January 3, 2022
AFI Catalog Spotlight: Betty White
Paying tribute to Betty White, who would have celebrated her centennial birthday this month, the AFI Catalog takes a look back at her first role in a feature film, THE DARING MISS JONES (1951), and celebrates her vast career in front of and behind the camera as one of America’s most beloved and versatile performers....
December 1, 2021
AFI Catalog Spotlight: PARTING GLANCES
In honor of World AIDS day, the AFI Catalog spotlights PARTING GLANCES (1986), one of the first American films to cast its gaze on the AIDS crisis. Released 35 years ago this month, PARTING GLANCES was written, edited and directed by first-time filmmaker Bill Sherwood, who tragically died from complications with AIDS before he was...
November 1, 2021
AFI Catalog Spotlight: SING SING THANKSGIVING
In honor of Thanksgiving, the AFI Catalog spotlights the documentary SING SING THANKSGIVING, which was hailed by The Hollywood Reporter as “the most provocative and moving concert film ever made.” SING SING THANKSGIVING took audiences behind the fortress walls of the notorious Ossining Correctional Facility on Thanksgiving Day in 1972 to share musical performances by...
September 1, 2021
AFI Catalog Spotlight: HARLAN COUNTY, U.S.A.
In honor of Labor Day, AFI celebrates HARLAN COUNTY, U.S.A. (1976), Barbara Kopple’s Oscar®-winning documentary that follows a violent miner’s strike in a small Kentucky town, capturing the passion, bravery and hard-fought victories of workers as they attempt to unionize. HARLAN COUNTY, U.S.A. was made possible in part by a $10,000 Independent Filmmaker Grant from...
August 2, 2021
AFI Catalog Spotlight: SOUL TO SOUL
Released 50 years ago this August, SOUL TO SOUL (1971) documents a 14-hour concert event of the same name that took place in Accra, Ghana, to celebrate the country’s 14th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule. On March 6, 1971, a crowd of over 100,000 Africans gathered in the capital city of Ghana to...
July 1, 2021
AFI Catalog Spotlight: SHAFT
Celebrating its 50th anniversary release this month, SHAFT (1971) tells the story of the eponymous John Shaft, performed by Richard Roundtree in his first major film role. The film – based on a novel by white journalist and screenwriter Ernest Tidyman – introduces Shaft as a suave, two-fisted Black private eye who was hired to...
June 1, 2021
AFI Catalog Spotlight: William Haines
In honor of LGBTQ Pride Month, the AFI Catalog spotlights William Haines, the first openly gay American film actor, whose 47-year partnership with Jimmie Shields was once described by their friend, Joan Crawford, as the happiest marriage in Hollywood. Haines began life in Staunton, Virginia, where he was the third child of seven. Running away...
April 1, 2021
AFI Catalog Spotlight: June Mathis and THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
One hundred years ago this month, THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE was running in theaters across the country to become the highest grossing movie of the year and one of the first silent films to make $1 million, topping Charlie Chaplin’s classic THE KID (1921). Adapted for the screen by June Mathis, head of...
March 1, 2021
AFI Catalog Spotlight: “Women They Talk About”
Women were forerunners of the film industry. In honor of Women’s History Month, the AFI Catalog Spotlight is focused on Women They Talk About, an NEH-funded AFI initiative documenting the widely unrecorded contributions of female filmmakers in the silent film era and uncovering the true story of women’s pioneering role in the creation of American...
December 1, 2020
DID YOU KNOW? This popular holiday film released 74 years ago this month was co-written by the prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frances Goodrich.
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), which ranked #1 on AFI’s 100 YEARS… 100 CHEERS list of the most inspiring films of all time, and #20 on AFI’s 100 YEARS… 100 MOVIES list of the greatest films of all time, was co-written by Frances Goodrich, who would have celebrated her 130th birthday this month. Goodrich was…
November 2, 2020
DID YOU KNOW? The AFI Catalog’s Newest Initiative Is Named After A Lost Film From 1928
In celebration of the centennial anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, the AFI Catalog has been rapidly expanding its stores of information regarding the foundational influence of female filmmaking in the silent era—and making it accessible for free at AFI.com. Behind the camera and in front, women were prolific contributors to the establishment of narrative cinema, but their names have…
October 1, 2020
DID YOU KNOW? This 1952 Film Noir Was One Of The First Hollywood Productions To Depict Mexican Americans In A Positive Light
The Film Was Censored By The Production Code Of America, Which Objected To Scenes In Which Police Were Criticized For Racial Profiling THE RING (1952), a boxing film starring Rita Moreno and Gerald Mohr, marked an early departure from the racial stereotyping that prevailed in early American filmmaking. Hollywood had perniciously typecast Mexican Americans as…
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