With the inception of cinema, discussions relating to the preservation of film emerged in countries around the globe. Early motion picture collectors, critics, and producers justified film preservation by appealing to cinema's role as art or artifact or through the medium's capacity to document historical events. In the mid to late twentieth century, however, film preservation advocates shifted to validating their work through re-defining and celebrating cinema as cultural heritage.

Saving Cinema investigates the evolution of the film preservation movement--from Hollywood studios and U.S. federal institutions, to influential international associations and small cinema collections in developing nations. Western preservation advocates have succeeded in solidifying a material, artifact-driven approach to how society approaches managing historical relics. But the digital era offers an unprecedented opportunity for change in which widespread access to historical media can, itself, be seen as moving image preservation.

Saving Cinema examines the significant influence of the film preservation movement upon what has been defined as 'American' film heritage for the scholar, practitioner, and audience. Although most movie enthusiasts around the globe think Hollywood films equate the nation's cinematic output, the popularity of all types of moving images on the internet evidence what film archives have known for years--that industrial and training films, and even videos of the family cat prove just as popular as the latest blockbuster. Saving Cinema illustrates that moving image archives have not merely preserved movie history, but have, instead, actively produced cinematic heritage.