentary Before Stonewall, directed by Greta Schiller, and Kimberly Peirce's 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, which earned Hilary Swank an Oscar for her performance as trans man Brandon Teena.

“The board has been asking, ‘How many more John Ford or Albert Hitchcock films do we put on the registry?,” Professor Jacqueline Stewart, who heads the registry board's inclusion task force, told Time.

“It seems like we’ve covered a lot of those bases—and because of the sheer number of films on the registry, we absolutely have to broaden our horizons, and engage with archives and film critics and scholars and the American public to help us bring a wider variety of films into view.”

“One of the things we uncovered when we looked at the registry is that we have a long way to go in terms of reflecting LGBTQ+ experiences,” Stewart added.

Boys Don't Cry and Before Stonewall aren't the first LGBTQ titles inducted into the library. Last year the registry marked its 30th anniversary by announcing its youngest inductee: Brokeback Mountain, which was released in 2005. Other notable LGBTQ classics like Paris Is Burning and The Rocky Horror Picture Show were added in previous years.

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