Flickgrrl

I'm fine with restricting this list, and this celebration, to American film. That said, I would also love to see someone, whether it's AFI or another organization, put together a global list as well.

In any event, this is a much improved list, top to bottom, vs. ten years ago (I count turnover of 23 films), although I still have many quibbles with the ordering. Ones I'm glad made it this time (but really, should have made it 10 years ago):

The General
Nashville
Sullivan's Travels
All the President's Men
A Night at the Opera
12 Angry Men
Do the Right Thing
Blade Runner
Toy Story

I've never seen Sophie's Choice or Intolerance, but I'm guessing I would put them among the above list if I had.

Not so much a "wish they hadn't" list but a "not in MY top 100" list:
Tootsie
Gump

OK, Gump is a "wish they hadn't." At least it dropped 5 spots from last time.

Somewhat surprised to see them dropped:
Frankenstein
Close Encounters
The Third Man

How, exactly, is Lord of the Rings an "American" film in the first place? As always, modern comedy and thrillers get the shaft -- no Die Hard, no 40YOV, no Eddie Murphy, not even Mel Brooks. But the weirdest omission is His Girl Friday, from what I can tell -- which both *is* great and meets the AFI's traditional standards of being old, studio-produced and starring Legends.

One could spend hours and days arguing over the final cut of the top 100 and never reach a conclusion, but what really grabs me is how out of touch hollywood can be when it comes to what makes a movie a classic (the audience is the answer by the way).

Obviously there was a time in this country when the idea of going to the movies to see a musical was for whatever reason widely accepted.

With the exception of Disney movies, South Park (which was hilarious because it totally mocked the genre), and Chicago (which I also found boring and self absorbed) musicals have been dead for 30 years or more.

How does Singing in the Rain end up in the top ten ALL TIME? When is the last time you were at the video store and you overheard someone say "oh, you never saw singing in the rain? We gotta rent that."

On the other hand The Shining, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, even Stagecoach are absent.

Another bone to pick with this list is why can't these people admint it is okay to laugh? Give me the Jerk, or Blazing Sadles over Titanic any day. MASH and Tootsie make the list, but a movie like Cattyshack that 85% of the American population over the age of 20 can quote from memory is too lowbrow?

While I'm thrilled to see Buster Keaton's "The General," his best films -- Sherlock, Jr., Steamboat Bill, Jr. -- are under 60 minutes and therefore were ineligible. LOTR makes it as American because of its studio funding. Totally agree that comedies are taken less seriously than serious films. And as a musicals lover, I hear all the time how much everyone loves "Singin' in the Rain."

A truly ballsy list would at least consider South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, one of the three funniest films of the last decade (with TSO Mary and 40YOV). But, hey, if it mostly appeals to people under 40 (today), it's not on this list.

The General was such a grievous omission last time that I imagine *everyone* made sure it was included. Every time I see that imagine of him rotating around on the side of that train...

I would contend then Carrie that you talk to too many other critics.

The musical is dead, and for good reason. On this list 90% of the films could be shown tomorrow, and would be well recieved, even the silent ones (especially Chaplin's), but try showing Singing ITR, and watch the theatre empty out like someone just rolled in a canister of tear gas.

This list sadly under-represents comedey and sci-fi.

I think Stephen King got the shaft, and I'll say it again, The Shining is an absolute classic, and if Stand by Me isn't in the top 100, I don't know what they are looking for - great cast, well acted, moving and accessable. At least he got Shawshank in.

Anyway, thats what makes lists like this fun, there is so much to debate.

YT, I respectfully disagree with your opinion that the movie musical is dead. The movie musical is most definitely not dead, but rather has evolved and is currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity.

Not only have musicals such as Chicago and Dreamgirls been enormously popular in the last few years, directors such as Baz Lurhmann have taken the classic movie musical and modernized it with innovative editing and music choices. Just as Busby Berkeley’s human kaleidoscopes evolved into the Arthur Freed musicals of the 1950’s, films such as Singin’ in the Rain have now evolved into Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. The genre is most definitely not dead, just different.

And as for Singin’ in the Rain, this is a film that represents the movie musical at the top of its form. It's a comedy, love story, period piece, and musical all wrapped into one. It also features the dancing and choreography of the great Gene Kelly, who (with his collaborator Stanley Donen) revolutionized the way movie musicals were shot in the 1940’s and 50’s by freeing up the camera to move. Plus, it’s just a fun and entertaining movie. Singin' in the Rain is the epitome of the American movie musical and completely deserves a place at the top of the list.

Andarko, I'm not convinced by this assertion, because I think it compares apples to oranges.

As I stated above, I did not like Chicago, and Dream Girls is a musical in the sense the Ray or Walk the Line are musicals. Movies about musicians that feature their music are not musicals in the sense I am refering too.

I think of musicals as films like SITR and Oklahoma. The average audience today would get up and leave the moment a bunch of cowboys start singing and dancing in unison.

Also the arguement "as for Singin’ in the Rain, this is a film that represents the movie musical at the top of its form." really says little for the movie itself. Birth of a Nation is racist propaganda at the top of it's form, and was a break thourgh in narative film making at the time, and yet it is still a racist propaganda film, which would have a very small audience today.

I think the test needs to be not how was this movie recieved at the time, but how has this movie stood up to the test of time.

Of course as stated before, it is all a matter of opinion. For my nickel Titanic is not only not one of the best 100 films ever made, it ranks behind the Departed, Romeo and Juliet and Basketball Diarys in Leonardo DiCaprio films.

Another neglected genre as I look at this list is the sports film, I can watch Hoosiers or Breaking Away evertime they are on, but no love for films like that here.

I agree that this was a better list than the original and I was glad to see some films absent before such as Nashville, The General and Sunrise show up. I also was glad to see several films get the boot as they should have such as Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Dances With Wolves and Fargo. Some of the changes in ranking were puzzling. Glad to see The Searchers make such a huge leap, but how The Deer Hunter, which gets weaker with each viewing, made such a climb boggles my mind. Also, some of the recent additions were really unnecessary, such as The Sixth Sense.

Can someone explain to me the appeal of Hitchcock's Vertigo? It has to be the most wildly overrated film I've ever seen. The script, acting, and direction are all completely wooden. It's not even the best Hitchcock film, let alone an all-time great. What is the deal with this film?

it might not be worth debating the films that made the list or where they were ranked. like most of you said we could do that forever.

somethings are obvious - everyone knows that Empire was better than Star Wars and Godfather 2 was better than 1. and that Touch of Evil deserved to be on this list. seriously, that last one isn't even debatable.

some are subjective - am i the only one who thinks that Vertigo is overrated? or that Charade is a better stanley donen film than SITR?

other omissions are probably based on actual movie funding - Good, Bad, & Ugly was italian, 3rd Man was british.

but what bugged me the most is the shoddy coverage some movies got in there. LOTR got 5 minutes, when anyone who has been alive in the last 10 years knows what it was, how it was made, etc.

Meanwhile, Intolerance, an incredibly important American film that NO ONE has seen gets maybe 20 seconds. Doesn't a movie like that deserve more coverage? Don't audiences, especially ones watching this show, want to know more about movies they haven't seen than ones they have? Same with movies like King Kong and Sunrise. That was just really frustrating.

But not as frustrating as all the movie vignettes starting with "this is probably one of the best ____ films ever." duh, isn't that why it's on the list?

and were documentaries not included for some reason? Hoop Dreams is just as much about the American Dream as anything else that they could have put on the list.

Carrie, if you're going to use your write-ins as a stump for more women's recognition, at least choose better films. (I would go for "Private Benjamin" before "Something's Gotta Give.")

Carrie,

I think it highly offensive that you wrote-in 5 films directed by women "out of principle." You should have wrote in 5 movies that you thought deserved to be on the list because they were in your opinion in the top 100 movies ever made.

you're implying that the people who made up the list were biased against women and minorities. I find that incredibly hard to believe.

If women (or ethnic minorities, or whatever group you want) want to have movies in the top 100 list, then they should make better movies.

Now, if you want to go down the road of saying that minorities traditionally get less funding for movie making, or are less likely to be given a chance, and it points to larger social issues, etc, then I would definitley agree with that. But that doesn't change the fact that the majority of the best movies ever made were by white men. they just were - for whatever the reason.

Something's Gotta Give? Clueless? Come on.

Titanic only belongs on that list if you cut the sound. I'd replace it with any number of films, including "Blue Velvet, Traffic, The Third Man (shocking!), Groundhog Day (still for my money the most inventive, cerebral comedy in a quarter century).

Nancy Meyers co-wrote "Private Benjamin," it was directed by Howard Zieff. I genuinely like Clueless. Groundhog Day is one of the most sophisticated -- and funniest -- of comedies, like Lost in Translation" a Zen comedy of self-perfection. And, hey, us movie omnvores like musicals though I know many people like yt who disdain them. As the French say, there's no way of accounting for taste except by taste.

"Clueless" had a pretty good book. Some have called it flawless. It's a terrific movie.

Speaking of foreign films, I guess the only criterion to make this list is to be funded by an American studio? Lawrence of Arabia starred British actors (as well as an Egyptian), and was directed by David Lean. So it's American only by that definition, and really should be considered a foreign movie IMO.

I'm OK with Titanic, though I know it's fashionable to hate it. It's great popcorn stuff, and we shouldn't leave those types of movies out just because they aren't "serious" enough. However, Forrest Gump and MASH should be off the list (my vote for the 2 most overrated movies of all time). Goodfellas should be way higher (top 50). Psycho and Gone with the Wind should be lower. I agree with the poster above about The Deer Hunter; at the time of its release with memories of Vietnam still fresh, it was powerful. It has dated horribly though. The Vietnamese speak Thai for crying out loud, and are portrayed in a "Yellow Menace" style.

My own nomination for a movie that wasn't on the list: Three Kings, one of the most underrated movies of all time.

Ok, here it goes : The Godfather Part II is a better film than the Godfather but The Conversation should rank higher than both. There. I said it.

Also, Mean Streets is the best Martin Scorsese film. Raging Bull is about as unpleasant an experience to sit through as any that I can imagine, so how that movie ranks 17 spots higher than Chinatown (should be number 1) is beyond me.

For more recent films, Memento is an infinitely better film than The Sixth Sense, and a classic of its type (even if you don't like the "type").

The fist movie I'd take off this list is The Shawshank Redemption an absolute snoozefest that is like the guy movie equivalent of Beaches.

Whew. I feel better now.....

For historians and movie geeks alike, one of the uses of lists such as the AFI's is in tracking the tastemakers' changes in taste. It delighted me that in the decade since the AFI last conducted this poll that "The Searchers" -Odysseus in Monument Valley -- vaulted from the bottom to the top of the list. But I have to scratch my head that "Vertigo," an excellent, if opaque Hitchcock about obsession, repetition-compulsion and the fetishization of women outranks "Rear Window" and "North by Northwest," which seem to me to be objectively superior films. My guess is that nect time out, "Three Kings" will crack the Top 100.

It is always interesting to follow the difference in polls. Even in extremely flawed polls with Gumps and Titanics. To look at 40 years of changes of the Sight and Sound poll which is of international cinema is to watch once cult films such as Vertigo, the Searchers and citizen Kane take their deserved place on top. Two of these canonical films have now moved up nicely on the AFI. I am obviously someone who has been obsessed with Vertigo from seeing it on TV in late 60's and seeing various prints in the period it was unavailable and now upset that the only version available has a flawed new music and sound track. You might be surprised that it has moved above other great Hitchcocks, but I am happy that with the Searchers another not particularly finanically sucessful ffities film thanks to scholars, critics and cinephiles has moved to the center of even, this film canon. Of course, the recently DVDed Dance, Girl Dance, Clueless, Fast times at ridgemount High and Lost in Translation should be there and all sorts of Gumpish dreck should not be there.

I think the backlash against Titanic is completely undeserving. How can you all consider Jaws, ET or even Star Wars to be any less "popcorn movies" than Titanic? At the very least, Titanic may speak to a broader audience than say, a movie about a fake-looking shark. Dialogue in Star Wars was not much better than Titanic's worst moments of dialogue, and yet Titanic gets shackled at #83. It's offensive.

Also to the auther, please tell us why you despise Titanic. The film is so anti-feminist in nature, it makes any of the pro-women movies of the 70s look offensive.

Plus, if anyone can give me a better script to fit such wonderful scenes so perfectly, I'd love to read it. But remember, it has to fit the scene, the characters, and even audiences the same visceral experience.

Who was the author, director and principal actor of the film Citizen Kane ?