This is great news for the dwindling number of silent movie fans: a sizable trove of silent films thought lost have been uncovered in Amsterdam. Here are the details.

The vast majority of silent films are gone. Lost, deteriorated, gone forever, and a big chunk of our art, history, and culture is gone with them. Others are in such bad shape that they can’t be publicly exhibited. And some of these are pretty significant movies, including Lon Chaney’s iconic London After Midnight and Laurel and Hardy films like The Rogue Song, Hats Off, and parts of Battle of the Century.

None of the films discovered appear to be as important as these, but we’ll take what we can get. At this point, nearly every person who appeared in a film during the silent era is gone. We owe it to them–and us–to preserve their shadows.