Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

2009 film directed by Shawn Levy

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera — Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas

Record originEnglish Wikipedia

Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0

Source revisionSep 26, 2026

Entity authoritySource title only

Source-derived summary

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is a 2009 American fantasy comedy film directed by Shawn Levy, and written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. The film stars Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria, Christopher Guest, Alain Chabat and Robin Williams. It is the second film in the Night at the Museum series, following Night at the Museum (2006).

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” as 2009 film directed by Shawn Levy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Night, Museum and Battle.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009, 2006—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Night, Museum and Battle providing the first useful test.

Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”, the useful work is to connect “2009 film directed by Shawn Levy” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2009 and 2006.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for

Identifying works and editions
Tracing reception history
Finding collection records

Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

Establish the record: confirm the title “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”, its source revision and the description used here.
Expand the search: follow Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian primary sources, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian archive and Night research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”?
How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?

Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian history →Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian primary sources →Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian archive →Night research →Museum research →Battle research →Smithsonian research →

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.