# List of rediscovered films

This is a list of rediscovered films that, once thought lost, have since been discovered, in whole or in part. See List of incomplete or partially lost films and List of rediscovered film footage for films that are not wholly lost.
For a film that was not released before it was rediscovered, the year is when it was produced. The year is also italicized.
The films are listed by year, then alphabetically within each year.

## Silent films

Many films of the silent era have been lost. The Library of Congress estimates 75% of all silent films are lost forever. About 10,919 American silent films were produced, but only 2,749 of them still exist in some complete form, either as an original American 35mm version, a foreign release, or as a lower-quality copy.

### 1890s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes |
| 1896 | Défense d'afficher | Georges Méliès | Georges Méliès | This French film was recovered in 2004. It is the oldest lost film to be rediscovered. |
| 1896 | The House of the Devil | Georges Méliès | | The film was presumed lost until 1988, when a copy was found in the New Zealand Film Archive. |
| 1898 | Something Good – Negro Kiss | William Selig | Saint Suttle, Gertie Brown | The nitrate film negative of this short was rediscovered at an estate sale in Louisiana by an archivist from the University of Southern California. It is believed to contain the earliest on-screen kiss involving African Americans and is noted for departing from the prevalent and purely stereotypical presentation of racist caricature in popular culture at the time. |
| 1899 | Momijigari | Shibata Tsunekichi | Onoe Kikugorō V, Ichikawa Danjūrō IX | A three-minute print was discovered around 1939 by the film historian Junichiro Tanaka, who bought the print for 50 yen; it was later acquired by the National Film Archive of Japan. Around 2006, a six-minute print was donated to the National Film Archive of Japan by film historian Motoki Yoshihiko. |

### 1900s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes |
| 1900 | Sherlock Holmes Baffled | Arthur Marvin | The names of the two actors are unknown. | Running only 30 seconds, this is the first recorded detective film and the first to feature Sherlock Holmes. A paper copy was identified in 1968 in the Library of Congress Paper Print archive by Michael Pointer, a historian of Sherlock Holmes films. It was transferred to 16 mm film in the Library of Congress collection. |
| 1901 | The Death of Poor Joe | George Albert Smith | Laura Bayley | Made in Great Britain and lost since 1954, the film was rediscovered in 2012 and is the oldest surviving film that features a Charles Dickens character. |
| 1901 | The Triple-Headed Lady | Georges Méliès | | Short film rediscovered as part of the Brinton Entertainment traveling circuit of early films and magic lantern slides salvaged in Iowa in 1981, but not identified until 2015 and featured in the 2017 documentary Saving Brinton. |
| 1904 | Match de Prestidigitation | Georges Méliès | | Two minute-long film discovered in 2016 at the Czech National Film Archive under a donated reel with a different name. |
| 1904 | The Wonderful Rose-Tree | Georges Méliès | | Short film rediscovered as part of the Brinton Entertainment traveling circuit of early films and magic lantern slides salvaged in Iowa in 1981, but not identified until 2017 upon release of the documentary Saving Brinton. |
| 1904 or 1906 | Living London or The Streets of London | Charles Urban | | One reel (10 minutes) was found of this documentary of London life. The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (where the fragment was found) states it was identified by British film scholar Ian Christie as being from Living London, but Urban's website claims that this is from the later documentary. |
| 1907 | Katsudō Shashin | Unknown | | The oldest animated film in Japan, lasting only three seconds. The piece of film was discovered in Kyoto on July 31, 2005. |
| 1908 | Bobby's Kodak | Wallace McCutcheon | Edward Dillon, Robert Harron | A print was discovered in the Library of Congress. |
| 1908 | Hôtel électrique (El hotel eléctrico) | Segundo de Chomón | Segundo de Chomón, Julienne Mathieu | This French film is in the Filmoteca Española film archive. |

### 1910s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes |
| 1910 | Frankenstein | J. Searle Dawley | Charles Ogle | A print was bought by a film collector in the 1950s, who was not aware of its rarity until decades later. United States |
| 1910 | Il Guanto (The Glove) | Luigi Maggi | Alberto Capozzi, Mary Cleo Tarlarini, Mario Voller-Buzzi | A print bought by a private collector from a recycling centre. United Kingdom. (2015) |
| 1911 | The Adventures of Pinocchio | Giulio Antamoro | Ferdinand Guillaume | In 1994, the original negative was rediscovered at Cineteca Italiana in Milan. In 2002, Time reported that a 30-minute version had been rediscovered and restored. |
| 1911 | Karađorđe | Ilija Stanojević-Čiča | | The first Serbian feature film, thought lost since 1928. Material from this movie was found in Austrian Film Archives in 2003. |
| 1911 | Pictureland | Thomas H. Ince | Isabel Rea King Baggot | The film was rediscovered by a researcher, Robert Hoskin, in Australia who received a print from Japan in 2015 and personally restored it over a course of one year. When the film was thought to be lost it was said that Mary Pickford played a role in it, but after a print was found it became clear that she was not in the film at all. The part that was thought to be played by Mary Pickford was really played by Isabel Rea. |
| 1911 | Their First Misunderstanding | Thomas H. Ince, George Loane Tucker | Mary Pickford | The first film that credited Pickford by name. Found in 2006 in a New Hampshire barn. |
| 1912 | A Fool and His Money | Alice Guy-Blaché William Haines | | United States |
| 1912 | From the Manger to the Cross | Sidney Olcott | Robert Henderson-Bland | The film disappeared from cinema screens for decades until Reverend Brian Hession, vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Walton, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, went on a quest to the US to find a copy of the film for re-issue in Britain. Although initially disappointed, he eventually discovered a set of negatives after searching in the vaults and cellars of old film concerns. Hession added a musical sound track and spoken commentary, and From the Manger to the Cross was re-released in 1938. |
| 1912 | A Lucky Holdup | | Dorothy Gibson | It was found by David Navone in the early 2000s in a sea chest that he bought at a California flea market and was professionally restored by the American Film Institute. It is the only surviving film featuring actress Dorothy Gibson. |
| 1912 | In Nacht und Eis | Mime Misu | | The third Titanic movie was presumed lost around 1914, but was found in the possession of a private film collector in Germany in 1998. |
| 1912 | Richard III | André Calmettes, James Keane | Robert Gemp, Frederick Warde | The first known full-length William Shakespeare film was thought to be lost, until in 1996 Oregon projectionist William Buffum donated his copy to the American Film Institute. |
| 1912 | En Stærkere magt | Hjalmar Davidsen, Eduard Schnedler-Sørensen | Valda Valkyrien | Preserved by the Danish Film Institute. |
| 1913 | Borrowed Wife | | Alfred Sällik, Paul Pinna | Found in Gosfilmofond Archive (Moscow) in 2014, this comedy is probably the oldest surviving Estonian feature film. |
| 1913 | L'enfant de Paris | Léonce Perret | Léonce Perret, Louis Leubas, Maurice Lagrenée | The film was found by Henri Langlois. |
| 1913 | Os Óculos do Vovô | Francisco Santos | Francisco Santos, Mário Ferreira dos Santos | Oldest Brazilian fiction film. Rediscovered by researcher Antônio Jesus Pfeil in 1970/80s. Four minutes of the 15-minute feature are preserved. |
| 1913 | Poor Jake's Demise | Allen Curtis | Lon Chaney, Louise Fazenda | Chaney's first credited role. A fragment was discovered in 2006 among several hundred other reels of film in an English collection. |
| 1913 | Sealed Hearts | Ralph Ince | Eugene O’Brien | UK collector had tinted 35mm print (50 minute British version). |
| 1913 | A Sister to Carmen | Charles Gaskill | Helen Gardner | Silver nitrate positive print recovered in 1996. |
| 1913 | When Lincoln Paid | Francis Ford | Francis Ford | Was found in 2006 in a barn in New Hampshire that was going to be demolished. |
| 1914 | The Active Life of Dolly of the Dailies | Walter Edwin | Mary Fuller, Yale Boss | Discovered in 2009 in the New Zealand Film Archive. |
| 1914 | The Girl Stage Driver | Webster Cullison | Norbert A. Myles, Edna Payne, Will E. Sheerer | An incomplete 35mm positive print was discovered in 2009 in the New Zealand Film Archive. |
| 1914 | Der Hund von Baskerville (The Hound of the Baskervilles) | Rudolf Meinert | | First known adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes book The Hound of the Baskervilles. |
| 1914 | The Oath of the Sword | Frank Shaw | | Considered the earliest known Asian American film production, it was recently discovered at the George Eastman Museum by scholar Denise Khor. |
| 1914 | The Oubliette | Charles Giblyn | Murdock MacQuarrie, Pauline Bush, Lon Chaney, Doc Crane, Chester Withey, Millard K. Wilson, Frank Lanning, Agnes Vernon | In the summer of 1983, a nitrate print in excellent condition was discovered in Georgia. A couple rebuilding the steps of their front porch uncovered all three reels of the film, still in their metal cans. |
| 1914 | Pirates of the Plains | Otis Thayer | | Discovered in 1993 in a private collection in Antigo, Wisconsin. It is thought to be the only film made by the Colorado Motion Picture Company to have survived. |
| 1914 | Salomy Jane | William Nigh, Lucius Henderson | Beatriz Michelena, House Peters | Complete nitrate copy found in Australia in 1996. |
| 1914 | The Stain | Frank Powell | Edward José, Theda Bara | A print of the film was discovered in Australia in the 1990s. |
| 1914 | A Thief Catcher | | Charlie Chaplin (bit part) | A print was discovered in 2010 at a Michigan antique sale. |
| 1914 | Won in a Closet | Mabel Normand | Mabel Normand | Discovered in 2009 in the New Zealand Film Archive. |
| 1915 | Diplomatic Henry | Sidney Drew | Sidney Drew, Mrs. Sidney Drew, Florence Natol | Discovered in the summer of 2017, it was scanned and restored at the University of Southern California and screened at the 2018 Pordenone Silent Film Festival. |
| 1915 | The Heart of Lincoln | Francis Ford | Francis Ford | Found in Lauro's Historic Films Archive in Greenport, Long Island, New York in 2024. |
| 1915 | A Mixup for Mazie | Hal Roach | Harold Lloyd | Found in Gosfilmofond Archive (Moscow) in 2017. |
| 1915 | A Munkászubbony (The Work Jacket) | István Bródy | Gyula Hegedűs | Found in the Netherlands in 2017. |
| 1915 | Peculiar Patients' Pranks | Hal Roach | Harold Lloyd | Found in Australia's National Film and Sound Archive. |
| 1915 | The Portage Trail | Oliver William Lamb | Residents from Akron, Ohio | A 16-minute drama shot in Akron, Ohio, that was considered lost until Los Angeles-based Periscope Film LLC posted it for online viewing via YouTube in January, 2023. |
| 1915 | The Price of Betrayal | Victor Sjöström | Egil Eide, John Ekman | Found by the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée in 2017. |
| 1916 | Als ich tot war | Ernst Lubitsch | | Found in 1994 in a Slovenian archive by the Ljubljana Film Museum and screened at the Pordenone Festival of Silent Cinema in 1995. |
| 1916 | East Lynne | Bertram Bracken | Theda Bara | One of Bara's six surviving films. |
| 1916 | Luke's Double | Hal Roach | Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels | A 28mm print of the long-lost short comedy was recovered by the Harold Lloyd Estate in October 2022 and has been deposited at the UCLA Film & Television Archive for preservation. |
| 1916 | The Moment Before | Robert G. Vignola | Pauline Frederick | A nearly complete print, lacking only the opening scene, was found in an archive in Rome. |
| 1916 | Mysteriet natten till den 25:e | Georg af Klercker | | |
| 1916 | The Net | George Foster Platt | Bert Delaney, Marian Swayne | On April 5, 2022, Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc in cooperation with the National Library of Norway announced the discovery of this rare surviving five-reel feature film. |
| 1916 | Purity | Rae Berger | Audrey Munson | The Centre Nation de la Cinematographie film archive has a print. |
| 1916 | Sherlock Holmes | Arthur Berthelet | William Gillette, Marjorie Kay | A copy was discovered in 2014 in the Cinémathèque Française archive. This is the only film made by Gillette, a famed stage actor best known for his portrayal of Holmes. |
| 1916 | Snow White | J. Searle Dawley | Marguerite Clark, Creighton Hale | It was thought to have been destroyed in a vault fire. A "substantially complete" print, with Dutch intertitles and missing a few scenes, was found in Amsterdam in 1992 and restored at George Eastman House. It inspired Walt Disney to make it the subject of his first feature-length animated film. |
| 1916 | Zepped | | Charlie Chaplin | A copy of this propaganda short film was found in 2009; and a second turned up in 2011. |
| c. 1916 or 1917 | The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West | Marion E. Wong | Violet Wong, Harvey Soohoo | Filmed c. 1916 or 1917, apparently never released and long thought lost. Restored in 2006 by the Academy Film Archive from two reels preserved by filmmaker Arthur Dong. It is the earliest known Chinese-American feature film, and one of the earliest films directed by a woman. Parts of this are still missing. |
| 1917 | Bliss | Alfred J. Goulding | Harold Lloyd | Found in 1978 in Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. |
| 1917 | Bucking Broadway | John Ford | | Found in 2002 in a French archive. Included as an extra on the Criterion Collection Blu-ray of Stagecoach. |
| 1917 | The Dull Sword | Jun'ichi Kōuchi | | The Japanese animated film was found in an antique shop in Osaka in March 2008. |
| 1917 | Pay Me! (The Vengeance of the West) | Joe De Grasse | Lon Chaney | Found in Gosfilmofond Archive (Moscow) in 2019. |
| 1917 | Polly of the Circus | Edwin L. Hollywood | Mae Marsh | The original copy was destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire and was considered lost for 13 years until another copy was found in 1978 in Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. |
| 1917 | A Reckless Romeo | Roscoe Arbuckle | Roscoe Arbuckle, Al St. John | Found in an unmarked canister at the Norwegian Film Institute in 1998, alongside The Cook. |
| 1918 | Amazonas, o maior rio do mundo | Silvino Santos | | Documentary movie about the Amazon rainforest lost between 1920s-1930s and only found out in 2023 stored in the Národní filmový archiv, mistacalogued as a 1925 US film. |
| 1918 | Anniversary of the Revolution | Dziga Vertov | Lev Trozki | Edited by director Dziga Vertov (marking his first film) from chronicle materials on the first anniversary of the October Revolution. The film was considered lost for a long time and was restored in its original form a century after its release by film expert Nikolai Izvolov. The premiere took place on November 20, 2018, at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA). |
| 1918 | The Cook | Roscoe Arbuckle | Roscoe Arbuckle, Buster Keaton | Found in an unmarked canister at the Norwegian Film Institute in 1998, alongside A Reckless Romeo. A second print, containing more footage, was found in 2002, and the two were combined to create a restored version. However, some scenes are still missing. |
| 1918 | The Floor Below | Clarence G. Badger | Mabel Normand, Tom Moore, Helen Dahl | Found "in the estate of a Dutch collector" by the Nederlands Filmmuseum. |
| 1919 | Around the World in 80 Days | Richard Oswald | Conrad Veidt | Print found at the EYE film Institute in the Netherlands |
| 1919 | Back to God's Country | David Hartford | Nell Shipman | Print discovered in Europe and restored in the 1990s. Scenario by Nell Shipman and novelist James Oliver Curwood. |
| 1919 | Camping Out | Roscoe Arbuckle | Roscoe Arbuckle, Al St. John | Reconstructed from reels found in the Nederlands Filmmuseum and Cineteca Nazionale (Rome) storage vaults in 2002. |
| 1919 | Different from the Others | Richard Oswald | Conrad Veidt | German copies destroyed by the Nazis in 1933 and thought lost since then. A copy was found in Ukraine in the late 1970s and restored by the Stadtmuseum München. One of the earliest known sympathetic depictions of homosexuality in film. |
| 1919 | The Grim Game | Irvin Willat | Harry Houdini | Although fragments of the movie were known to have survived, this was widely considered to be a lost film until it was purchased from a private collector in 2014. It was scheduled to be screened at the TCM Classic Film Festival in March 2015. |
| 1919 | People Die for Metal | Alexandre Volkoff | Zoya Karabanova, Yuri Yurovsky | This film was considered lost until being rediscovered and shown at a Danish film festival in 1963. The version screened there had German credits and carried the alternate title Sold Soul. It was later restored and uploaded to YouTube. |
| 1919 | A Romance of Happy Valley | D. W. Griffith | Lillian Gish | It was found in the State Film Archives of the Soviet Union, which donated it to the Museum of Modern Art. |
| 1919 | Scarlet Days | D. W. Griffith | Richard Barthelmess, Eugenie Besserer | Found in the State Film Archives of the Soviet Union, which donated it to the Museum of Modern Art. |
| 1919 | Sealed Hearts | Ralph Ince | Eugene O'Brien, Robert Edeson, Lucille Lee Stewart | The previously lost film was rediscovered in the United Kingdom after a film collector provided his copy to the De Montfort University’s Cinema and Television History Institute. |
| 1919 | The Loves of Letty | Frank Lloyd | Leota Lorraine, Joan Standing, Pauline Frederick | Found in a European collection. |
| 1919 | The Spiders (1st of 2) | Fritz Lang | Restored in 1978 from a newly discovered original print, first part of a 2-part series. | |
| 1919 | The Valley of the Giants | James Cruze | Wallace Reid | Found in Gosfilmofond Russian state archives, Moscow. Digital copy given to the Library of Congress in 2010. |
| 1919 | When Bearcat Went Dry | Oliver L. Sellers | Lon Chaney | Found in a projectionist's collection. |
| 1919 | The White Heather | Maurice Tourneur | Holmes Herbert, John Gilbert (actor), Gibson Gowland | Considered to be a lost film for many years, but in 2023 a copy was rediscovered at the Eye Filmmuseum. The film will be preserved by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival under a grant awarded by the National Film Preservation Foundation. |
| 1919 | The Wicked Darling | Tod Browning | Lon Chaney | A copy was found in Europe in the 1990s, and now resides in the Nederlands Filmmuseum. |
| 1919 | The Witness for the Defense | George Fitzmaurice | Elsie Ferguson | Print discovered in Gosfilmofond. Screened at Univ. of North Dakota. Ferguson's only surviving silent film. |
| 1919 | You're Fired | James Cruze | Wallace Reid, Wanda Hawley | Found in Russian state archives Gosfilmofond, Moscow. Digital copy given to the Library of Congress in 2010. |

### 1920s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes | Ref |
| 1920 | Aimsir Padraig | Norman Whitten | Vernon Whitten, Gilbert Greene, Ira Allen | Also known as "In the Days of St. Patrick", exists in the British Film Institute. | |
| 1920 | Algol | Hans Werckmeister | Emil Jannings, John Gottowt, Käthe Haack, Hanna Ralph | Recovered and subsequently screened by The Museum of Modern Art on November 29, 2010, as part of their film exhibition Weimar Cinema, 1919–1933: Daydreams and Nightmares. | |
| 1920 | The Daughter of Dawn | Norbert Myles | White Parker, Wanada Parker, Esther LeBarre, Jack Sankadoty | Bought and restored by the Oklahoma Historical Society in 2007. | |
| 1920 | Dance on the Volcano (Der Tanz auf dem Vulkan) | Richard Eichberg | Bela Lugosi | Found in a film archive in the 1990s, albeit in its American release version. | |
| 1920 | Genuine | Robert Wiene | Fern Andra, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski | Complete copy was discovered in the Berlin film archive. | |
| 1920 | Go and Get It | Marshall Neilan, Henry Roberts Symonds | Pat O'Malley, Wesley Barry, Agnes Ayres | Thought lost until a print was discovered in the Cineteca Italiana film archive in Italy. | |
| 1920 | Helen of Four Gates | Cecil Hepworth | Alma Taylor James Carew | Found in a film vault in Quebec, Canada in 2008. However, footage from the film had been excerpted in the 1995 documentary Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood. | |
| 1920 | If I Were King | J. Gordon Edwards | William Farnum, Betty Ross Clarke, Fritz Leiber, Sr. | Print is held by the Library of Congress. | |
| 1920 | The Spiders (2nd of 2) | Fritz Lang | Carl de Vogt, Ressel Orla, Georg John | Restored in 1978 from a newly discovered original print, second part of a 2-part series. | |
| 1920 | Unseen Forces | Sidney Franklin | Sylvia Breamer, Conrad Nagel, Sam De Grasse | Rediscovered at the New Zealand Film Archive in 2010. A video Archived July 28, 2022, at the Wayback Machine of the preserved film can be viewed at the National Film Preservation Foundation website. | |
| 1920 | Der Wildtöter und Chingachgook | Arthur Wellin | Bela Lugosi | Recovered in the 1990s, exists in private film collection. | |
| 1920 | Where Are Your Husbands? | Billy B. Van | Billy B. Van | Found in the Library of Congress film archive in June 2017 and was screened at Dexter's Inn in Sunapee, New Hampshire on July 12, 2017. | |
| 1920 | Within Our Gates | Oscar Micheaux | Evelyn Preer, Flo Clements. James D. Ruffin | Lost for decades, a single print of the film, entitled La Negra (The Black Woman), was discovered in Spain in the 1970s. In 1993, the Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center restored the film as closely as possible to the original. | |
| 1921 | The Blue Fox | Duke Worne | Ann Little, J. Morris Foster | Portions of the first 12 chapters of this serial exist in UCLA Film and Television Archive; parts 13–15 are believed lost. | |
| 1921 | Brownie's Little Venus | Fred Fishback | Baby Peggy | Rediscovered in Switzerland in 2010. | |
| 1921 | The Conquest of Canaan | Roy William Neill | Thomas Meighan, Doris Kenyon | Found in Russian state archives Gosfilmofond Moscow. Digital copy given to the Library of Congress in 2010. | |
| 1921 | The Devil | James Young | George Arliss | Exists in the Library of Congress film archive. | |
| 1921 | Hard Luck | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton | Long considered Keaton's major lost film until it was partially reconstructed in 1987. The climactic final scene was later recovered in a Russian archive. | |
| 1921 | Jánošík | Theodor Pištěk Mária Fábryová | Jaroslav Siakeľ | The first Slovak full feature film was considered lost until 1970, when original film producer John Zavodny donated his copy to Slovak film institute. It was then restored by Ivan Rumanovský and premiered in 1975. | |
| 1921 | Ludzie bez jutra (People with no Tomorrow) | Aleksander Hertz | | Polish film rediscovered in Germany in 2015. | |
| 1921 | Molly O' | F. Richard Jones | Mabel Normand | Prints exist in the Library of Congress film archive, UCLA Film and Television Archive and Gosfilmofond Russian Film Archive. | |
| 1922 | Amazonas, o maior rio do mundo | Silvino Santos | | This Brazilian documentary of life on the Amazon River was presumed lost in 1931. It was rediscovered in 2023 in the archives of the Czech Film Archive. | |
| 1922 | Beyond the Rocks | Sam Wood | Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino | Collector Joop Van Liempd (1913–2002) donated a large collection of film canisters to Nederlands Filmmuseum. A print of Beyond the Rocks was found among them in 2003 and restored in 2005. | |
| 1922 | For the Defense | Paul Powell | Ethel Clayton, ZaSu Pitts | Rediscovered in 2014 in the archive of EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. | |
| 1922 | Kick In | George Fitzmaurice | Betty Compson Bert Lytell | Found in Russian state archives; Gosfilmofond (Moscow). Digital copy given to the Library of Congress in 2010. | |
| 1922 | Little Red Riding Hood | Walt Disney | animation | One of the first theatrical animated cartoons from Walt Disney. Found in a London film library in 1998 and restored the same year. | |
| 1922 | The Loves of Pharaoh | Ernst Lubitsch | Emil Jannings | Long thought lost, it has been restored from various sources, though it still lacks 10 minutes of the roughly one hour and 50-minute original running time. | |
| 1922 | Oliver Twist | Frank Lloyd | Jackie Coogan, Lon Chaney | Thought lost for half a century until found in Yugoslavia in the 1970s. | [124][125] [126][127] |
| 1922 | Phantom | F. W. Murnau | Alfred Abel, Grete Berger, Lil Dagover | Prints exist in the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv film archive. | |
| 1922 | Sherlock Holmes | Albert Parker | John Barrymore, Roland Young, William Powell | Film was restored over a thirty-year period from the original camera negatives at the George Eastman House. | |
| 1922 | Three Live Ghosts | George Fitzmaurice | Norman Kerry | Found in a Russian archive and shown publicly at British Silent Film Festival in September 2015. | |
| 1922 | The Toll of the Sea | Chester Franklin | Anna May Wong, Kenneth Harlan | Found in 1985. | |
| 1922 | The Young Rajah | Phil Rosen | Rudolph Valentino | Film partially found, surviving footage and still pictures were merged to make an incomplete film. | |
| 1923 | The Call of the Canyon | Victor Fleming | Richard Dix | Found in Russian state archives; Gosfilmofond (Moscow). Digital copy given to the Library of Congress in 2010. | |
| 1923 | Canyon of the Fools | Val Paul | Harry Carey, Marguerite Clayton, Jack Curtis | Found in Russian state archives; Gosfilmofond (Moscow). Digital copy given to the Library of Congress in 2010. | |
| 1923 | Circus Days | Edward F. Cline | Jackie Coogan | Found in Russian state archives; Gosfilmofond (Moscow). Digital copy given to the Library of Congress in 2010. | |
| 1923 | Defying Destiny | Louis Chaudet | Monte Blue, Irene Rich | Rediscovered in New Zealand Film Archive in 2010. Video of preserved print available for online viewing | |
| 1923 | The Gold Diggers | Harry Beaumont | Hope Hampton, Wyndham Standing, Louise Fazenda | With no prints of The Gold Diggers located in any archive it was for decades presumed to be a lost film. In May 2021, a collector found an incomplete nitrate 35mm Belgian print in England, which has been uploaded to YouTube. The surviving footage includes reels 1, 4, 5 and 6, although some of the extant reels have missing sections at the beginning and end of the reels. In June 2021 the same collector uploaded a digitally scanned version of the first five minutes to YouTube, with plans to scan the remaining footage. | |
| 1923 | The Eternal Struggle | Reginald Barker | Renée Adorée | Found in Russian state archives; Gosfilmofond (Moscow). Digital copy given to the Library of Congress in 2010. | |
| 1923 | The First Degree | Edward Sedgwick | Frank Mayo | Rediscovered in July 2020 in the Charles E. Krosse Collection of the Chicago Film Archives in Chicago, Illinois. | |
| 1923 | Love, Life and Laughter | George Pearson | Betty Balfour | Found in a small cinema in the Netherlands in 2014. | |
| 1923 | Maytime | Louis J. Gasnier | Clara Bow, Ethel Shannon, Harrison Ford | 4 out of 7 reels were found in the New Zealand Film Archive in 2009; preserved and available for online viewing Archived October 30, 2020, at the Wayback Machine. | |
| 1923 | La Montagne Infidèle | Jean Epstein | Paul Guichard | A complete 28 mm copy was identified in 2021 at Filmoteca de Catalunya. | |
| 1923 | The Pill Pounder | Gregory La Cava | Charles Murray (American actor), Clara Bow | Thought for decades to be lost, filmmaker Gary Huggins recently discovered a 35 mm copy of this 2-reel film after he picked it up in the auction of items from a defunct Omaha-based distributor. | |
| 1923 | Souls for Sale | Rupert Hughes | Eleanor Boardman | Discovered and restored in 2006 by Turner Classic Movies and Warner Archive Collection. | |
| 1923 | The White Shadow | Graham Cutts | Betty Compson, Clive Brook, Henry Victor, A. B. Imeson | The first three of six reels were found in the New Zealand Film Archive in August 2011. | |
| 1924 | Twenty Dollars a Week | F. Harmon Weight | George Arliss, Taylor Holmes, Edith Roberts | Held in the Library of Congress Film Archive and New Zealand Film Archive. | |
| 1924 | The Arab | Rex Ingram | Ramón Novarro, Alice Terry | Found in Russian state archives; Gosfilmofond (Moscow). Digital copy given to the Library of Congress in 2010. | |
| 1924 | The Breaking Point | Herbert Brenon | Nita Naldi, Patsy Ruth Miller, George Fawcett | Exists in the Library of Congress Film Archive. | |
| 1924 | The City Without Jews | Hans Karl Breslauer | Johannes Riemann, Eugen Neufeld, Hans Moser | Found by collector in Paris flea market, 2015. Restored by Filmarchiv Austria, via crowd-funding. | |
| 1924 | Dynamite Smith | Ralph Ince | Charles Ray (actor), Jacqueline Logan, Bessie Love, Wallace Beery | An 8mm copy with Dutch intertitles from the collection of David Wyatt was found in 2023 and published on YouTube with English subtitles. | |
| 1924 | Empty Hearts | Alfred Santell | John Bowers, Clara Bow | Held by UCLA Film and Television Archive. | |
| 1924 | Our Pet | Herman C. Raymaker | Baby Peggy | A print was discovered after a Japanese auction in October 2016. | |
| 1924 | Peg o' the Mounted | Alfred J. Goulding | Baby Peggy | A print was discovered amongst the holdings of the Nederlands Filmmuseum. | |
| 1924 | Pied Piper Malone | Alfred E. Green | Thomas Meighan, Lois Wilson, Emma Dunn | Discovered in a Russian film archive by historians Mark Tiedje and John Coles. It was screened in 2007 in Georgetown, South Carolina, where it was filmed. Now stored in National Film Foundation of Russian Federation Archive. | |
| 1924 | Secrets of the Night | Herbert Blaché | James Kirkwood Sr., Madge Bellamy, ZaSu Pitts | Discovered in a basement in Mississauga, Ontario in 2017. | |
| 1924 | Venus of the South Seas | James R. Sullivan | Annette Kellerman, Roland Purdu, Norman French | Restored by Library of Congress in 2004. Last reel of 55-minute film is in Prizmacolor. Held by New Zealand Film Archive and British Film Institute | |
| 1925 | Borrowed Finery | Oscar Apfel | Louise Lorraine, Ward Crane, Lou Tellegen | Found in a Czech film archive in late 2016. | |
| 1925 | The Clash of the Wolves | Noel M. Smith | Rin Tin Tin, Charles Farrell, June Marlowe, Heinie Conklin | A 35mm projection print was uncovered in South Africa and repatriated to the United States. It underwent restoration and preservation in 2003. Exists in: George Eastman House (Rochester, New York, United States) Library of Congress (Washington DC, United States) National Archives of Canada (Ottawa, Canada) Filmmuseum (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) UCLA Film and Television Archive (Los Angeles, California, United States) | |
| 1925 | The Dance of the Falling Flowers (落花の舞) | Unknown | Matsunosuke Onoe | A scene of the film that was edited out due to censorship was donated to the National Film Archive of Japan by a former deceased Interior Ministry official in 1988, but wasn't revealed until November 2022. No complete copy of this film has survived and only the scene that audiences could not see at the time of the release has survived. | |
| 1925 | Keep Smiling | Albert Austin, Gilbert Pratt | Monty Banks | Found in Russian state archives. Digital copy given to the Library of Congress in 2010. | |
| 1925 | The Last Edition | Emory Johnson | Ralph Lewis | Rediscovered at the Dutch EYE Film Institute. | |
| 1925 | Seven Sinners | Lewis Milestone | Clive Brook, Marie Prevost | A private collector obtained the film, Milestone's first feature, from a closed-down cinema in Melbourne. Warner Archive Collection and Turner Entertainment planned to restore the film for a 2017 DVD release and showing at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. | |
| 1925 | Wood Love | Hans Neumann | Werner Krauss, Ruth Weyher, Theodor Becker (actor), Valeska Gert, Tamara Geva | Long considered a lost film, the North American version of the German film was discovered in Oregon in 2010, buried under a cellar floor and coated in machine oil. The UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation restored the film from a 35mm nitrate silent tinted print. Set to be screened on April 6, 2024 at the Billy Wilder Theater. | |
| 1926 | Bardelys the Magnificent | King Vidor | John Gilbert | Restored in 2008 from a nearly-complete print discovered in France in 1998. | |
| 1926 | The Bat | Roland West | Tullio Carminati | Print exists at UCLA Film And Television Archive. | |
| 1926 | The Devil's Circus | Benjamin Christensen | Norma Shearer, Charles Emmett Mack | Thought to have been lost, a print of The Devil's Circus was found and has been preserved by George Eastman House. | |
| 1926 | Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit (Unity and Law and Freedom) | Joseph Delmont | Paul Hartmann, Trude Hoffmann, Eugen Klöpfer, Carl de Vogt, Hermann Bachmann, Arthur Bergen, Marion Illing, Elga Brink, Clementine Plessner | It was based on the film "Die entfesselte Menschheit" from 1920 (Humanity Unleashed), using previously shot scenes, adding new scenes and some documentary material. This full 90 minutes film, was restored and digitized by the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv in Berlin. | |
| 1926 | His Busy Hour | J. P. McGowan | James Pierce | Thought lost until a print was discovered in the closet of a French asylum in the 1990s. | |
| 1926 | Irish Destiny | George Dewhurst | Paddy Dunne Cullinan | Thought lost until a nitrate print was discovered in the Library of Congress in 1991. | |
| 1926 | Ko-Ko's Queen | Dave Fleischer | Koko the Clown (animation) | Rediscovered in 2014 in the archive of EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. It is an Out of the Inkwell cartoon, in which Koko the Clown designs his ideal woman. | |
| 1926 | Mare Nostrum | Rex Ingram | Antonio Moreno, Alice Terry | | |
| 1926 | A Page of Madness | Teinosuke Kinugasa | Masao Inoue, Yoshie Nakagawa | Found by the director in his garden shed in 1970; he had buried it during World War II and forgotten it, but a third of the original footage is still missing. | |
| 1926 | Silence | Rupert Julian | Vera Reynolds, H.B. Warner, Raymond Hatton | This film was long thought lost, but in 2016 La Cinémathèque Française found a copy of the film in their archives. A complete restoration was conducted with a planned debut at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in June 2017. In November 2020 this film became available to watch online. | |
| 1926 | Taras Tryasilo | Pyotr Chardynin | Ambrose Buchma, Natalia Uzhvij, Ivan Zamychkovsky | The film has long been considered lost, however, in 1998, film critic Lyubomir Goseyko found a tape on a 16-mm film in the archives of French cinematics, where it was stored under the name "Tatars". With the efforts of the National Center of Oleksandr Dovzhenko, the film was brought to Ukraine and restored. | |
| 1927 | The Cave of the Silken Web | Dan Duyu | Yin Mingzhu | Thought lost until a copy surfaced in 2013 in the National Library of Norway in Mo i Rana. | |
| 1927 | A Diary of Chuji's Travels | Daisuke Itō | Denjirō Ōkōchi | Originally released in three parts, all of which were long thought to be lost until portions of the second part and much of the third part were discovered and restored in 1991. | |
| 1927 | Duck Soup | Fred Guiol | Laurel & Hardy | Thought lost until a copy surfaced in 1974. | |
| 1927 | Empty Socks | Walt Disney | Oswald the Lucky Rabbit | Cartoon film made by Disney recovered in Norway in 2014. | |
| 1927 | Eyes of the Totem | W. S. Van Dyke | Tom Santschi, Wanda Hawley | One of three silent films made by Tacoma, Washington based studio H.C. Weaver Productions. Thought lost until discovered in Van Dyke's archives at the Museum of Modern Art in 2014. Screened in Tacoma on September 18, 2015. | |
| 1927 | Garras de oro | P. P. Jambrina | | The restoration of the extant footage was screened in New York City in 2008. The film has since been referred to as the first anti-imperialist film. | |
| 1927 | The Gorilla | Alfred Santell | Charles Murray, Fred Kelsey, Walter Pidgeon, Alice Day | The digital restoration debut at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival on April 14, 2024. | |
| 1927 | Ham and Eggs at the Front | Roy Del Ruth | Tom Wilson, Heinie Conklin Myrna Loy | Long thought to be a lost film, a print was screened at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in 2021 courtesy of the Cineteca Italiana . | |
| 1927 | Her Wild Oat | Marshall Neilan | Colleen Moore, Larry Kent, Hallam Cooley | Found by Hugh Neely in the Czech National Film Archive in Prague in 2001 and subsequently restored by the Academy Film Archive. | |
| 1927 | It | Clarence G. Badger | Clara Bow | Believed lost until a print surfaced in Prague in the 1960s. | |
| 1927 | Metropolis | Fritz Lang | Gustav Fröhlich, Brigitte Helm | Original long version was presumed to be lost for decades, while the shorter cuts still survived. In 2008, two different versions of the film were found: one by Museo del Cine from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and another in the National Film Archive of New Zealand. Both versions were then edited into one cut to get as near the original version as possible. | |
| 1927 | Mickey's Circus | Albert Herman | Mickey Rooney | Rediscovered in 2014 in the archive of EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. This was Rooney's first starring role. | |
| 1927 | Mockery | Benjamin Christensen | Lon Chaney, Barbara Bedford, Ricardo Cortez | Thought to have been lost, it was rediscovered in the mid-1970s, it is available from George Eastman House and on DVD from Warner Bros. | |
| 1927 | Poor Papa | Walt Disney | Oswald The Lucky Rabbit | 3 incomplete surviving copies were found in the United Kingdom around the 2000s, all of which were sold to private collectors. In 2015, Disney found a complete copy of the cartoon in a private collection. The short was later restored and included as a bonus feature on the 2017 "Signature Edition" Blu-ray release of Pinocchio. | |
| 1927 | Sorrell and Son | Herbert Brenon | H. B. Warner, Anna Q. Nilsson, Carmel Myers, Nils Asther, Louis Wolheim, Mary Nolan | | |
| 1927 | Tarzan and the Golden Lion | J. P. McGowan | James Pierce | Thought lost until a print was discovered in the closet of a French asylum in the 1990s. | |
| 1927 | Taxi! Taxi! | Melville W. Brown | Edward Everett Horton, Marian Nixon, Burr McIntosh, Edward Martindel | Discovered in late 2024 as a "Show-At-Home" 16mm print and was screened at the Bruno Walter Auditorium in New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on January 11, 2025. | |
| 1927 | Upstream | John Ford | Nancy Nash, Earle Foxe, Grant Withers | Discovered in New Zealand in 2010 among 75 silent films being returned to the US, many of which were thought lost. | |
| 1927 | Why Girls Love Sailors | Fred Guiol | Laurel & Hardy | Thought lost for many years, but then officially surfaced in 1985. | |
| 1927 | Wings | William A. Wellman | Clara Bow, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Richard Arlen, Gary Cooper | Found in the Cinémathèque Française film archive in Paris. Winner of the first Academy Award for Best Picture. | |
| 1928 | The Cameraman | Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton, Marceline Day, Harold Goodwin | The last print was presumed destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire. A complete print was discovered in Paris in 1968. A second, incomplete (but better-quality) print surfaced in 1991. | |
| 1928 | The Cardboard Lover | Robert Z. Leonard | Marion Davies, Jetta Goudal, Nils Asther | A print bought by a private collector from a recycling centre. United Kingdom. (2015) | |
| 1928 | The Constant Nymph | Adrian Brunel | Ivor Novello, Benita Hume | The film was found as a result of a 1992 British Film Institute campaign to locate missing movies. | |
| 1928 | The Crimson City | Archie Mayo | Myrna Loy, Conrad Nagel, Anna May Wong | A complete print was discovered in Argentina in 2008. | |
| 1928 | Forbidden Hours | Harry Beaumont | Ramon Novarro, Renée Adorée | A complete print has survived, as well as a 16 mm reduction positive trailer. | |
| 1928 | Hungry Hobos | Walt Disney | Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Peg-Leg Pete | Cartoon film made by Disney recovered in 2011 in the Huntley Film Archives. | |
| 1928 | Chūkon giretsu: Jitsuroku Chūshingura (実録忠臣蔵) | Shōzō Makino | Sentaro Nakamura, Shōzō Makino | Long thought to have been destroyed, a 66-minute print running four reels was discovered in September 2015. 130 minutes of this 1928 film are currently missing. | |
| 1928 | The Mating Call | James Cruze | Thomas Meighan, Evelyn Brent, Renée Adorée | Produced by Howard Hughes, and long thought lost until a print was found in his vault after his death. | |
| 1928 | My Son | Yevgeni Chervyakov | Gennadiy Michurin, Anna Sten, Pyotr Berezov | In 2008, five 16mm film reels of a film without the original titles, labeled as "El Hijo del otro" ("The son of another") were found in Argentina. Copies of the film were kept in the archive of the Museum of Cinema in Buenos Aires. | |
| 1928 | The Passion of Joan of Arc | Carl Theodor Dreyer | Maria Falconetti | The truncated reissue was thought all that remained, until a complete version was found in 1981 in the closet of a Norwegian mental institution. | |
| 1928 | A Race for Life | D. Ross Lederman | Rin Tin Tin | Originally, the film was presumed to be lost. However, according to the Library of Congress Database, the film was found in the Netherlands in 2016. | |
| 1928 | The Racket | Lewis Milestone | Thomas Meighan, Marie Prevost, Louis Wolheim | Produced by Howard Hughes, and discovered following his death in his private collection. | |
| 1928 | Ramona | Edwin Carewe | Dolores del Río | Recovered in Prague and screened in Los Angeles in March 2014 | |
| 1928 | Sadie Thompson | Raoul Walsh | Gloria Swanson, Lionel Barrymore, Raoul Walsh | A print was found in Mary Pickford's personal archive after her death. | |
| 1928 | Sleigh Bells | Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks | Oswald the Lucky Rabbit | An Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon film thought to be lost, but discovered in 2015. | |
| 1928 | The Spanking Age | Robert F. McGowan | Mary Ann Jackson, Bobby Hutchins, Jean Darling | An Our Gang film thought to be lost, but discovered in 1990. | |
| 1928 | Show Girl | Alfred Santell | Alice White, Donald Reed | In 2015, a print was discovered in an Italian film archive. | |
| 1928 | Two Arabian Knights | Lewis Milestone | William Boyd, Mary Astor, Louis Wolheim | Produced by Howard Hughes, and long thought lost until a print was found in his vault after his death. | |
| 1929 | Scarlet Seas | John Francis Dillon | Richard Barthelmess, Betty Compson, Loretta Young | | |
| 1929 | Synthetic Sin | William Seiter | Colleen Moore, Antonio Moreno | In the late 1990s, a 35mm print of the film was discovered to survive in an Italian archive. | |
| 1929 | Why Be Good? | William Seiter | Colleen Moore, Neil Hamilton, Bodil Rosing | In the late 1990s, a 35mm print of the film was discovered to survive in an Italian archive. | |

### 1930s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes |
| 1930 | Wara Wara | José María Velasco Maidana | Juanita Taillansier, Martha de Velasco, Arturo Borda | The only known surviving Bolivian film of the silent era. Discovered in a La Paz basement in 1989, it required over a decade of restoration and was not released until 2010. |
| 1931 | Love and Duty | Bu Wancang | Ruan Lingyu | Silent film made in China, and rediscovered in Uruguay in the 1990s. |
| 1938 | As the Earth Turns | Richard Lyford | | Discovered over 80 years later in Lyford's former home. |
| 1938 | Too Much Johnson | Orson Welles | Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Mary Wickes, Arlene Francis, Ruth Ford | The film was thought lost in a 1971 fire at Welles' home in Spain; footage was found in Pordenone, Italy, and restored at George Eastman House for premiere in October 2013 |

## Sound films
### 1920s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes | Ref |
| 1929 | Drag | Frank Lloyd | Richard Barthelmess, Lucien Littlefield, Kathrin Clare Ward | | |
| 1929 | The Letter | Jean de Limur | Jeanne Eagels, Reginald Owen, Herbert Marshall, Irene Browne, O.P. Heggie, Lady Tsen Mei, Tamaki Yoshiwara | The film was rediscovered in June 2011, when a restored version of the film was released on home video by Warner Bros. as part of its Warner Archive Collection. | |

### 1930s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes |
| 1930 | Bed and Breakfast | Walter Forde | Jane Baxter Richard Cooper Sari Maritza Alf Goddard | It was found as a result of a 1992 British Film Institute campaign to search for lost films. |
| 1930 | Follow Thru | Lloyd Corrigan Laurence Schwab | Charles 'Buddy' Rogers Nancy Carroll Zelma O'Neal Jack Haley | Thought to be lost until a complete print was discovered in the 1990s. Restored and preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. |
| 1930 | Mamba | Albert S. Rogell | Jean Hersholt Eleanor Boardman Ralph Forbes | Footage from the final reel (stored at the UCLA Film and Television Archive) and all the Vitaphone soundtrack discs for this Technicolor film were originally thought to be the only elements from the film to survive. A complete print of the film, running nine reels, and four soundtrack discs were discovered in Australia in 2009. |
| 1931 | Drácula | George Melford | Carlos Villarías, Lupita Tovar | This Spanish-language version was made at night, while Tod Browning's Dracula was filmed during the day, using the same sets. It was considered lost until a print was rediscovered in the 1970s. |
| 1931 | Europa | Stefan Themerson, Franciszka Themerson | ?? | Based on Polish poet Anatol Stern’s 1925 futurist poem, this avant-garde film - with its strong anti-fascist agenda - was seized by the Nazi Party in 1940 and considered destroyed. However, it was rediscovered in 2019 in Berlin's Bundesarchiv, and was reshown for the first time as part of the 65th BFI London Film Festival. |
| 1931 | The Smiling Lieutenant | Ernst Lubitsch | Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins | Rediscovered in Denmark in the 1980s. |
| 1931 | The Stolen Jools | William C. McGann | All-star cast | Made for a charity, film was discovered in the 1990s in the UK under its alternate title The Slippery Pearls. Another print was later found in the US under the alternative title. |
| 1931 | Street Across | Vladimir Suteev, Lev Atamanov | | Originally titled Pinwheel, also known as The Sleep of a Transport Official, this is a Soviet propaganda animated film from 1931. It was the animation debut of the famous director, children's writer and illustrator Vladimir Suteev and was the first Soviet original sound cartoon. The cartoon was thought to be lost until found in the Czech film archives. The cartoon was first shown in 2013 at the Russian Gosfilmofond festival "Beliye Stolby" (White Pillars) and is now available on YouTube. |
| 1932 | Condemned to Death | Walter Forde | Arthur Wontner Gillian Lind Gordon Harker Cyril Raymond | It was found as a result of a 1992 British Film Institute campaign to search for lost films. |
| 1932 | His Lordship | Michael Powell | Jerry Verno Janet McGrew | Declared to be "Missing, Believed Lost" by the British Film Institute, but a copy was subsequently found. |
| 1932 | The Old Dark House | James Whale | Boris Karloff Melvyn Douglas Gloria Stuart | Thought lost for decades; filmmaker Curtis Harrington discovered a print in the Universal Studios vault, which was restored by Eastman House. |
| 1932 | Rynox | Michael Powell | Stuart Rome, John Longden | Found in the vaults of Pinewood Studios in 1990 and was subsequently transferred and restored by the BFI National Archive. |
| 1933 | Berkeley Square | Frank Lloyd | Leslie Howard, Heather Angel, Valerie Taylor | Rediscovered in the 1970s. |
| 1933 | Blood Money | Rowland Brown | George Bancroft, Judith Anderson, Frances Dee | It was considered a lost film for nearly 40 years before resurfacing. |
| 1933 | Deluge | Felix E. Feist | Sidney Blackmer | For many years, Deluge was thought to be a lost film, but a print dubbed in Italian was found in a film archive in Italy in the late 1980s. Before the discovery, the only part of the film known to have survived was the impressive footage of the tidal wave destroying New York City, which was used in the Republic Pictures serials Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941) and King of the Rocket Men (1949). |
| 1933 | The Ghoul | T. Hayes Hunter | Boris Karloff, Ernest Thesiger | A damaged and incomplete copy was found in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, but a nearly-pristine print was located in the archives of the British Film Institute. |
| 1933 | Hello Pop! | Jack Cummings | Ted Healy, The Three Stooges | Full Technicolor print found in Sydney, Australia, in January 2013. |
| 1933 | It's Great to Be Alive | Alfred L. Werker | Raul Roulien, Gloria Stuart, Edna May Oliver | Unavailable for several decades after its release, this film was officially considered lost. The Museum of Modern Art in New York premiered a restored version in 2017. |
| 1933 | Laughter in Hell | Edward L. Cahn | Pat O'Brien, Gloria Stuart, Merna Kennedy | Long thought to be lost, a print of this chain gang drama was found in mid-2012 and was screened by the American Cinematheque in Hollywood in October of that year. |
| 1933 | Ojo Okichi (Miss Okichi) | Kenji Mizoguchi | Isuzu Yamada | This film did not actually appear in official filmographies of Mizoguchi until a print was discovered in the vaults of Shochiku studios in 2008. |
| 1933 | Der Sieg des Glaubens | Leni Riefenstahl | Adolf Hitler | This 64-minute documentary was ordered to be destroyed by Adolf Hitler for showing Nazi party member Ernst Röhm, who had been murdered on Hitler's orders. A copy was found in East German archives in the 1980s. |
| 1933 | This Week of Grace | Maurice Elvey | Gracie Fields, Henry Kendall, John Stuart | The comedy turned up as a result of the British Film Institute's 2010 drive to find missing films. |
| 1934 | Crossroads of Youth (청춘의 십자로) | Ahn Jong-hwa | | Found in 2007. |
| 1934 | Hitler's Reign of Terror | Michael Mindlin | | Found in Belgian customs in 2013. |
| 1934 | Of Human Bondage | John Cromwell | Leslie Howard, Bette Davis | The negative was discovered to have been destroyed in 1964 when actress Kim Novak requested a print. A copy was recovered several years later. |
| 1934 | Murzilka in Africa [ru; uk] | Yevheniy Horbach [uk; ru], Semen Huietskyi [uk] | | Soviet propaganda animated film made in the Ukrainian factory "Ukrainfilm" in Kiev. The film was considered lost until August 6, 2018. It is now available on YouTube. |
| 1935 | Charlie Chan in Paris | Lewis Seiler | Warner Oland | |
| 1935 | Kliou the Tiger | Henry de La Falaise | | The first feature film shot in Indochina and the last commercially released American silent film. It was also the last American feature film to use the 2-color Technicolor process. A black and white print recovered from the collection of Jerry Haber in the early 2000s. |
| 1935 | Oidhche Sheanchais | Robert J. Flaherty | Maggie Dirrane, Colman 'Tiger' King, Michael Dirrane, Patch 'Red Beard' Ruadh | A recording of traditional Irish storytelling, and the earliest Irish language sync sound film. A fire was believed to have destroyed all copies in 1943, but a nitrate print was discovered in 2012 in Harvard University's Houghton Library. A restored 35mm version was premiered in 2015. |
| 1935 | Princess Kaguya | Yoshitsugu Tanaka | Ichirō Fujiyama, Kazuko Kitazawa, Hyō Kitazawa, Hideko Higashi | Musical film recovered by the British Film Institute in May 2015. |
| 1935 | She | Lansing C. Holden, Irving Pichel | Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott, Helen Mack | An original print was discovered in Buster Keaton's garage. |
| 1935 | Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht | Leni Riefenstahl | Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler | Thought to have been lost following World War II, an incomplete print running 28 minutes was discovered in the 1970s. |
| 1935 | Yowamushi Chinsengumi | Kon Ichikawa | | Cartoon film recovered in the United States in 2014. |
| 1936 | The Flying Doctor | Miles Mander | Charles Farrell, Mary Maguire | The first eight of nine reels were saved by an Australian office worker who noticed a truck loaded with film cans driving past his window on its way to dispose of them. He gave chase in his car and rescued the film, which included the incomplete print of The Flying Doctor. Two years later, the shortened British version was discovered. Despite this print having been "totally rearranged", its eighth and last reel was found to take up exactly where the Australian one left off. |
| 1937 | Summer Rain | Mario Monicelli | | The first film to be directed by the then 21-year-old Italian director Mario Monicelli, with the pseudonym of Michele Badiek. Never published for theatrical release, was thought to be a lost film until 2011, when some fragments were discovered in the editor's personal archive. |
| 1937 | Zamboanga | Eduardo de Castro | Fernando Poe, Rosa del Rosario | This film, produced in the Philippines, was thought to have been lost until Nick Deocampo found an original copy in the United States Library of Congress. |
| 1938 | Buzzy Boop at the Concert | Dave Fleischer | Mae Questel | A cartoon starring Buzzy Boop, the cousin of Betty Boop. Rediscovered in Russia in 2019 and restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. |
| 1939 | L'espoir | André Malraux | Andrés Mejuto, Nicolás Rodríguez, José Sempere, Julio Peña | It was finished in July 1939 and shown twice in Paris, but Francoist regime applied pressure to censor it. All known copies were believed destroyed in World War II, until one was found and the film was reissued in 1945. In Spain, it was not screened until 1977. |
| 1939 | Le Jour Se Lève | Marcel Carné | Jean Gabin, Jules Berry, Arletty | When RKO acquired the distribution rights to Le Jour se lève in preparation for remaking it as The Long Night, they also sought to buy up and destroy all available prints of the original film. For a time, it was thought that the French film had been lost completely, but copies reappeared in the 1950s. |
| 1939 | Smith | Michael Powell | Ralph Richardson, Flora Robson | A short film made in 1939 to promote an ex-servicemen's charity. It was shelved because of the start of World War II and was not shown publicly, nor was it even mentioned by Powell in his autobiography. A copy was found in 2003 and it had its first public screening in the UK in 2004, 65 years after it was completed. |
| 1939 | Tevya | Maurice Schwartz | Maurice Schwartz Julius Adler | Long thought lost, a print was discovered and restored in 1978. |

### 1940s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes | Ref |
| 1940 | Confucius | Fei Mu | Tang Huaiqiu, Zhang Yi, Sima Yingcai | A print was anonymously donated to the Hong Kong Film Archive in 2001. | |
| 1940 | Kampf um Norwegen – Feldzug 1940 | Martin Rikli Werner Buhre | No cast listed | Considered a lost film for many years. The Berlin Bundesarchiv held only a few clips of the film. However, a complete nitrate copy of the film surfaced on an Internet auction in 2005. The Norwegian college professor and media expert Jostein Saakvitne discovered this and purchased the copy. | |
| 1940 | Swiss Family Robinson | Edward Ludwig | Thomas Mitchell, Edna Best | Walt Disney bought the rights to the film, because he did not want people comparing it with his 1960 version. It was believed that Disney destroyed all copies until it was released briefly from their Vault DVD Collection in 2010, sold by Turner Classic Movies only. | . |
| 1941 | Kukan | Rey Scott | No cast listed | An extant print of this Academy Award-winning documentary was located by Hawaiian filmmaker Robin Lung. | |
| 1941 | This Man Is Dangerous | Lawrence Huntington | James Mason, Gordon McLeod, Mary Clare | Shown on British television as late as 1987 before being lost. Formerly on the BFI 75 Most Wanted list, a copy was discovered in 2017 with title cards for its US title, The Patient Vanishes. | |
| 1943 | Deadlock | Ronald Haines | John Slater | Its appearance on the BFI 75 Most Wanted list led to it being found. | |
| 1944 | Melusine | Hans Steinhoff | Olga Chekhova, Siegfried Breuer | Believed to be lost until the late 1990s, the film had its premiere on March 2, 2014, in Berlin. | |
| 1944 | Welcome, Mr. Washington | Leslie S. Hiscott | Barbara Mullen, Donald Stewart, Peggy Cummins | A wartime drama, Welcome, Mr. Washington was listed as one of the British Film Institute's "75 Most Wanted" lost films for some years. In early 2016, a complete print had been discovered in a locker in London's Cinema Museum, giving Cummins the opportunity to see the film on her 90th birthday. It was screened at BFI Southbank in late January 2016. | |
| 1945 | For You Alone | Geoffrey Faithfull | Lesley Brook, Dinah Sheridan, Jimmy Hanley | Another film on the BFI 75 Most Wanted list. On July 31, 2019, a 16mm safety print was uncovered by Ray Langstone at the UCLA Film and Television Archive using their online searchable database, being held as part of the Mel Torme Collection. | |
| 1945 | Momotaro: Sacred Sailors | Mitsuyo Seo | No cast listed | Japan's first feature animated film. Presumed to have been confiscated and burnt by the American occupation, but a negative was found in Shochiku's vault in 1984. | |
| 1946 | Spree for All | Seymour Kneitel | | A Famous Studios' Noveltoon featuring Snuffy Smith. Most prints, including the original negatives, were destroyed by request of King Features Syndicate (owners of the character), but a 16mm print of the film in black and white with French subtitles was found on eBay and uploaded to YouTube in 2016. An official English release of the 16mm print was discovered in the same year at the BFI archives and uploaded to YouTube in 2022. | |
| 1949 | Aux quatre coins | Jacques Rivette | Francis Bouchet | Rivette's first short film, long believed to be lost until Rivette's widow found a copy in their apartment shortly after Rivette's death in 2016. | |
| 1949 | The Queen of Spades | Thorold Dickinson | Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans, Yvonne Mitchell | The rediscovered film was re-released in British cinemas on 26 December 2009. | |

### 1950s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes |
| 1950 | Double Confession | Ken Annakin | Derek Farr | After being listed on the BFI 75 Most Wanted, the film was available on DVD for a short time. The only known 35mm print is in a private archive in the UK. |
| 1950 | Guilty Bystander | Joseph Lerner | Zachary Scott as Max Thursday, Faye Emerson as Georgia. | Based on the novel of the same name by Wade Miller (New York, 1947). |
| 1950 | Le quadrille | Jacques Rivette | Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Cazalis | Rivette's second short film, long believed to be lost until Rivette's widow found a copy in their apartment shortly after Rivette's death in 2016. |
| 1952 | Le divertissement | Jacques Rivette | Sacha Briquet, Olga Waren | Rivette's third short film, long believed to be lost until Rivette's widow found a copy in their apartment shortly after Rivette's death in 2016. |
| 1952 | Hammer the Toff | Maclean Rogers | John Bentley, Patricia Dainton, Valentine Dyall | On the BFI 75 Most Wanted list. A DVD was released by Renown Films in March 2016, coupled with the earlier Mrs Prym of Scotland Yard. |
| 1952 | Salute the Toff | Maclean Rogers | John Bentley, Carol Marsh, Valentine Dyall | Sequel to Hammer the Toff and also one of the BFI 75 Most Wanted. Released by Renown Films in 2013. |
| 1953 | Small Town Story | Montgomery Tully | Donald Houston, Susan Shaw, Alan Wheatley, Kent Walton | Another of the BFI 75 Most Wanted. It has been found and released by Network Distributing on DVD. |
| 1953 | The Tell-Tale Heart | J. B. Williams | Stanley Baker | 20-minute British adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's psychological drama, rediscovered in 2017 when Jeff Wells, a 16mm enthusiast, found the reel in his loft in Drummore, near Stranraer. It is now digitally restored and is available to watch online. |
| 1954 | Akuma ga Kitari te Fue o Fuku | Sadatsugu Matsuda | Chiezō Kataoka, Mitsuko Miura | One of six adaptations of the Kosuke Kindaichi series starring Kataoka. The movie, as well as two other movies of the adaptations which are still missing, was considered lost until in 2024 when NHK reported that Naotaka Yamaguchi of Nishogakusha University found the film. |
| 1955 | The Noble Experiment | Tom Graeff | Tom Graeff | Surviving print found by Elle Schneider in Los Angeles, now in UCLA Film and Television Archives. |
| 1956 | A Girl in the Jungle | Mikhail Tsekhanovsky | Vladimir Volodin, Erast Garin, Vera Bendina | Soviet animated-drawn film based on the Indian folk tale The Tiger, the Brahmin and the Jackal. It was extensively searched for in 2000s and 2010s and was officially declared lost in the Soviet TV and Radio archive Gosteleradiofond. A copy was found in Yugoslav Film Archive in 2014, but that copy was never released to the viewers. In 2018 a vintage VCR enthusiast purchased an old Soviet video tape recorder and discovered an old damaged tape. On that tape the missing cartoon was identified, digitized, and uploaded to YouTube with a request for the public to help with the restoration. With the extensive efforts and help of the online community, the cartoon was restored. The restored version is now also available on YouTube. |
| 1957 | Final Curtain | Ed Wood | Duke Moore, Dudley Manlove | Found and restored in 2011, premiered in 2012 at the Slamdance Film Festival. |
| 1957 | Second Fiddle | Maurice Elvey | Adrienne Corri, Thorley Walters, Lisa Gastoni | Another member of the BFI 75 Most Wanted that is now available on DVD. |
| 1958 | Portrait of Gina | Orson Welles | Gina Lollobrigida | The short documentary was filmed in 1958, but was not aired on television at that time. Welles left the only print in a hotel room, and it ended up first in the lost-and-found department, then in a storage facility. It was rediscovered in 1986. After Lollobrigida saw it when it finally premiered, she took steps to have the short documentary banned. |
| 1959 | Shadows | John Cassavetes | Ben Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni | Cassavetes showed a first version of his film only a handful of times, then scrapped it and re-shot the movie entirely. Found in 2004 at a sale of items lost on the New York City Subway, and tracked down by cinema historian Ray Carney. |

### 1960s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes |
| 1960 | Private Property | Leslie Stevens | Corey Allen | Crime drama set in Los Angeles, also starring Warren Oates and Kate Manx. Condemned by the National Legion of Decency, it was re-released in 2016 to critical acclaim. |
| 1961 | Chasing Two Hares | Viktor Ivanov | Oleg Borisov, Marharyta Krynytsyna | Comedy film based on the eponymous play by Mykhailo Starytsky. The original Ukrainian-language version was rediscovered in 2013 |
| 1962 | Big and Little Wong Tin Bar | Lung To | Jackie Chan | Chan's film debut. Thought to have been lost until a copy was uploaded to YouTube on February 3, 2016, most likely recorded off of TVB's Classic Movies channel. |
| 1962 | Crosstrap | Robert Hartford-Davis | Laurence Payne | British B movie thriller much criticized at the time for its violence. The film vanished without trace for decades until a negative print was found in a film lab in the early 2010s. |
| 1962 | On the Harmfulness of Tobacco | Paul Newman | Michael Strong | 25-minute short, based on a Anton Chekhov play of the same name, filmed entirely at a Yiddish theater on the Lower East Side. Newman could not find distribution and had his name taken off the film. Rediscovered in the 2000s, shown at Lincoln Center in 2017. |
| 1962 | Pages of Death | Charles Keating | Tom Harmon | Anti-pornography short produced by Charles Keating. A faded 16mm print was discovered in the Moving Image collection at the Oregon Historical Society in late 2015. When lost, the film was ranked No. 14 in Gambit Magazine's list of 15 Films Lost to Time. |
| 1964 | Batman Dracula | Andy Warhol | Jack Smith | Avant-garde film featuring Batman and Dracula. Thought to be lost for years until footage appeared in Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis in 2006. |
| 1964 | Richard Burton's Hamlet | Bill Colleran | Richard Burton | By contractual agreement, all prints of the film were to have been destroyed after its theatrical run. However, a single print was discovered in Burton's garage following his death. |
| 1965 | Penis | A. J. Rose Jr. | | A silent black and white film. Surviving print found at The Film-Makers' Cooperative in 2021, with digitized version published on the Internet Archive. |
| 1966 | Incubus | Leslie Stevens | William Shatner | Surviving print found at Cinémathèque Française with French subtitles. |
| 1966 | The Naked Fog | Joe Sarno | Tammy Latour Gretchen Rudolph | Exploitation film thought lost or destroyed for many years until found for sale as part of an eBay film lot. Restored for upcoming DVD release. |
| 1967 | Sailor and the Devil | Richard Williams Errol Le Cain | Professor Alex Bradford (singing voice) | An animated short film, thought lost in the fire at Williams' Soho studio until it was discovered in 2021. The original negatives were donated to the British Film Institute in hopes of restoring the film. |
| 1967 | The Story of Hong Gil-dong | Shin Dong-hun | | South Korea's first animated feature (traditional animation). It was believed that none of the prints of the film had survived to the present time, but in 2008, a 16mm print was found in Japan. |

### 1970s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes |
| 1970 | Heartbeat in the Brain | Joey Mellen | Amanda Feilding | Trepanation film with Feilding drilling a hole in her own head. Was due to be screened by Feilding at the ICA in April 2011; however, she did not in the end take part in the event. |
| 1970 | Sex Power [fr] | Henry Chapier | Alain Noury Jane Birkin Juliette Villard | After a brief, limited theatrical release, the film was placed in storage and was presumed lost. The film was rediscovered and subsequently remastered for DVD release in 2010. Notable in part for its soundtrack by acclaimed composer Vangelis. |
| 1971 | Bun-Rye's Story | Yu Hyun-mok | Yoon Jeong-hee Lee Soon-jae Heo Jang-kang | Although once thought to be lost, a print was recovered overseas and restored by the Korean Film Council, which screened the film at their theater in northern Seoul on May 18, 2009. |
| 1971 | Necromania | Edward D. Wood, Jr. | Maria Arnold Rene Bond | Believed lost for years until an edited version resurfaced at a yard sale in 1992, followed by a complete, unedited print in 2001. |
| 1971 | Wake in Fright | Ted Kotcheff | Gary Bond Donald Pleasence Chips Rafferty | For many years, Wake in Fright enjoyed a reputation as Australia's great "lost film". The film's editor, Anthony Buckley, found the negatives for it in a shipping container labelled "For Destruction", in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. |
| 1971 | The Young Marrieds | Edward D. Wood, Jr. | Louis Wolf Patti Kramer | Believed lost for years until rediscovered in Canada in 2004. |
| 1972 | An American Hippie in Israel | Amos Sefer | Asher Tzarfati Lily Avidan Shmuel Wolf | Once thought lost, it was rediscovered decades later. |
| 1972 | Marjoe | Howard Smith, Sarah Kernochan | Marjoe Gortner | Winner of the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, the film was long unavailable and the original stock had deteriorated past the point of recovery. In 2002, the original negatives and related materials were rediscovered and restored. |
| 1973 | Amore | Henry Chapier | Daniel Quenaud Sonia Petrovna Julian Negulesco | After a brief, limited theatrical release, the film was placed in storage and was presumed lost. The film was rediscovered and subsequently remastered for online release in 2012. Notable in part for its soundtrack by composer Vangelis. |
| 1974 | Deranged | Jeff Gillen Alan Ormsby | Roberts Blossom | Disappeared after its release in 1974 and was later rediscovered in Florida in the mid-1990s. |
| 1974 | Leonard Cohen: Bird on a Wire | Tony Palmer | Leonard Cohen | Vanished after being edited at Cohen's insistence; discovered in 2009, released on DVD in 2010 and in theaters in 2017. |
| 1975 | The Intruder | Chris Robinson | Mickey Rooney Ted Cassidy Yvonne De Carlo | Shelved by the distribution company and original negatives destroyed. Considered lost until a print was discovered in storage in 2012. Official Blu-ray released on August 1, 2017. |
| 1975 | The Amusement Park | George A. Romero | Lincoln Maazel | After being shown at a Romero retrospective in 2001, the only known copy went missing until it was rediscovered in 2017. |
| 1976 | Chess of the Wind | Mohammad Reza Aslani | Fakhri Khorvash, Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz, Akbar Zanjanpour, Shohreh Aghdashloo | Only screened once before the 1979 Revolution in Iran and then thought to be lost after being banned. It was rediscovered in 2014 by accident and restored over the next six years. After being re-screened in 2020, it was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2022 by The Criterion Collection. |
| 1978 | Showdown at the Cotton Mill | Chi Ping Chang Peng Chang San Lin Chen | Wu Ma | Discovered in a Taiwanese film vault by Rarescope. |
| 1978 | Tadhana | Nonoy Marcelo | Pandy Aviado Estrella Kuenzler | Known as a first-ever Philippine animated feature film, the 35mm print of the film was destroyed during the Marcos regime but only the remaining copies left rediscovered by Mowelfund Film Institute and Pandy Aviado in 2018. |

### 1980s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes | Ref |
| 1980 | Black Angel | Roger Christian | Tony Vogel | Rediscovered in December 2011 by an archivist at Universal Studios. | |
| 1985 | Santo Gold's Blood Circus | Santo Rigatuso | Santo Gold | Rediscovered in 2008, its release has been sought by the producers. | |

### 1990s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes |
| 1990 | Werewolf Hour | Igor Shevchenko | Mikhail Pakhomenko, Alexander Baluev | The film was shown once on the night air of the Tonis TV channel in 1990. The Werewolf Hour was considered lost for 31 years until interested activists of the lost media community began searching for it in early 2021. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, all rights to the TV movie were completely transferred to the Ukrainian TV channel Tonis, but it ceased to exist in 2017. Gosteleradiofond, the National Library of Ukraine, the Alexander Dovzhenko National Center and the Odesa Film Studio gave a negative answer to the question of whether they have such a film in their archives. Finally, The Werewolf Hour was found in the archives of the Gosfilmofond. After the copyright issue was resolved, the film was published on April 28, 2021, on the YouTube channel "Odesa Alternative" - the creative studio of Igor Shevchenko". |
| 1991 | Khraniteli | Natalya Serebryakova | Victor Kostetskiy, Elena Solovey | The miniseries was broadcast once in 1991 by Leningrad Television and then thought lost. It was rediscovered in 2021. It includes scenes of Tom Bombadil and Goldberry that were omitted from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy. |
| 1993 | Antifaust | Georg Friesen | Victor Avilov, Nikolay Lebedev, Vadim Ghems, Olga Danilova | The film was considered lost for a long time, until on July 13, 2021, people from the VKontakte community "From Outer Space" digitized a VHS copy of the film, which was kept by one of the cinematographers Dmitry Ermakov. |

### 2000s

| Year | Film | Director | Cast | Notes | Ref |
| 2000 | Monarch | John Walsh | T. P. McKenna, Jean Marsh, James Coombes, Peter Miles | After its initial premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival, the original negative was rediscovered in 2014, and the film was subsequently re-released. | |