Movies of 1928 Ranked: Films Now In Public Domain

95 years after release, a movie’s copyright expires and enters the public domain, its elements free to be remixed, reinterpreted, and redistributed. For 2024, that means anything from 1928 is now up for grabs, a class of cinema that includes Steamboat Willie, the cartoon short from Disney that introduced Mickey Mouse to the world. Or, at least, a particular version of Mickey. Only this iteration — non-speaking, whistling, and without gloves — is venturing into the public arena. Messing with any later Mickey will incur the wrath Disney’s highly active lawyers.

Still, the arrival of Steamboat Willie‘s Mickey Mouse upon the public domain’s shores has been prognosticated as a major event for pop culture and copyright law. Other notable films from 1928 include another Steamboat movie (Bill, Jr., from Buster Keaton), Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, and The Man Who Laughs, which inspired DC’s Joker character. (Batman and Superman enter the public domain in 2034, by the way). For an example of what hijinks filmmakers can now get up to, look no further than last year’s Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.

Read on for a more complete list of 1928 movies by Tomatometer entering the public domain.