A KFP Reference Guide
A sourced view of what remains, what has been lost, and why the record of American film asks for continued care.
Last updated September 22, 2026
The Long View
Historical cinema depends on more than a film itself. It depends on the prints, records, archives, and institutions that allow a story to be seen again. This page brings together durable public figures from the Library of Congress for writers, educators, researchers, and anyone tracing the life of film through time.
Each figure below links to its original source. The silent-film study focuses on American feature films released from 1912 through 1929, so its numbers should be read as a record of that era, not a measure of every film ever made.
At A Glance
The Library of Congress study counted films from the silent-feature era, giving preservation work a clear historical baseline.
Source: Library of Congress, National Film Preservation Board, 2013That is 1,575 titles from the study's full list of American silent features released between 1912 and 1929.
Source: Library of Congress, National Film Preservation Board, 2013These films remain viewable, but not in the original domestic form that audiences would have encountered at release.
Source: Library of Congress, National Film Preservation Board, 2013Fragments and partial prints can still hold essential evidence, even when the complete film no longer exists.
Source: Library of Congress, National Film Preservation Board, 2013The figure combines the study's surviving categories and shows the scale of absence facing anyone who works with early film history.
Source: Library of Congress, National Film Preservation Board, 2013The annual selections recognize films that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant to the nation's film heritage.
Source: Library of Congress, National Film Preservation Board, Current registry program informationThe interval creates distance enough to consider a film's cultural and historical significance over time.
Source: Library of Congress, National Film Preservation Board, Current registry program informationSources And Method
This is a reference page, not an original survey. KFP has kept the wording of each figure close to the source and added only the context needed to make its scope clear. Percentages on silent-film survival come from one Library of Congress study, which documents American silent feature films released between 1912 and 1929.
Kindness Film Productions. “Film Preservation Statistics: A Reference Guide.” Updated September 22, 2026. https://kindnessfilm.com/film-preservation-statistics.
Keep Looking
KFP makes films with attention to the people, evidence, and absences that shape how the past is remembered.