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With each new year comes new works that are set to go into the public domain. For 2025, the most notable include Disney titles such as Silly symphony short The skeleton dance and the Mickey Mouse shorts as “Karnival Kid,” the first to feature his voice. Some of them are already a horror movie, but please, no more horror cash grabs. At least give us an indie arthouse Dance of the skeleton.
Even being released in the public domain are Popeye and of Tintin first cartoons. Which we hope means that since they can be adapted and shared maybe we will see Genndy Tartakovsky makes his move Popeye across this potential gap. (There are, of course, already many Popeye slashers By the way.) Interestingly in the realm of horror-related music, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” will also be in the public domain, which could be useful as a Insidious spin-off idea.
Check out the full list below of works that are now open to be performed, screened and used in various ways without permission as shared by Duke Law.
Books and toys
- William Faulkner, The sound and the fury
- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
- Virginia Woolf, A room to yourself
- Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon (as serialized in Black mask magazine)(4)
- John Steinbeck, Gold Cup (Steinbeck’s first novel)
- Richard Hughes, A strong wind in Jamaica
- Oliver LaFarge, Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story
- Patrick Hamilton, Cord
- Arthur Wesley Wheen, the first English translation of All quiet on the western front by Erich Maria Remarque
- Agatha Christie, Seven Dials Mystery
- Robert Graves, Goodbye to all that
- EB White and James Thurber, Is sex necessary? Or, Because I feel the way to do it
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a young poet (only the original German version, Letters to a Young Poet)
- Walter Lippmann, Preface to morals
- Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee), The mystery of the Roman hat
Characters
- EC Segar, Popeye (in “Gobs of Work” from the Thimble Theater comic strip)
- Hergé (Georges Remi), Tintin (in “Les Aventures de Tintin” from the magazine The Little XX)
Movies
- A dozen more Mickey Mouse animations (including Mickey’s first speaking appearance in The kid of Karnival)
- The Cocoanutsdirected by Robert Florey and Joseph Santley (the first Marx Brothers film)
- The Broadway tunedirected by Harry Beaumont (Academy Award winner for Best Picture)
- The 1929 Hollywood Revuedirected by Charles Reisner (featuring the song “Singin’ in the Rain”)
- The skeleton dancedirected by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks (the first Silly symphony short from Disney)
- The blackmaildirected by Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock’s first sound film)
- Hallelujahdirected by King Vidor (one of the first films from a major studio with an all-African-American cast)
- The wild partydirected by Dorothy Arzner (Clara Bow’s first “talkie”)
- Welcome Dangerdirected by Clyde Bruckman and Malcolm St. Clair (first full sound comedy with Harold Lloyd)
- On With the Showdirected by Alan Crosland (the first all-color, all-color film)
- Pandora’s box (Pandora’s box), directed by GW Pabst
- Show the boatdirected by Harry A. Pollard (adaptation of the novel and musical)
- The Black Watchdirected by John Ford (Ford’s first sound film)
- Despite the marriagedirected by Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton (Keaton’s last film)
- Say it with Songsdirected by Lloyd Bacon (followed by The Jazz Singer and The singing fool)
- Dynamitedirected by Cecil B. DeMille (DeMille’s first sound film)
- The Broadway Gold DiggersDirected by Roy Del Ruth
Musical Compositions
- Sing in the rainlyrics by Arthur Freed, music by Nacio Herb Brown
- He does not behave badlylyrics by Andy Paul Razaf, music by Thomas W. (“Fats”) Waller & Harry Brooks (from the musical Hot chocolate)
- An American in ParisGeorge Gershwin
- BoleroMaurice Ravel
- (What I did to be like this) Black and Bluelyrics by Andy Paul Razaf, music by Thomas W. “Fats” Waller & Harry Brooks (a song about racial injustice from the musical). Hot chocolate)
- Tiptoe through the tulipslyrics by Alfred Dubin, music by Joseph Burke
- Happy days are here againlyrics by Jack Yellen, music by Milton Ager (Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1932 presidential campaign theme)
- What is this thing called love?by Cole Porter (from the musical by Porter Wake up and Dream)
- are you bluelyrics by Grant Clarke, music by Harry Akst
- You were meant for melyrics by Arthur Freed, music by Nacio Herb Brown
- Appleslyrics and music by Seymour Simons, Haven Gillespie, and Richard A. Whiting
- Waiting for a Trainlyrics and music by Jimmie Rodgers
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