(Paramount Pictures, 1997) A fictional romance between first class passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and impoverished itinerant artist Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) is set on the 1912 ill-fated maiden voyage of the R.M.S Titanic. The story is told in flashback by the 102-year-old Rose (Gloria Stuart) when she is taken to the site of the ship wreck by American treasure-seeker Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton). Director James Cameron and his crew shot the actual shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean in a series of high risk dives before he began writing the screenplay. This spectacular epic ranked as the most expensive film in Hollywood history at the time of its release, and became the most successful. “Titanic” garnered fourteen Academy Awards nominations, winning eleven including Best Picture and Best Director. 7:30 P.M. Free, at the Library of Congress Packard Campus Theater located at 19053 Mt. Pony Rd. in Culpeper, VA. No reservations required. For more information, call 202-707-9994.

(Warner Bros., 1959) As legend goes, this Western, directed by Howard Hawks, was produced in part as a riposte to Fred Zinnemann’s “High Noon.” The film trades in the wide-open spaces of “High Noon” for the confines of a small jail where a sheriff and his deputies are waiting for the anticipated attempt by his equally unlawful brother’s hired gunmen to help the prisoner escape. John Wayne stars as Sheriff John T. Chance and is aided in his efforts to keep the law by Walter Brennan, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson. Angie Dickinson is the love interest and Western regulars Claude Akins, Ward Bond and Pedro Gonzalez are also featured. A smart Western where gunplay is matched by wordplay, “Rio Bravo” is a terrific ensemble piece and director Hawks’ last great film. It was named to the National Film Registry in 2014. 7:30 p.m. Free, at the Library of Congress Packard Campus Theater located at 19053 Mt. Pony Rd. in Culpeper, VA. No reservations required. For more information, call 202-707-9994.

(Warner Bros., 1956)  Considered by many to be John Ford’s best film, it is equal parts majestic spectacle and soul-searching moral examination that anticipated the complex themes and characters that would dominate films of the 1970s. John Wayne, a Confederate soldier, returns after the war to find his niece has been kidnapped by Comanches and sets out to find her – not to rescue her, but to destroy what he sees as a creature no longer human. Is the film intended to endorse the racist attitudes of the main character (John Wayne), or to dramatize and regret them? Today we see it through enlightened eyes, but in 1956 many audiences accepted its harsh view of Indians. “New York” magazine called it the most influential movie in American history. The film was added to the National Film Registry in its inaugural year of 1989. 7:30 p.m. Free, at the Library of Congress Packard Campus Theater located at 19053 Mt. Pony Rd. in Culpeper, VA. No reservations required. For more information, call 202-707-9994.

“The Last of the Line” (Mutual Film, 1914)
Sioux leader Chief Gray Otter (Joe Goodboy) sends his son Tiah (Sessue Hayakawa) off to a “white man’s school” so that he can become a great leader. But the son returns home as a worthless drunk and soon joins a group of renegades, forcing the father to make a decision. This Thomas Ince produced short drama features Sioux actors in most of the parts.

“Tumbleweeds” (United Artists, 1925) Famed silent Western actor William S. Hart stars as cowboy Don Carver, who decides to get in on the Cherokee Strip Land Run in Oklahoma of 1893 and stake a claim as a homesteader. Directed by King Baggot, and produced by Hart in what was his final starring role, “Tumbleweeds” has been lauded as a seminal film of the silent era, unique in its depiction of Native Americans, not as villains but as Hart’s friends and for including African Americans among the land boomers. Noted film historian William K. Everson praised the land rush scene as “a superbly constructed piece of mass action, with overall excitement brilliantly welded to the individual vignette of sheer poetry — as in the wonderful shot of Hart seeming to fly through the sky as he races his pony over the crest of a hill.”  Live musical accompaniment for the program will be performed by Ben Model. 2 p.m. Free, at the Library of Congress Packard Campus Theater located at 19053 Mt. Pony Rd. in Culpeper, VA. No reservations required. For more information, call 202-707-9994.

(Paramount, 1968) Disdained as “Spaghetti Westerns” when they first appeared in American movie theaters, the best of these films, such as “Once Upon a Time in the West,” are now recognized as among the greatest achievements of the Western movie genre. Director Sergio Leone’s operatic visual homage to the American Western legend is a chilling tale of vengeance set against the backdrop of the coming of the railroad. Ennio Morricone’s magnificent score is likewise recognized for its brilliance. The film stars Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale and Woody Strode. It was chosen for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2009. 7:30 p.m. Free, at the Library of Congress Packard Campus Theater located at 19053 Mt. Pony Rd. in Culpeper, VA. No reservations required. For more information, call 202-707-9994.

(MGM, 1926)  Lillian Gish, called the “First Lady of American Cinema,” is credited with pioneering a more natural style of film acting. After appearing in more than 70 films beginning in 1912, many with director D.W. Griffith, she signed with the recently formed MGM who offered Gish significant creative control on her projects, including choice of directors and co-stars.  For her inaugural MGM effort, Gish selected King Vidor to direct “La Bohème” based on Henri Murger’s 1851 novel “La Vie de la bohème” (The Life of the Bohemian.) Gish is cast as Mimi, the delicate seamstress who takes up residence in Paris’s artists’ colony where she falls in love with aspiring painter Rodolphe (John Gilbert). Renee Adoree co-stars as the saucy Musette, while Edward Everett Horton steals several scenes as Rodolphe’s musician friend Colline. Makia Matsumura will provide live musical accompaniment. 7:30 p.m. Free, at the Library of Congress Packard Campus Theater located at 19053 Mt. Pony Rd. in Culpeper, VA. No reservations required. For more information, call 202-707-9994.