American Film Institute -100 Best American Movies - The List

**Chalet** · June 22nd, 2007, 11:09 AM

Mods - I couldn't edit my previous post.

I did a rough tally. The names that show up the most on this list are DeNiro, Brando, Scorsese, Coppola, Gable, Grant, Bogart, Hepburn, Spielberg, Hitchcock, Chaplin. DeNiro and Spielberg (roughly) were listed about 5 times.

AFI'S TOP 100 MOVIE LISTS

1. Citizen Kane (1941)
2. Casablanca (1942)
3. The Godfather (1972)
4. Gone With The Wind (1939)
5. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
6. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
7. The Graduate (1967)
8. On The Waterfront (1954)
9. Schindler's List (1993)
10. Singin' In The Rain (1952)
11. It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
12. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
13. The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)
14. Some Like It Hot (1959)
15. Star Wars (1977)
16. All About Eve (1950)
17. The African Queen (1951)
18. Psycho (1960)
19. Chinatown (1974)
20. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
21. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
22. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
23. The Maltese Falcon (1941) .
24. Raging Bull (1980)
25. E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
26. Dr. Strangelove or: How I ... (1964)
27. Bonnie And Clyde (1967)
28. Apocalypse Now (1979)
29. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) .
30. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
31. Annie Hall (1977)
32. The Godfather, Part II (1974)
33. High Noon (1952)
34. To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
35. It Happened One Night (1934)
36. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
37. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
38. Double Indemnity (1944)
39. Doctor Zhivago (1965)
40. North By Northwest (1959)
41. West Side Story (1961)
42. Rear Window (1954)
43. King Kong (1933)
44. The Birth Of A Nation (1915)
45. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
46. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
47. Taxi Driver (1976)
48. Jaws (1975)
49. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)
50. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
51. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
52. From Here to Eternity (1953)
53. Amadeus (1984)
54. All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)
55. The Sound of Music (1965)
56. M*A*S*H (1970)
57. The Third Man (1949)
58. Fantasia (1941)
59. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
60. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
61. Vertigo (1958)
62. Tootsie (1982)
63. Stagecoach (1939)
64. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
65. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
66. Network (1976)
67. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
68. An American In Paris (1951)
69. Shane (1953)
70. The French Connection (1971)
71. Forrest Gump (1994)
72. Ben-Hur (1959)
73. Wuthering Heights (1939)
74. The Gold Rush (1925)
75. Dances With Wolves (1990)
76. City Lights (1931)
77. American Graffiti (1973)
78. Rocky (1976)
79. The Deer Hunter (1978)
80. The Wild Bunch (1969)
81. Modern Times (1936)
82. Giant (1956)
83. Platoon (1986)
84. Fargo (1996)
85. Duck Soup (1933)
86. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
87. Frankenstein (1931)
88. Easy Rider (1969)
89. Patton (1970)
90. The Jazz Singer (1927)
91. My Fair Lady (1964)
92. A Place in the Sun (1951)
93. The Apartment (1960)
94. GoodFellas (1990)
95. Pulp Fiction (1994)
96. The Searchers (1956)
97. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
98. Unforgiven (1992)
99. Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967)
100. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

I would have added Judgement at Nuremberg, Dog Day Afternoon and Ten Commandments.

**Grimmlok** · June 22nd, 2007, 11:36 AM

Empire Strikes Back should be on there, as well as Alien

**HWBL** · June 23rd, 2007, 05:40 AM

"Guess who's coming to dinner" only at 99 is laughable. "Reds" should've made that list more than, say, "Forest Gump" .....

**kingcap72** · June 24th, 2007, 02:06 AM

Even though I know it's suppose to be a 'classic' they could have left off that racist b.s. Birth of a Nation. I would've rather seen Glitter make the cut than that movie. But oh well.

I would've added The Defiant Ones, The Lion in Winter, and In The Heat of The Night

**pacific breeze** · June 24th, 2007, 02:10 AM

Birth of a Nation is racist to us now, but I doubt that Griffith considered himself a racist. It's tricky to go back in time and accuse people of racism when right or wrong, it was the established order of thinking among a lot of people.

Imposing our contemporary context on contexts of the past that we cannot possibly understand fully given that we didn't live then is tricky stuff.

**celeb_2006** · June 24th, 2007, 02:32 AM

Cookie cutter as they come, I swear I think people automatically pick citizen kane as best simply cuz everyone else does. I'm not gonna force myself to like a movie or think it's the best or one of the best just cuz all the foo foo critics and "experts" say so. I tried watching citizen kane and it bored me to death.

I do think godfather and schindler's list were two great choices in the top 10.

**doriangray** · June 24th, 2007, 05:04 AM

Originally Posted by celeb_2006

Cookie cutter as they come, I swear I think people automatically pick citizen kane as best simply cuz everyone else does. I'm not gonna force myself to like a movie or think it's the best or one of the best just cuz all the foo foo critics and "experts" say so. I tried watching citizen kane and it bored me to death.

I do think godfather and schindler's list were two great choices in the top 10.

you may not appreciate the story but what orson welles did technically was extremely innovative and that's why it's #1. high angled shots, low angled, deep focus, panoramic camera, on and on. stuff like that had never been done. he literally cut holes in the floor. cameras were so big then they were hard to move. personally i like the story but technically it's brilliant.

**NoDayButToday** · June 24th, 2007, 07:44 AM

About Citizen Kane, it's difficult to appreciate it in modern contexts b/c what he did then was incredibly innovative, it was the first of its kind and so ahead of its time, but now the techniques are commonplace. When you watch it still in a modern mindset, it may not be that amazing, but when you watch it with other movies of the time in mind, it's absolutely brilliant. The first time I saw it I wasn't that impressed either just because everything in it was a technique we take for granted, but when I watched it again considering the time period it comes from I'm way more on the side of the critics than the "its overrated" side.

**kingcap72** · June 24th, 2007, 01:31 PM

Originally Posted by pacific breeze

Birth of a Nation is racist to us now, but I doubt that Griffith considered himself a racist. It's tricky to go back in time and accuse people of racism when right or wrong, it was the established order of thinking among a lot of people.

Imposing our contemporary context on contexts of the past that we cannot possibly understand fully given that we didn't live then is tricky stuff.

Nobody's talking about going back in time. And I'm pretty sure some of the black people back then considered it racist and offensive, even if it was considered the established order of thinking among people. It's still a racist movie.

And I think that's kind of a cop out to say that you can't impose contemporary thinking on things that happened in the past. Some things are just wrong like the genocide of the Indians, slavery, the Holocaust, etc.

And even though this is just a film we're talking about it still represents some of the same racist ideals that supported the events that I mentioned above. And even though Griffith may not have considered himself a racist, it doesn't change the fact that he was.

**Lily** · June 25th, 2007, 05:27 PM

Originally Posted by celeb_2006

Cookie cutter as they come, I swear I think people automatically pick citizen kane as best simply cuz everyone else does. I'm not gonna force myself to like a movie or think it's the best or one of the best just cuz all the foo foo critics and "experts" say so. I tried watching citizen kane and it bored me to death.

I do think godfather and schindler's list were two great choices in the top 10.

Actually, it really is the great-grandaddy of all modern cinema. When you watch it in the context of a filmmaker--it is a phenomenal achievment. As a "movie" it can be boring. But as a work of art, it is unparalleled, if that makes sense. I had to do a shot-by-shot analysis for my film class and after watching it 14 times, I was (and still am) in awe. It's sort of like The Big Money meets The Wasteland. It's really quite something, I think.

**celeb_2006** · June 25th, 2007, 05:52 PM

You guys are right, I understand the technical achievements but just on a personal level I can't say that I like a certain movie just because of its cultural or technical importance. I either like a movie or I don't.

**Lily** · June 25th, 2007, 05:56 PM

^I can understand.

I absolutely hate Casablanca---I mean HATE with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. Citizen Kane might be boring, but it keeps my interest artistically. I have seen Casablanca a billion times and it just pisses me off. I adore Ingrid Bergman and the story seems like it should be interesting, but I just.....I hate that movie. LOL

**nwgirl** · June 25th, 2007, 07:19 PM

Out of all those movies, I've seen maybe a quarter of them. Guess I need to start looking in other sections of the movie store besides the new releases.

**Lily** · June 25th, 2007, 08:04 PM

^Sadly, I'm the opposite. I've seen all those movies, and a large percentage of them more than once.

Haven't seen a new release in ages. Pathetic.

**kingcap72** · June 26th, 2007, 02:38 AM

Originally Posted by Lily

Actually, it really is the great-grandaddy of all modern cinema. When you watch it in the context of a filmmaker--it is a phenomenal achievment. As a "movie" it can be boring. But as a work of art, it is unparalleled, if that makes sense. I had to do a shot-by-shot analysis for my film class and after watching it 14 times, I was (and still am) in awe. It's sort of like The Big Money meets The Wasteland. It's really quite something, I think.

Citizen Kane is definitely a great film. I've been hooked on it since I saw it in film class back in college over 15 years ago. I've actually managed to get some of my friends hooked on it too. Orson Wells did really make a classic, not just from a storytelling perspective, but visually too.