Iron Man is now preserved by the Library of Congress

Each year the American Library of Congress selects 25 films to be preserved in The National Film Registry, so that further generations hopefully can enjoy them long after film rolls have degraded and digital files have been lost in Cyberspace.

The films are selected according to "their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to preserve the nation's film heritage," and this year saw the inclusion of the first movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the form of Iron-Man.

Starring Robert Downey Jr. as the eccentric billionaire Tony Stark who dons a robotic suit and becomes the titular character, the movie laid the foundation for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and arguably (together with Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy) the whole superhero movie craze.

"Iron Man was the very first film Marvel Studios independently produced," Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige says in a press release. "It was the first film that we had all of the creative control and oversight on and it was really make or break for the studio. The notion that here we are, almost 15 years after the release of 'Iron Man,' and to have it join the Film Registry tells us it has stood the test of time and that it is still meaningful to audiences around the world."

Among the other titles selected for preservation this year are the horror classic Carrie (1976) directed by Brian de Palma, Michael Gordons adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac from 1950 and Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989).