AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies

The first of the AFI 100 Years... series of cinematic milestones, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies is a list of the 100 best American movies, as determined by the American Film Institute from a poll of more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the film industry. The list was unveiled in 1998.

It was released in video in 2 versions—a 145 minute version, which aired on CBS, and a 460 minute version available only on video. It was hosted by Jodie Foster among others.

An updated version of the list, billed as a 10th Anniversary edition, aired on CBS on June 20, 2007 and was hosted by Morgan Freeman.

Criteria

Films were judged by the following criteria.

1. Feature-length: Narrative format, at least 40 minutes in length.
2. American film: English language, with significant creative and/or financial production elements from the United States.
3. Critical Recognition: Formal commendation in print.
4. Major Award Winner: Recognition from competitive events including awards from organizations in the film community and major film festivals.
5. Popularity Over Time: Including figures for box office adjusted for inflation, television broadcasts and syndication, and home video sales and rentals.
6. Historical Significance: A film's mark on the history of the moving image through technical innovation, visionary narrative devices or other groundbreaking achievements.
7. Cultural Impact: A film's mark on American society in matters of style and substance.

Criticisms

As with other major awards, such as the Academy Awards, the list of those who voted and the final vote tally has not been released to the public.

The inclusion of some films on these criteria has been controversial, and the "American" content sometimes minimal. Lawrence of Arabia was directed by a Briton and first premiered in London, but qualified as an American film because it was produced by an American citizen. The Third Man was included because its executive producer and two stars were American. Both films were also chosen by the British Film Institute for its top 100 list. The African Queen was a production of Horizon Pictures, a British studio, but qualified as an American film because the two stars were American and the director was American. Some of the later lists appear to have ignored the criteria altogether.

On June 26, 1998, the Chicago Reader published an article by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum. Titled "List-o-Mania: Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love American Movies," it offers a detailed response to the movies in the AFI list, and includes an alternate list of 100 American movies that Rosenbaum felt had been overlooked by the AFI. Rosenbaum chose to present this alternative list alphabetically, since to rank them according to merit would be "tantamount to ranking oranges over apples or declaring cherries superior to grapes." The AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) list includes five titles from Rosenbaum's list, and the accompanying promotional poster lists the titles in alphabetical order.

1998 List

Rank	Title	Year
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 Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb	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	1940
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

2007 List Comparison

AFI 100 Years... series

1998	100 Movies
1999	100 Stars
2000	100 Laughs
2001	100 Thrills
2002	100 Passions
2003	100 Heroes & Villains
2004	100 Songs
2005	100 Movie Quotes
2005	25 Scores
2006	100 Cheers
2006	25 Musicals
2007	100 Movies (Updated)
2008	AFI's 10 Top 10

On June 20, 2007, a new list was released by AFI to update for the new generation of films. Twenty-three films were removed from the original list:

39. Doctor Zhivago (1965)
44. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
52. From Here to Eternity (1953)
53. Amadeus (1984)
54. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
57. The Third Man (1949)
58. Fantasia (1940)
59. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
63. Stagecoach (1939)
64. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
67. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
68. An American in Paris (1951)
73. Wuthering Heights (1939)
75. Dances with Wolves (1990)
82. Giant (1956)
84. Fargo (1996)
86. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
87. Frankenstein (1931)
89. Patton (1970)
90. The Jazz Singer (1927)
91. My Fair Lady (1964)
92. A Place in the Sun (1951)
99. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

Four films released between 1997-2006 were added:

50. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
71. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
83. Titanic (1997)
89. The Sixth Sense (1999)

Nineteen films made between 1916-1995 were also added:

18. The General (1927)
49. Intolerance (1916)
59. Nashville (1975)
61. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
63. Cabaret (1972)
67. Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
75. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
77. All the President's Men (1976)
81. Spartacus (1960)
82. Sunrise (1927)
85. A Night at the Opera (1935)
87. 12 Angry Men (1957)
90. Swing Time (1936)
91. Sophie's Choice (1982)
95. The Last Picture Show (1971)
96. Do The Right Thing (1989)
97. Blade Runner (1982)
99. Toy Story (1995)

See also

• BFI Top 100 British films

External links

• AFI list of movies
• Filmsite.org article
• Montreal Mirror editorial
• SFM Entertainment page on the special; includes video clip