A corridor lined with cells that make up the nitrate film vault is seen at the Packard Campus of the Library of Congress's National Audio-Visual Conservation Center is seen in Culpeper, Virginia, on April 2, 2026. Once upon a time in the golden days of Hollywood, the movies were bigger, the stars brighter and the celluloid they were filmed on was, well, explosive. Which is why the US Library of Congress maintains a special, fireproof vault in Virginia, near Washington, DC. There, the highly combustible nitrate film used from the dawn of cinema in the 1890s until the early 1950s has a permanent home, rarely accessed by the public but toured by AFP. (Photo by KENT NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty Images)