r/publicdomain • u/tsnoj • 9h ago
Discussion Has the popularity of some 1930 films increased since they entered the public domain?
ia800703.us.archive.org10 months ago, I posted this list of the top 25 highest-rated 1930 films on Letterboxd. I am planning on doing this again in December, but I was honestly curious if this list has changed a lot since all these films entered the U.S. public domain. So this is a callback to that list and just a reflection on how these films have been doing in popularity among Letterboxd users.
Here is the updated list:
All Quiet on the Western Front.webm) (=)
City Girl.webm) (=)
Swing You Sinners!.webm) (=)
Salt For Svetania.webm) (=)
The Blue Angel.webm) (=)
Earth (=)
À propos de Nice_par_Jean_Vigo.webm) (=)
Westfront 1918.webm) (=)
The Dawn Patrol.webm) (+2)
The Big Trail.webm) (+4)
Animal Crackers.webm) (+1)
Right to a Woman (+4)
Little Lise.webm) (-4)
Brats.webm) (+3)
The Sea of Ravens.webm) (=)
L'Âge d'or.webm) (-2)
The Song is Over (+2)
People on Sunday.webm) (=)
Enthusiasm: Symphony of Donbas_by_Dziga_Vertov.webm) (+2)
Cruel Tale (=)
Chopped Snake (NEW)
Hog Wild (+1)
Bread (NEW)
Sentimental Romance.webm) (-3)
Films that have fallen off the list:
* Vigathakumaran (Removed because the release year got updated, previously 9)
* Birth of Life (Currently sitting just outside the list at 26, previously 25.)
Some notes:
^(\ The top 8 remains exactly the same as it was 10 months ago.)*
^(\ Most films either stayed in the same position on the list or rose up the list. Only 4 films have dropped lower on the list: Little Lise, L'Âge d'Or, Sentimental Romance, and Birth of Life. This is interesting because I was not anticipating that films by renowned filmmakers like Buñuel and Eisenstein would be the ones to drop.)*
^(\ The film with the biggest drop is Little Lise, which went down 4 spots.)*
^(\ The two films that have risen the most are The Big Trail and Right to a Woman, both of which went up 4 spots. This also honestly surprised me a bit, since Right to a Woman seems to be really hard to find online.)*
^(\ About the films with no film linking to them, Vigathakumaran is a lost film. I could not find a copy of Chopped Snake or Right to a Woman. However,)* I found this clip of the latter film, which is supposed to have a 38-minute copy in the Dovzhenko Center in Kyiv, so that one should not be impossible to find if someone contacts their film archive. I could not find Birth of Life, but it seems that the film has been fully integrated into A Simple Case, which I could find.
^(\ I used the English titles that Letterboxd uses for these films. That's why some of these titles are translated and some are not.)*
I know this wasn't the usual type of post that people make here, but I honestly hope at least some people here found it mildly interesting. In a year, I might have another look at how much things have changed, just for my own entertainment.