On January 1, 2025, we celebrate published works from 1929 and published sound recordings from 1924 entering the public domain! The passage of these works into the public domain celebrates our shared cultural heritage. The ability to breathe new life into long forgotten works, remix the most popular and enduring works of the time, and to better circulate the oddities we find in thrift stores, attics, and on random pockets of the internet are now freely available for us all.

While not at the same blockbuster level as 2024 with Steamboat Willie’s passage into the public domain, works from 1929 still inhabit strong cultural significance today. The works of 1929 continue to capture the Lost Generation’s voice, the rise of sound film, and the emerging modern moment of the 1920s.

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Last year Mickey Mouse made a splash with Steamboat Willie cruising into the public domain. This year TWELVE more Mickey shorts join to flesh out the notable events of Mickey’s young career. He speaks his first words in The Karnival Kid, he wears gloves for the first time in The Opry House, and Ub Iwerks leaves the studio at year’s end with Wild Waves. Disney animation also kickstarted their Silly Symphonies series with the haunting tales The Skeleton Dance and Hell’s Bells.

In 1929, if your film wanted to have any attention it needed sound. Musical films were everywhere with The Broadway Melody winning the second ever Best Picture award at the Oscars, The Hollywood Revue introducing the world to “Singin’ in the Rain”, and the Marx Brothers making their big screen debut with The Cocoanuts.

Below is a list of more significant films from the year:

• All Americans (dir. Joseph Santley)
• Blackmail (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
• Lambchops (dir. Murray Roth)
• The Wild Party (dir. Dorothy Arzner)
• Spite Marriage (dir. Buster Keaton and Edward Sedgwick)
• Say It with Songs (dir. Lloyd Bacon)
• Hallelujah (dir. King Vidor)
• Welcome Danger (dir. Clyde Bruckman and Malcolm St. Clair)
• The Black Watch (dir. John Ford)
• The first five Silly Symphonies (dir. Walt Disney or Ub Iwerks)

Our film remix contest is ongoing until January 17, 2025, so please upload your submissions! Read more here.