WTOP movie critic donates entire DVD collection to Hyattsville branch of Prince George’s County Library

WTOP loves bringing you the news, but we also love giving back to the local community.

So, after decades of staring at my shelves of DVDs and Blu-rays (arranged in chronological order, of course), I decided to donate my entire collection to the recently-renovated Hyattsville branch of the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System.

I’ll admit that I got a tear in my eye handing over four giant totes of movies to PGCMLS West Area Director Heather Jackson, who not only supervises the Hyattsville branch, but also the Bladensburg, New Carrollton, Mount Rainier and County Correctional Center branches.

“We reopened the rebuilt-from-the-ground-up Hyattsville library at 6530 Adelphi Road, which is the same lot it was on before, but we are in a much nicer, more modern building,” Jackson told WTOP. “If you are heading down Adelphi Road toward East-West Highway, you can’t miss us, you will see the giant flying saucer on the right. … The new library is beautiful, folks are always welcome to visit us, ask for me and I will happily show you the collection.”

Why did I choose this location? When I lived on Adelphi Road during my first year at the University of Maryland in College Park, I would regularly visit this library to rent all of the classics with printed best lists by the American Film Institute. I would then go home with a pen and a pad to take copious notes trying to figure out what made the great movies great, using film-theory concepts taught by Professor Joseph Miller at Susquehanna Hall on campus.

“The Hyattsville branch used to be our flagship for our audio-visual collection,” Jackson said. “As you remember, we had a whole area downstairs that was completely devoted to A-V materials … so it felt like a really perfect home for your collection. … It’s been an embarrassment of riches for us because we wouldn’t have access. Some of these have long been out of our collection, so having them back has been really nice, because they are classics.”

The movies will used for programs like “Coffee and a Classic” in Hyattsville, Bladensburg and New Carrollton.

“Primarily we’re getting senior citizens and retirees at these programs, but we have a mix of everybody,” Jackson said. “We serve light snacks, coffee, everyone watches the film together, then a librarian leads a discussion on the film. … We had a very good turnout for ’12 Angry Men.’ … We did a couple of your Hitchcocks at New Carrollton, so it’s been a really nice, robust program, we’ve had good attendance and folks keeping coming back.”

They’ll also be screened for adults with developmental disabilities in Hyattsville every Monday starting May 6.

“We’re working with several organizations to bring clients out, including the Arc of Prince George’s County and HealthTech, which runs group homes for adults not living independently,” Jackson said. “We’ll screen the film, we’ll also have a hands-on art station related to the film in the back of the room … then we’re going to try a discussion. … Many are absolutely entranced with film. We’ve got a couple of resident movie buffs in these groups already!”

The library will also host family-friendly screenings, particularly where English is spoken as a second language.

“We are a location where families can come while school is out and still receive school lunches for their kids,” Jacksons aid. “Many of our families that attend that are Spanish-speaking at home and we are planning to offer some of the family-friendly films in the collection. … It’s important for people to get the sound of English in their ears. … You have the scaffolding of the images, so even if you’re not tracking every word, you still get the emotion.”

While many of the donated movies are now available on streaming, the library says that its physical media collection benefits low-income folks who don’t have high-speed internet or can’t afford streaming subscriptions.

“I think of public libraries as the great equalizer,” Jackson said. “It’s one of the few community spaces that is completely free. You don’t have to have any kind of qualifications to enter a public library and make use of our resources. You don’t have to have any money. You can be anyone. So, having physical media is really important to us because we know the digital divide is large and very hard to cross unless you have means. … It’s an issue of access and equity, so it’s really important to be able to have a classic collection like this available to everybody.”

Below is a chronological list of the over 300 donated movies, if you want to watch a flick for free at the library. You’ll notice that it starts to tail off around 2011 when I became the WTOP film critic and began receiving disposable awards screeners each year, but it’s a starting point for anyone who wants to study film history:

• The Birth of a Nation (1915)
• Intolerance (1916)
• The General (1926)
• Sunrise (1927)
• Frankenstein (1931)
• City Lights (1931)
• M (1931)
• Little Caesar (1931)
• Scarface: Shame of a Nation (1932)
• King Kong (1933)
• Duck Soup (1933)
• 42nd Street (1933)
• Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
• Footlight Parade (1933)
• It Happened One Night (1934)
• A Night at the Opera (1935)
• Top Hat (1935)
• Swing Time (1936)
• Modern Times (1936)
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
• The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
• Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)
• Bringing Up Baby (1938)
• Stagecoach (1939)
• Gone With the Wind (1939)
• The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• The Rules of the Game (1939)
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
• The Philadelphia Story (1940)
• His Girl Friday (1940)
• The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
• Rebecca (1940)
• Citizen Kane (1941)
• The Maltese Falcon (1941)
• Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
• Casablanca (1942)
• Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
• The Palm Beach Story (1942)
• Woman of the Year (1942)
• Double Indemnity (1944)
• Laura (1944)
• To Have and Have Not (1944)
• Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
• Notorious (1946)
• The Big Sleep (1946)
• The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
• Out of the Past (1947)
• Rope (1948)
• Red River (1948)
• Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
• The Red Shoes (1948)
• The Third Man (1949)
• Adam’s Rib (1949)
• White Heat (1949)
• The Heiress (1949)
• All About Eve (1950)
• Sunset Boulevard (1950)
• A Place in the Sun (1951)
• An American in Paris (1951)
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
• The African Queen (1951)
• The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
• A Christmas Carol (1951)
• Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
• High Noon (1952)
• Tokyo Story (1953)
• The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
• From Here to Eternity (1953)
• The Naked Spur (1953)
• Shane (1953)
• The Band Wagon (1953)
• Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
• Rear Window (1954)
• Dial M for Murder (1954)
• A Star is Born (1954)
• The Seven Samurai (1954)
• On the Waterfront (1954)
• East of Eden (1955)
• Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
• Diabolique (1955)
• Guys and Dolls (1955)
• Night and Fog (1956)
• The Searchers (1956)
• Giant (1956)
• Written on the Wind (1956)
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
• 12 Angry Men (1957)
• Paths of Glory (1957)
• The Seventh Seal (1957)
• Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
• An Affair to Remember (1957)
• The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
• Houseboat (1958)
• Touch of Evil (1958)
• Vertigo (1958)
• North By Northwest (1959)
• Imitation of Life (1959)
• Ben-Hur (1959)
• Rio Bravo (1959)
• The 400 Blows (1959)
• Some Like it Hot (1959)
• The Apartment (1960)
• Psycho (1960)
• La Dolce Vita (1960)
• Breathless (1960)
• Spartacus (1960)
• The Alamo (1960)
• West Side Story (1961)
• The Hustler (1961)
• Jules and Jim (1962)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
• The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
• The Great Escape (1963)
• 8 1/2 (1963)
• My Fair Lady (1964)
• Goldfinger (1964)
• Dr. Strangelove (1964)
• Mary Poppins (1964)
• The Sound of Music (1965)
• Doctor Zhivago (1965)
• The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (1966)
• Closely Watched Trains (1966)
• The Jungle Book (1967)
• Cool Hand Luke (1967)
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
• The Graduate (1967)
• In the Heat of the Night (1967)
• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)
• Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
• Targets (1968)
• The Producers (1968)
• Night of the Living Dead (1968)
• Planet of the Apes (1968)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
• Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (1969)
• The Wild Bunch (1969)
• Easy Rider (1969)
• Midnight Cowboy (1969)
• Love Story (1970)
• Five Easy Pieces (1970)
• Patton (1970)
• M*A*S*H (1970)
• McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
• The French Connection (1971)
• Dirty Harry (1971)
• Harold and Maude (1971)
• A Clockwork Orange (1971)
• The Last Picture Show (1971)
• Cabaret (1972)
• Frenzy (1972)
• The Godfather (1972)
• Deliverance (1972)
• The Exorcist (1973)
• The Sting (1973)
• The Way We Were (1973)
• Mean Streets (1973)
• Robin Hood (1973)
• Don’t Look Now (1973)
• American Graffiti (1973)
• The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
• Young Frankenstein (1974)
• Blazing Saddles (1974)
• Chinatown (1974)
• Nashville (1975)
• Jaws (1975)
• Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
• Monty Python & The Holy Grail (1975)
• Rocky (1976)
• Taxi Driver (1976)
• Network (1976)
• All the President’s Men (1976)
• Carrie (1976)
• The Omen (1976)
• The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
• Annie Hall (1977)
• Star Wars (1977-1983)
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
• Suspiria (1977)
• New York New York (1977)
• Grease (1978)
• The Deer Hunter (1978)
• Halloween (1978)
• Animal House (1978)
• The Jerk (1979)
• Manhattan (1979)
• Alien (1979)
• Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
• All That Jazz (1979)
• Being There (1979)
• Mad Max (1979)
• Apocalypse Now (1979)
• Raging Bull (1980)
• The Shining (1980)
• Airplane! (1980)
• Caddyshack (1980)
• Friday the 13th (1980)
• Ordinary People (1980)
• The Evil Dead (1981)
• On Golden Pond (1981)
• Body Heat (1981)
• An American Werewolf in London (1981)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981-1989)
• The Thing (1982)
• Tootsie (1982)
• Diner (1982)
• Annie (1982)
• Blade Runner (1982)
• Poltergeist (1982)
• E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
• Sophie’s Choice (1982)
• The Verdict (1982)
• A Christmas Story (1983)
• Scarface (1983)
• Sudden Impact (1983)
• This is Spinal Tap! (1984)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
• Ghostbusters (1984)
• Amadeus (1984)
• Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
• Pale Rider (1985)
• Back to the Future (1985)
• The Goonies (1985)
• The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
• Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
• The Fly (1986)
• Blue Velvet (1986)
• Top Gun (1986)
• Hoosiers (1986)
• Stand By Me (1986)
• Platoon (1986)
• Wall Street (1987)
• Fatal Attraction (1987)
• Full Metal Jacket (1987)
• Evil Dead 2 (1987)
• Broadcast News (1987)
• Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
• Rain Man (1988)
• Die Hard (1988)
• The Naked Gun (1988)
• Dead Ringers (1988)
• Cinema Paradiso (1988)
• Bull Durham (1988)
• Field of Dreams (1989)
• Major League (1989)
• Batman (1989)
• Do the Right Thing (1989)
• Sex, Lies & Videotape (1989)
• Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
• National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
• When Harry Met Sally (1989)
• Say Anything (1989)
• Dances with Wolves (1990)
• Goodfellas (1990)
• Total Recall (1990)
• Ghost (1990)
• Home Alone (1990)
• Father of the Bride (1991)
• Boyz in the Hood (1991)
• Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
• Thelma and Louise (1991)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• Jacob’s Ladder (1991)
• A Few Good Men (1992)
• Unforgiven (1992)
• Visions of Light (1992)
• The Fugitive (1993)
• Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
• Rudy (1993)
• The Sandlot (1993)
• Dazed and Confused (1993)
• Menace II Society (1993)
• Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
• Groundhog Day (1993)
• Jurassic Park (1993)
• Schindler’s List (1993)
• Philadelphia (1993)
• Three Colors Trilogy (1993-1994)
• Forrest Gump (1994)
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
• Pulp Fiction (1994)
• Quiz Show (1994)
• Clerks (1994)
• Dumb and Dumber (1994)
• The Lion King (1994)
• Toy Story (1995)
• Apollo 13 (1995)
• Braveheart (1995)
• Before Sunrise (1995)
• Se7en (1995)
• Billy Madison (1995)
• Happy Gilmore (1996)
• Scream (1996)
• Fargo (1996)
• Secrets and Lies (1996)
• Jerry Maguire (1996)
• Titanic (1997)
• L.A. Confidential (1997)
• Good Will Hunting (1997)
• Boogie Nights (1997)
• Austin Powers (1997-2002)
• After Life (1998)
• Saving Private Ryan (1998)
• Shakespeare in Love (1998)
• The Big Lebowski (1998)
• There’s Something About Mary (1998)
• American Beauty (1999)
• Fight Club (1999)
• The Matrix (1999)
• The Sixth Sense (1999)
• The Green Mile (1999)
• The Hurricane (1999)
• Magnolia (1999)
• Office Space (1999)
• Erin Brockovich (2000)
• Memento (2000)
• Gladiator (2000)
• The Patriot (2000)
• Meet the Parents (2000)
• Requiem for a Dream (2000)
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
• Remember the Titans (2000)
• Training Day (2001)
• Mulholland Drive (2001)
• The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
• Amelie (2001)
• Spirited Away (2001)
• The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)
• Road to Perdition (2002)
• Minority Report (2002)
• Anchorman (2002)
• Elf (2003)
• Lost in Translation (2003)
• Million Dollar Baby (2004)
• Friday Night Lights (2004)
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
• Before Sunset (2004)
• Saw (2004)
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
• Wedding Crashers (2005)
• Cinderella Man (2005)
• Crash (2005)
• Dreamgirls (2006)
• The Departed (2006)
• Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
• Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
• Casino Royale (2006)
• There Will Be Blood (2007)
• No Country For Old Men (2007)
• Let the Right One in (2008)
• The Dark Knight (2008)
• Synecdoche New York (2008)
• The Wrestler (2008)
• The Hangover (2009)
• Black Swan (2010)
• The Social Network (2010)
• The Tree of Life (2011)
• Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
• Captain Phillips (2013)
• 12 Years a Slave (2013)
• Gravity (2013)
• 42 (2013)
• Mud (2013)
• Ida (2013)
• Boyhood (2014)
• Birdman (2014)
• Trainwreck (2015)
• Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
• Deadpool (2016)
• Zootopia (2016)
• La La Land (2016)
• Moonlight (2016)
• Get Out (2017)

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