'Breakfast at Tiffany's,' 'Dirty Harry' among US film treasures

The hot pink cocktail dress worn by actress Audrey Hepburn in ''Breakfast at Tiffany's'' sits on display with other items during a preview of the auction ''Film and Entertainment Memorabilia'' at Christie's auction house in New York, May 24, 2007.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. National Film Registry on Wednesday named 25 films to be preserved as cultural treasures, ranging from Audrey Hepburn's 1961 classic "Breakfast at Tiffany's" to Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" and the sci-fi action movie "The Matrix."

The film list also includes the 1992 female ensemble comedy-drama, "A League of Their Own," directed by Penny Marshall, and "Born Yesterday," which starred Judy Holliday and was released in 1950, and the 1983 holiday classic "A Christmas Story."

The list includes Hollywood classics, documentaries, early films, and independent and experimental motion pictures spanning the years 1897-1999.

It goes back as far "The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Title Fight" - independently produced motion picture recordings of famous boxing contests from 1897 - and to 1914, when "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "The Wishing Ring; An Idyll of Old England" were released.

The films will be preserved at the library's audio-visual conservation campus in Culpeper, Virginia, and eventually transferred into a digital format.

The complete list of films added to the National Film Registry in 2012:

* "3:10 to Yuma" (1957)

* "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959)

* "The Augustas" (1930s-1950s)

* "Born Yesterday" (1950)

* "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961)

* "A Christmas Story" (1983)

* "The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Title Fight" (1897)

* "Dirty Harry" (1971)

* "Hours for Jerome: Parts 1 and 2" (1980-82)

* "The Kidnappers Foil" (1930s-1950s)

* "Kodachrome Color Motion Picture Tests" (1922)

* "A League of Their Own" (1992)

* "The Matrix" (1999)

* "The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair" (1939)

* "One Survivor Remembers" (1995)

* "Parable" (1964)

* "Samsara: Death and Rebirth in Cambodia" (1990)

* "Slacker" (1991)

* "Sons of the Desert" (1933)

* "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" (1937)

* "They Call It Pro Football" (1967)

* "The Times of Harvey Milk" (1984)

* "Two-Lane Blacktop" (1971)

* "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1914)

* "The Wishing Ring; An Idyll of Old England" (1914)

(Reporting By Christine Kearney and Eric Kelsey; Editing by Patricia Reaney, David Brunnstrom and Vicki Allen)