100

[Elster88]

AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE'S GREATEST MOVIES

1. "Citizen Kane" (1941)
2. "The Godfather" (1972)
3. "Casablanca" (1942)
4. "Raging Bull" (1980)
5. "Singin' in the Rain" (1952)
6. "Gone With the Wind" (1939)
7. "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962)
8. "Schindler's List" (1993)
9. "Vertigo" (1958)
10. "The Wizard of Oz" (1939)
11. "City Lights" (1931)
12. "The Searchers" (1956)
13. "Star Wars" (1977)
14. "Psycho" (1960)
15. "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968)
16. "Sunset Boulevard" (1950)
17. "The Graduate" (1967)
18. "The General" (1927)
19. "On the Waterfront" (1954)
20. "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946)
21. "Chinatown" (1974)
22. "Some Like It Hot" (1959)
23. "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940)
24. "E.T. -- The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982)
25. "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962)
26. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939)
27. "High Noon" (1952)
28. "All About Eve" (1950)
29. "Double Indemnity" (1944)
30. "Apocalypse Now" (1979)
31. "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)
32. "The Godfather, Part II" (1974)
33. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975)
34. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937)
35. "Annie Hall" (1977)
36. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957)
37. "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)
38. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948)
39. "Dr. Strangelove" (1964)
40. "The Sound of Music" (1965)
41. "King Kong" (1933)
42. "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967)
43. "Midnight Cowboy" (1969)
44. "The Philadelphia Story" (1940)
45. "Shane" (1953)
46. "It Happened One Night" (1934)
47. "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951)
48. "Rear Window" (1954)
49. "Intolerance" (1916)
50. "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001)
51. "West Side Story" (1961)
52. "Taxi Driver" (1976)
53. "The Deer Hunter" (1978)
54. "MASH" (1970)
55. "North by Northwest" (1959)
56. "Jaws" (1975)
57. "Rocky" (1976)
58. "The Gold Rush" (1925)
59. "Nashville" (1975)
60. "Duck Soup" (1933)
61. "Sullivan's Travels" (1941)
62. "American Graffiti" (1973)
63. "Cabaret" (1972)
64. "Network" (1976)
65. "The African Queen" (1951)
66. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981)
67. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966)
68. "Unforgiven" (1992)
69. "Tootsie" (1982)
70. "A Clockwork Orange" (1971)
71. "Saving Private Ryan" (1998)
72. "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994)
73. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969)
74. "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991)
75. "In the Heat of the Night" (1967)
76. "Forrest Gump" (1994)
77. "All the President's Men" (1976)
78. "Modern Times" (1936)
79. "The Wild Bunch" (1969)
80. "The Apartment" (1960)
81. "Spartacus" (1960)
82. "Sunrise" (1927)
83. "Titanic" (1997)
84. "Easy Rider" (1969)
85. "A Night at the Opera" (1935)
86. "Platoon" (1986)
87. "12 Angry Men" (1957)
88. "Bringing Up Baby" (1938)
89. "The Sixth Sense" (1999)
90. "Swing Time" (1936)
91. "Sophie's Choice" (1982)
92. "Goodfellas" (1990)
93. "The French Connection" (1971)
94. "Pulp Fiction" (1994)
95. "The Last Picture Show" (1971)
96. "Do the Right Thing" (1989)
97. "Blade Runner" (1982)
98. "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942)
99. "Toy Story" (1995)
100. "Ben-Hur" (1959)

[Benjamin Grimm]

Some I'm not sure of, but by my count I've seen 60 of the 100.

[MFS62]

67. (Plus clips of many of the others)
And If I could swap two movies (and their spots) it would be African Queen for Lawrence of Arabia.

Later

[Edgy MD]

These lists seem to be about throwing bones to different constituencies.

Forrest Gump at 76? Maybe the 76th best film of 1994. Or the 76th best film about a dumb guy.

Edited July 15, 2007 by Guest

[Benjamin Grimm]

Don't these kinds of lists come out more often than they ought to?

It seems there's a new list every few months.

Of this group of 100, there are two that I saw for the first time in just the last year or two: The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

I enjoyed them both, but liked Treasure a lot more.

[Guest sharpie]

95 with 2 more that I've seen at least some of but can't vouch for seeing in their entirety. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Swing Time and Sunrise the only three that I haven't seen. The Searchers and In the Heat of the Night I'm not positive I've seen all of.

[metirish]

Glengarry Glen Ross is a superior movie to a dozen or more movies on the list.

[Vic Sage]

Lets see which of my own idiosyncratic list of "Top 100 faves" (not intended to be the "100 best") made the AFI list (films on the AFI list are noted with "*"):

7 faces of Dr. Lao
12 Angry Men - *
1776
2001: A Space Odyssey - *

Adventures of Robin Hood
African Queen - *
All that Jazz
Annie Hall - *
Apartment - *
Apocalypse Now - *
Atlantic City
Avanti!

Barbarella
Beauty and the beast (Animated)
Ben-Hur - *
Blade Runner *
Bringing Up Baby - *
Bull Durham

Casablanca - *
Chinatown - *
Citizen Kane - *
Clockwork Orange, A - *
Court Jester, The
Crow, The

Diner
Double Indemnity - *
Dr. Strangelove - *
Duck Soup - *

ET - *
Empire Strikes Back
Enter the Dragon
Excalibur

Field of Dreams

Gallipoli
Ghost & Mrs. Muir
Godfather - *
Godfather II - *
Goldfinger
Goodfellas - *
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Great Escape

Halloween
Harold & Maude
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
His Girl Friday

It�s a Gift
It�s a Wonderful Life - *

Jason & the Argonauts
Jaws - *

King Kong - *

Lawrence of Arabia - *
Local Hero
Lord of the Rings trilogy - *

Mad Max 2: Road Warrior
Magnificent 7
Maltese Falcon - *
Man who Would be King
March of the Wooden Soldiers
MASH - *
Metropolis
Miracle on 34th St
Modern Times - *
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Moulin Rouge

National Lampoon�s Animal House
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
Night of the Living Dead

On the Town

Philadelphia Story - *
Platoon - *
Psycho - *
Producers
Pulp Fiction - *

Quiet Man

Raging Bull - *
Raiders of the Lost Ark - *
Rear Window - *
Rocky - *
Rocky Horror Picture Show

Searchers - *
Shane - *
Singin in the Rain - *
Some Like it Hot - *
Spartacus - *
Stairway to Heaven
Star Wars - *
Stunt Man
Sullivan's Travels - *
Sunset Boulevard - *
Sweet Smell of Success

Thief of Baghdad
Third Man
This is Spinal Tap

Unbreakable
Unforgiven - *

Where�s Poppa
Wild Bunch - *
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Wizard of Oz - *

Young Frankenstein


... and here are some others from the AFI list that could've easily made my list:

9. "Vertigo" (1958)
11. "City Lights" (1931)
17. "The Graduate" (1967)
27. "High Noon" (1952)
37. "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)
38. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948)
42. "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967)
43. "Midnight Cowboy" (1969)
46. "It Happened One Night" (1934)
51. "West Side Story" (1961)
52. "Taxi Driver" (1976)
53. "The Deer Hunter" (1978)
55. "North by Northwest" (1959)
64. "Network" (1976)
69. "Tootsie" (1982)
72. "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994)
73. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969)
74. "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991)
89. "The Sixth Sense" (1999)
99. "Toy Story" (1995)

[Vic Sage]

If you were going to make a list of "100 best", you'd have to consider foreign films too (which they don't seem to have done). But even if you were to just limit it to Hollywood (or at least English language) films, you probably shouldn't be considering any films made within the last 20 years, since not enough time has passed to determine the film's long term values. For instance, if you look back at some of the past AFI lists, you'll see a number of "flavor of the month" movies that no longer get serious consideration in this discussion. It devalues such an exercise if you include those types of films.

So lets take another look at the movies on the list from 1987 on:

8. "Schindler's List" (1993)
50. "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001)
68. "Unforgiven" (1992)
72. "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994)
74. "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991)
76. "Forrest Gump" (1994)
83. "Titanic" (1997)
89. "The Sixth Sense" (1999)
92. "Goodfellas" (1990)
94. "Pulp Fiction" (1994)
96. "Do the Right Thing" (1989)
99. "Toy Story" (1995)

I think some of these movies should ultimately make such a list, and some shouldn't, but do these really deserve to bump off such classics as _________ (name your favorite overlooked masterpiece)

[seawolf17]

Vic Sage wrote: ...but do these really deserve to bump off such classics as _________ (name your favorite overlooked masterpiece)

"Baseketball."

I've seen 20 of the top 100. (Obviously, my taste in movies tends to stray from the "classics.")

[Centerfield]

I'm seeing a bit of a bias against comedies.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Which comedies would you add? Looking through the list quickly, I spotted 12 comedies:

22. "Some Like It Hot" (1959)
26. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939)
35. "Annie Hall" (1977)
46. "It Happened One Night" (1934)
54. "MASH" (1970)
60. "Duck Soup" (1933)
69. "Tootsie" (1982)
78. "Modern Times" (1936)
80. "The Apartment" (1960)
85. "A Night at the Opera" (1935)
88. "Bringing Up Baby" (1938)
99. "Toy Story" (1995)



If I were to add some comedies to the list I might include Young Frankenstein and The Out-of-Towners (the original one with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis). I'm also partial to Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run.

[Centerfield]

Off the top of my head, Animal House, Airplane, Princess Bride. Maybe Caddyshack. I'd take any of these over a number of movies on that list.

[Willets Point]

seawolf17 wrote: Vic Sage wrote: ...but do these really deserve to bump off such classics as _________ (name your favorite overlooked masterpiece) "Baseketball." I've seen 20 of the top 100. (Obviously, my taste in movies tends to stray from the "classics.")

Dude!
Dude?
Duuuuuuuuuude....

[nymr83]

i'd complain that the top of the list has too much of an bias towards old movies, not that there are too many newer ones.

i've seen ~25 movies on the list.

As far as the ones post-1987 that someone mentioned, i'd say Schindler's List is about where it should be. The rest are lower than they should be and I'd bet an old guy (or group of old guys) wrote the list.

Toy Story and Snow White look to me like the only cartoons on the list? how about Lion King? Aladdin?

one notable omission i think (or an omission on my part if i didnt see it there) is BACK TO THE FUTURE!

12 Angry Men sucked big time, so did Forrest Gump, and Lord of the Rings may have been a great trio of books but I didn't think the movies were anything that special.

I won't bother with a top 100, but heres my own top 10, several of which are not movies i'd expect to appear on any list since they are certainly "niche" movies:

E.T.
Schindler's List
The Hunt for Red October
The Final Countdown
Field of Dreams
Star Trek IV
The Sixth Sense
The Shawshank Redemption
Goodfellas
Back to the Future

[nymr83]

Glory, Terminator, and at least 1 Bond film (Goldfinger would probably be the one) likely belong on the list too.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

I have seen 24 of the AFI Top 100 movies. I have seen 25 of the films on Vic's list.

I guess I just don't watch movies often enough.

[Vic Sage]

i've seen 95 of the AFI 100.

I guess i just watch movies too often.

[Frayed Knot]

Around 75 to 80.
I guess I watch movies just right.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Vic, which are the five you haven't seen?

[Elster88]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: Don't these kinds of lists come out more often than they ought to?

I got this from Ebert's website. I think he said it's an annual thing.

[Frayed Knot]

The original AFI Top-100 list was from around '98 or so.
I don't think they re-do it every year but have updated it once or twice since and this one looks like their most recent one from just this year.

[Elster88]

AFI 100: 'Kane' still number one


/ / / June 21, 2007


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by Roger Ebert

Welles' "Citizen Kane" is still the greatest American film of all time. Coppola's "The Godfather" is second. Scorsese's "Raging Bull" and Hitchcock's "Vertigo" have cracked the Top 10, booting out "The Graduate" (No. 7 to No. 17) and "On the Waterfront" (No. 8 to No. 19). And Ford's "The Searchers" hurtled from No. 96 to No. 12.

So says the American Film Institute. Its list of the Top 100 American Films, voted on by a group of 1,500 filmmakers, critics and historians, was revealed Wednesday night on a TV special hosted by Morgan Freeman, star of "The Shawshank Redemption" (No. 72).

Lists like these cry out to be disagreed with. Seconds after an advance copy was sent to news outlets, film critic Peter Debruge e-mailed me: "Of all the issues surrounding this list, my biggest question: Where did 'Fargo' go?"

What? "Fargo" not on the list? Unthinkable, considering that, well, I was going to name a title that has no business being on the list, but actually they all have a claim, even the few like "High Noon" that I personally don't much like. It's just that -- what? No "Fargo."

In the aftermath of the first list, issued in 1998, I received enough complaints about missing titles to supply two or three more lists. No doubt most of those 1,500 experts are themselves dismayed by titles that did and didn't make the cut. But such lists serve two functions: (1) The television special makes money for the American Film Institute, which is a noble and useful institution, and (2) some kid somewhere is gonna rent "Citizen Kane" and have the same kind of epiphany I had when I first saw it as a teenager.

New films become old films so fast. "Raging Bull" came out 27 years ago. It's older than "Casablanca" (No. 3) was when I became a film critic. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, more than 50 percent of moviegoers are under 27. They are going to find movies on this list that were made before their grandparents were born -- and, if judging by the kids I saw Buster Keaton's "The General" (No. 18) with, they might love them.

Ah, but there's the problem: Will they find out about them? Too many younger moviegoers are wasting their precious adolescence frying their brains with vomitoriums posing as slasher movies. A list like the AFI's can do some good. During a Google search for "age of average moviegoer," I came across a column by critic T.C. Candler that opened with this quote:

"I have here a heartfelt message from a reader who urges me not to be so hard on stupid films, because they are 'plenty smart enough for the average moviegoer.' Yes, but one hopes being an average moviegoer is not the end of the road: that one starts as a below-average filmgoer, passes through average, and, guided by the labors of America's hardworking film critics, arrives in triumph at above-average."

Candler was quoting me, and I cannot agree more. To take a hypothetical possibility, if you were to see all 100 films on the AFI list, by the end of that experience, you would no longer desire to see a Dead Teenager Movie. (Yes, there could be a great Dead Teenager Movie. Please send me a list of the 100 greatest.)

To read over the film institute's list is to remember spine-tingling moments in movie theaters. The ballet of space ships in "2001." The soaking-wet dance in "Singin' in the Rain." The scary perfection of Astaire and Rogers, the perfect anarchy of the Marx Brothers, the anarchic warfare in "Apocalypse Now," the warfare of obsession in "Vertigo."

The list will become a retail tool. AOL, Best Buy and Moviefone have scheduled promotions. You know that Netflix and Blockbusters will push it. The movie channels will feature titles from it. Some newbie will find out who James Stewart or Ingrid Bergman was.

So in the last analysis, it doesn't really matter what movies are on the list. What matters is the movies on the list, voted by 1,500 above-average moviegoers who don't think "Citizen Kane" has aged one day.

[Vic Sage]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: Vic, which are the five you haven't seen?

1 - Intolerance - After BIRTH OF A NATION, i'd had enough Griffith, thanks.
2 - Sunrise - a silent classic by murnau, i'll probably get around to it at some point.
3 - Swing Time - for some reason, i've never seen this Astaire musical... probably the only Astaire musical i haven't seen.
4 - Nashville - supposed to be one of Altman's better ones, but from bits and pieces i've seen of it over the years, I have no interest.
5 - Last Picture Show - you'd think a naked young cybil shephard would hold some allure for me, wouldn't you? But no so far.

[Guest sharpie]

I realized later that I hadn't seen "Intolerance" (transposed it with "Birth of a Nation". which I have seen). Of the six I haven't seen, 3 of them are among the 5 that Vic hasn't seen. "Last Picture Show" is worth seeing, Vic.

[Vic Sage]

what? No "Fargo."

yes, no "Fargo". Actually, "Fargo" was one of the movies i was specifically thinking of in my earlier post, when i was discussing movies that were "flavors of the month" and were too new to judge critically, and so didn't belong on the list. Its no surprise to me at all that, upon later reflection, the judges reconsidered that one. As they may well do with "forrest gump", "shawshank redemption" and "titanic" amongst others, at some point down the road. Which is why i think any movies within that last 20 years should just be disqualified from consideration, until they've stood the test of time.

[nymr83]

anyone who "reconsiders" Shawshank Redemption is an idiot.

[Vic Sage]

anyone who rules out reconsideration of anything is an idiot.

[metirish]

Vic Sage wrote: what? No "Fargo." yes, no "Fargo". Actually, "Fargo" was one of the movies i was specifically thinking of in my earlier post, when i was discussing movies that were "flavors of the month" and were too new to judge critically, and so didn't belong on the list. Its no surprise to me at all that, upon later reflection, the judges reconsidered that one. As they may well do with "forrest gump", "shawshank redemption" and "titanic" amongst others, at some point down the road. Which is why i think any movies within that last 20 years should just be disqualified from consideration, until they've stood the test of time.

Can you explain that further ,why would a judge/critic or whoever it is that helps compile such lists think that a movie they thought was "classic" in 1995 upon further review didn't think of it as classic say in 2007.

What would be so different about the movie 10 or 20 years later that would make that person think differently about it.


You mentioned Fargo,I watched it a few years ago and thought it was annoying,thought it was great when it first came out.

[Edgy MD]

Vic Sage wrote: anyone who rules out reconsideration of anything is an idiot.

I agree that making decisions reconsideration-proof is wrong. But that's also why I think the Baseball Hall of Fame did the right thing by expanding the Veteran's Committee to all the living members (making them a much tougher body to generate consensus among), rather than eliminating it and refusing to reconsider players passed on by the BBWAA.