On the Bowery
National Film Registry
•
1h 4m
Directed by Lionel Rogosin • Documentary • With Ray Salyer, Gorman Hendricks, Frank Matthews • 1956 • 65 minutes
On the Bowery chronicles three days in the drinking life of Ray Salyer, a part-time railroad worker adrift on New York’s skid row. When the film first opened in 1956, it exploded on the screen, jump-started the post-war American independent scene and shortly won an Oscar nomination. Restored by the Cineteca di Bologna, documentarian Lionel Rogosin's first theatrical film is simultaneously an incredible document of a bygone era and a vivid portrait of addiction that resonates today just as it did when it was made.
"Stunningly authentic." —Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
"This landmark documentary disturbs and compels as much today in a new 35mm restoration as it did when it opened in 1956 to both criticism and acclaim." —Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
Up Next in National Film Registry
-
Sherman's March (Ross McElwee)
Directed by Ross McElwee • Documentary • 1986 • 155 minutes
When First Run released Ross McElwee's Sundance Award winning Sherman's March in 1986, it went on to become one of the largest grossing documentaries ever. Audiences and critics alike fell in love with McElwee's "quirky, funny and fasci...
-
Tongues Untied
Directed by Marlon Riggs • Documentary • 1989 • 55 minutes
The seminal documentary on Black gay life, Emmy Award-winning director Marlon T. Riggs’ 1989 Tongues Untied uses poetry, personal testimony, rap and performance (featuring poet Essex Hemphill and others), to describe the homophobia and r...
-
The Wobblies
Directed by Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer • Documentary • 1979 • 89 minutes
Founded in Chicago in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) took to organizing unskilled workers into one big union and changed the course of American history. This compelling documentary of the IWW (or “The...
