AFI's New List of "Top 100 Films" Announced!
Filed under: Classics, Fandom, Home Entertainment, Lists
"This list...is an absolute good." Well, it's an absolute "pretty good." As I told you yesterday, the American Film Institute has refreshed its "100 Years ... 100 Movies" list. From a master list of 400 films, a panel that included directors, screenwriters, actors, editors, cinematographers, critics, and historians, selected their top 100 choices. The original list came out in 1998, and last night's special taught us that apparently not many great films have been released since then! The new poll allowed voters to select movies released between 1996 and 2006 for the first time. Of the newly eligible films, only Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, The Sixth Sense, and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring were added. Steven Spielberg was the director with the most films on the list, with five. Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Billy Wilder each had four. James Stewart and Robert DeNiro were the most represented actors, with five films apiece. You can check out the list for yourself here.
I can sit and watch these things for hours. I don't care how many times I hear about the shark not working, I still love it. But to be honest, last night's special was a bit dull. These lists tend to be painfully predictable, and this was no exception. Citizen Kane was ranked #1 yet again, and the only major additions to the Top 10 were Raging Bull (jumping from #24 to #4) and Vertigo (jumping from #61 to #9). New to the 2007 list are the following films: The General, Intolerance, Nashville, Sullivan's Travels, Cabaret, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Shawshank Redemption, In The Heat of the Night, All the President's Men, Spartacus, Sunrise, A Night at the Opera, 12 Angry Men, Swing Time, Sophie's Choice, The Last Picture Show, Blade Runner, Toy Story and -- a special cheers to this one -- Do the Right Thing, though it came in at a pretty weak #96.
Titles that were removed from the 1998 list are: Doctor Zhivago, Birth of a Nation, From Here to Eternity, Amadeus, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Third Man, Fantasia, Rebel Without a Cause, Stagecoach, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Manchurian Candidate, An American in Paris, Wuthering Heights, Dances With Wolves, Giant, Mutiny on the Bounty, Frankenstein (1931), Patton, The Jazz Singer, My Fair Lady, A Place in the Sun, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner and Fargo. Make of those additions and subtractions what you will, but show me one person who'd rather watch Intolerance than Fargo, and I'll show you someone who is no friend of mine.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-21-2007 @ 9:34AM
blueguydotcom said...
Citizen Kane still remains the most overrated film ever. I'm a big fan of welles but come on, who really says to people, "You've gotta see Kane, it'll blow your mind"? Nobody.
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6-21-2007 @ 9:50AM
Monster said...
Ah, blueguydotcom, that's where you are wrong. I've had people tell me 'You should watch it, it was boring but there are some really amazing things in it.' And that was from a person who puts money in the pockets of the coporations who put out 3 sequels. It remains an american masterpiece and should forever occupy the 1 or 2 spot.
There are two movies which have define American cinema and The Godfather and Citizen Kane rightfully deserve their spots. To say otherwise is ridiculous.
Was anybody else shocked how high The Searchers jumped?
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6-21-2007 @ 9:51AM
Alex said...
blueguydotcom, what people say in reference to Citizen Kane is: "You've never seen Citizen Kane? What are you, an idiot?" You can call it overrated but you can't say it's not a great film. It's not my favorite ever but they could do much much worse in picking a film generally regarded as the greatest of all time.
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6-21-2007 @ 9:54AM
Brian said...
"show me one person who'd rather watch Intolerance than Fargo, and I'll show you someone who is no friend of mine."
Amen.
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6-21-2007 @ 9:56AM
mseve68 said...
I'm really shocked Monster. I'm a big fan of John Wayne's westerns and to see The Searchers jump from #96 to #12 I was really surprised. I expected Unforgiven to be at least in the top 20.
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6-21-2007 @ 10:07AM
Gilbert Davis said...
I used to get mad looking at any of these "Best of" lists, at best they are honest opinions which are designed to create interest and an honest discussion. At worst these lists are the products of know nothing attention whores about arbitrary and totally subjective and meaningless stuff. (looking at Most Beautiful People lists and such)
In the end this is just another opinion list that doesn't reflect what most of us think, it's not our opinions and it's not worth getting mad over. Sure there are a lot of head scratchers in the list and it's more like a list of good movies with plenty of 'socially relevant' crap films sprinkled in but it was interesting to watch. And for me, I never did like Fargo anyways. :-)
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6-21-2007 @ 10:11AM
Christopher Campbell said...
Yes, I'd rather watch Fargo than Intolerance. I'd also rather watch Birth of a Nation than Intolerance, but I understand the substitution.
Others I'd rather: Close Encounters over Lord of the Rings; The Third Man over The Sixth Sense; From Here to Eternity over Saving Private Ryan (but not by much, I just love Sinatra in it); and anything over Titanic. Are these really the best films to come out of the last ten years? I doubt it. I'm happy with some of the other additions and subtractions, though. Dances with Wolves is finally being sent to the trash, hopefully for good.
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6-21-2007 @ 10:14AM
Luke G. said...
A few reactions:
1) Wuthering Heights and Jazz Singer were the only films from the old list I hadn't seen. They are also the only ones not available on DVD. I wonder if this was a reason for their falling of the list--
that less and less people had seen them. With the new list, Sophie's Choice is the only one I haven't seen, so I guess I'll be adding it to my Netflix queue.
2) I'd much rather watch Fargo again than Intolerance (frankly, I'd just about like to watch ANYTHING again rather than Intolerance), but I don't think its inclusion in the old list was an endorsement as much as it was an acknowledgment of its achievements and innovations. Every film buff should watch it, even though you'll be appalled by its subject matter.
3) Over all, I think this is a better list. Yay for the inclusion of Do the Right Thing, Toy Story, The General, and Sullivan's Travels. Films from the old AFI 100 that I thought were unremarkable or overrated (An American in Paris, Dances with Wolves, A Place in the Sun, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) were left off. On the other hand: no Patton, Stagecoach, or The Third Man? Oof.
4) Citizen Kane really is the greatest film ever made. Sorry haters. :/
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6-21-2007 @ 11:07AM
ML said...
I don't see it as dropping Fargo for Intolerance, but dropping Birth of a Nation for Intolerance.
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6-21-2007 @ 11:30AM
james said...
For those that can't get enough lists, They Shoot Pictures does a huge compilation of the Top 1,000 films that they update fairly regularly: http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm
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6-21-2007 @ 12:31PM
Owen Baird said...
lord of the rings should of at least made it near the top ten rather than #50. im not big on citizen kane. it was too boring.
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6-21-2007 @ 1:02PM
YouFaceTheTick said...
Honestly, Kane is a decent film but it's not a film people clamor to see or see again. I'm not saying the quality of a film is based on receipts but by the same token, the quality of a film should somewhat be based on a desire for repeat viewings or accessibility of the film. After viewing Kane you don't say to yourself, "I need to watch that again." or "I gotta tell everybody to check this out."
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6-21-2007 @ 1:39PM
Monster said...
I was hugely devastated that The Third Man dropped off, but then I thought about it. It's actually a British film and the BFI ranks it on their list at #1 so I'm guessing that's the only reason. They did show the infamous Harry Lime scene in the opening montage, and I expected that since it wasn't getting mentioned that it was going to make a huge jump until we got to the top 20 and i figured it's inclusion was doomed.
I think people are really blinded by Titanic's monumental size as a film project and it's huge revenue it generated. However, as a great film to be on this list is absolutely absurd. How can you put Titanic above the incredibly influential and amazing Goodfellas?
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6-21-2007 @ 4:59PM
madchronicler said...
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and RETURN OF THE KING, the two best of their respective trilogies, didn't make the list. Not to mention ranking THE GODFATHER 2nd (it should have been 1st), and THE GODFATHER PART TWO, a movie many consider better than the original 32nd. There was no consistency to the original list, and there's no consistency to the new one. One movie I'm amazed got left off both lists is ALIEN. Dude, the movie redefined suspense! Unbelievable. They're on crack, all of them.
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6-21-2007 @ 5:57PM
Lawrence Seeger said...
The number one movie of ALL time...at least in my opinion is "Cool Hand Luke." I think it is a travesty that any list of "the best" movies should not include "Cool Hand Luke." I think the judges...to borrow a line from the movie had "...a failure to communicate" with good judgement.
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6-21-2007 @ 7:25PM
YouFaceTheTick said...
Seeger, I could vote for that. I've seen Luke about 30 times. Kane once. One painfully boring time.
The Third Man, in my view, is a better film than Kane too. Hell, I'd watch Lady From Shanghai or Touch of Evil again before ever going near Kane.
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6-21-2007 @ 10:09PM
stereolith said...
No "Alien", no "Die Hard", no "The Third Man" but "The Sixth Sense", "Forrest Gump" and "Nashville"? Really?
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6-22-2007 @ 5:13AM
Ryan said...
I saw Kane two years ago and like most people who hadn't seen it I was bombarded with people telling me that I HAD to see it because it is SO great. And well I hate when people do that, because of course I go into it WANTING to hate it just to prove them wrong.
But then I ended up loving it. Well that showed me. Go figure.
In any case, this new list is definitely stronger than the previous list, so I have no real complaints. I like that they edit it every ten years. I think that just makes sense.
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6-22-2007 @ 12:40PM
swiss miss killa said...
I am tired of these lists anyways, they are so tepidly boring. they are a half way decent resource to scour to find a movie you might have missed but otherwise its just a heap of garbage for 'film scholars' to argue over. They should at least come out with a guilty pleasure list, like ghostbusters, gremlins, breakfast club, wierd science, the toy, trading places. sure not classics but rather watch anyof them than 'birth of a nation' birth of bordeom more like it.
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6-22-2007 @ 6:40PM
waltz said...
I was glad to see Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, 12 Angry Men, and The Last Picture Show make the list as they are landmark films that never grow old and grow more illuminating with each passing year. I doubt crowd pleasers Titanic and Rocky will stand up
50 years from now. I was also glad to see Vertigo jump from 61 to 9 as I feel it is the greatest american movie ever made. Maybe in ten years Ace in the Hole will make the list as it is finally coming out on DVD.
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