AFI's 100 Greatest American Movies of all Time - Your Alternative

[wba2]

In 1998, AFI invited more than 1,500 leaders from across the American film community – screenwriters, directors, actors, producers, cinematographers, editors, executives, film historians and critics among them – to choose from a list of 400 nominated films compiled by AFI and select the 100 greatest American movies.


This is what they came up with:


The Birth of a Nation (David Wark Griffith, 1915)
The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925)
The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927)
All Quiet On the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930)
City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)
Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)
King Kong (Merian C. Cooper/Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933)
It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934)
Mutiny On the Bounty (Lewis Milestone, 1935)

Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand, 1937)
Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938)
Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939)
Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)
Wuthering Heights (William Wyler, 1939)
The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
Fantasia (many different directors, 1940)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)

The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)
Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)
A Place In the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951)
An American In Paris (Vincente Minnelli, 1951)
The African Queen (John Huston, 1951)
High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952)
Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly, 1952)
From Here To Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953)
Shane (Geroge Stevens, 1953)

On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)
Giant (George Stevens, 1956)
The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
The Bridge in the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959)
North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
West Side Story (Robert Wise, 1961)
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964)
Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965)
The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965)

Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967)
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (Stanley Kramer, 1967)
The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969)
Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969)
Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969)
The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
M*A*S*H (Robert Altman, 1970)
Patton (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1970)

A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)
The Godfather (Francs Ford Coppola, 1972)
American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973)
Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)
Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976)

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982)

Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984)
Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986)
Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1990)
Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)
Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Fargo (Joel Coen/Ethan Coen, 1996)


Now I'd like you to list your own alternative Top 100 favorite US films in chronological order.


Rules

- only US productions are allowed (no films from the UK like on the AFI list)
- only films made till 1996 can be included
- don't list any of the films from AFI's original list
- no shorts, no documentaries, no experimental films, etc. - just plain old feature-length narrative films, like on the AFI list

[wba2]

my alternative 100


Carmen (Cecil B. DeMille, 1915)
Until They Get Me (Frank Borzage, 1917)
Heart o’ the Hills (Joseph De Grasse/Sidney Franklin, 1919)
Miss Lulu Bett (William C. de Mille, 1921)
Our Hospitality (John G. Blystone/Buster Keaton, 1923)
The Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924)
A Woman of Affairs (Clarence Brown, 1928)
The Mysterious Lady (Fred Niblo, 1928)
The Wind (Victor Sjöström, 1928)
The Mysterious Island (Lucien Hubbard/Benjamin Christensen/Maurice Tourneur, 1929)

Morocco (Josef von Sternberg, 1930)
The Bat Whispers (Roland West, 1930)
Dishonored (Josef von Sternberg, 1931)
Night Nurse (William A. Wellman, 1931)
Safe in Hell (William A. Wellman, 1931)
Taxi! (Roy Del Ruth, 1932)
Baby Face (Alfred E. Green, 1933)
Torch Singer (Alexander Hall/George Somnes, 1933)
Swing Time (George Stevens, 1936)
Mr. Bug Goes to Town (Dave Fleischer, 1941)

Cluny Brown (Ernst Lubitsch, 1946)
Nocturne (Edwin L. Marin, 1946)
Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery, 1947)
Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin, 1947)
Born to Kill (Robert Wise, 1947)
Limelight (Charles Chaplin, 1952)
Magnificent Obsession (Douglas Sirk, 1954)
The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
Red Sundown (Jack Arnold, 1956)
Bitter Victory (Nicholas Ray, 1957)

One-Eyed Jacks (Marlon Brando, 1961)
Homicidal (William Castle, 1961)
Hell Is for Heroes (Don Siegel, 1962)
How I Lived As Eve (Zygmunt Sulistrowski, 1963)
Strait-Jacket (William Castle, 1963)
The Masque of the Red Death (Roger Corman, 1964)
The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds (Bert Williams, 1965)
Nevada Smith (Henry Hathaway, 1966)
Hang ’em High (Ted Post, 1968)
Vixen! (Russ Meyer, 1968)

Baby Vickie (John Hayes, 1969)
Naked Angels (Bruce D. Clark, 1969)
Young Billy Young (Burt Kennedy, 1969)
Downhill Racer (Michael Ritchie, 1969)
Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970)
Chisum (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1970)
Le Mans (Lee H. Katzin, 1971)
The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1970)
The Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg, 1971)
Dollars (Richard Brooks, 1971)

Snoopy, Come Home (Bill Melendez, 1972)
The Unholy Rollers (Vernon Zimmerman, 1972)
Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973)
Posse (Kirk Douglas, 1975)
Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter, 1976)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976)
Slap Shot (George Roy Hill, 1977)
Day of the Woman (Meir Zarchi, 1978)
The Lady in Red (Lewis Teague, 1979)
When a Stranger Calls (Fred Walton, 1979)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Robert Wise, 1979)
Ruckus (Max Kleven, 1981)
Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)
Tarzan, the Ape Man (John Derek, 1981)
Conan the Barbarian (John Milius, 1982)
Tron (Steven Lisberger, 1982)
Breathless (Jim McBride, 1983)
Staying Alive (Sylester Stallone, 1983)
Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis (Giorgio Moroder, 1984)
Reckless (James Foley, 1984)

The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984)
Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985)
Perfect (James Bridges, 1985)
American Flyers (John Badham, 1985)
Teen Wolf (Rod Daniel, 1985)
Cobra (George Pan Cosmatos, 1986)
Raw Deal (John Irvin, 1986)
The Presidio (Peter Hyams, 1988)
Two Moon Junction (Zalman King, 1988)
Batman (Tim Burton, 1989)

Lambada (Joel Silberg, 1990)
Narrow Margin (Peter Hyams, 1990)
The Hard Way (John Badham, 1991)
Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991)
Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992)
The Last of the Mohicans (Michael Mann, 1992)
The Tune (Bill Plympton, 1992)
Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)
Cliffhanger (Renny Harlin, 1993)
Flesh and Bone (Steve Kloves, 1993)

Color of Night (Richard Rush, 1994)
Maverick (Rchard Donner, 1994)
Speed (Jan de Bont, 1994)
Drop Zone (John Badham, 1994)
The Addiction (Abel Ferrara, 1995)
Cutthroat Island (Renny Harlin, 1995)
Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
First Knight (Jerry Zucker, 1995)
Sudden Death (Peter Hyams, 1995)
Jingle All the Way [Director's Cut] (Brian Levant, 1996)

[flip]

i don't care for their list, about as bland a list as you could come up with. i decided only to include films the afi might have considered, so i excluded experimental and short film:

Broken Blossoms (DW Griffith, 1919)
Our Hospitality (Buster Keaton/John Blystone, 1923)
Sherlock Jr (Buster Keaton, 1924)
Lucky Star (Frank Borzage, 1929)
Hell's Highway (Rowland Brown, 1932)
Love Me Tonight (Rouben Mamoulian, 1932)
Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)
Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932)
The Good Fairy (Wiliam Wyler, 1935)
Libeled Lady (Jack Conway, 1936)

My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava, 1936)
Tovarich (Anatole Litvak, 1937)
Angel (Ernst Lubitsch, 1937)
The Rage of Paris (Henry Koster, 1938)
Destry Rides Again (George Marshall, 1939)
Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939)
Good Girls Go to Paris (Alexander Hall, 1939)
Remember the Night (Mitchell Leisen, 1940)
The Westerner (William Wyler, 1940)
Spring Parade (Henry Koster, 1940)

Hellzapoppin' (HC Potter, 1941)
Ladies in Retirement (Charles Vidor, 1941)
To Be Or Not To Be (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942)
The Talk of the Town (George Stevens, 1942)
The Palm Beach Story (Preston Sturges, 1942)
Kings Row (Sam Wood, 1942)
The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson, 1943)
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges, 1943)
Hi Diddle Diddle (Andrew Stone, 1943)

His Butler's Sister (Frank Borzage, 1943)
Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945)
Nocturne (Edwin Marin, 1946)
Crack-Up (Irving Reis, 1946)
Black Angel (Roy William Neill, 1946)
My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946)
The Killers (Robert Siodmak, 1946)
The Locket (John Brahm, 1946)
Canyon Passage (Jacques Tourneur, 1946)
Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946)

Ride the Pink Horse (Robert Montgomery, 1947)
The Web (Michael Gordon, 1947)
Ivy (Sam Wood, 1947)
The Devil Thumbs a Ride (Felix Feist, 1947)
Nightmare Alley (Edmund Goulding, 1947)
Sleep, My Love (Douglas Sirk, 1948)
The Big Clock (John Farrow, 1948)
Moonrise (Frank Borzage, 1948)
Letter From an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls, 1948)
The Crooked Way (Robert Florey, 1949)

Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949)
Woman on the Run (Norman Foster, 1950)
The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950)
In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
Winchester '73 (Anthony Mann, 1950)
Union Station (Rudolph Mate, 1950)
The Secret of Convict Lake (Michael Gordon, 1951)
The Big Sky (Howard Hawks, 1952)
Woman They Almost Lynched (Allan Dwan, 1953)
The Raid (Hugo Fregonese, 1954)

The Naked Dawn (Edgar Ulmer, 1955)
The Big Combo (Joseph H Lewis, 1955)
The Indian Fighter (Andre de Toth, 1955)
Crashout (Lewis Foster, 1955)
Man from Del Rio (Harry Horner, 1956)
The Harder They Fall (Mark Robson, 1956)
3:10 to Yuma (Delmer Daves, 1957)
The Burglar (Paul Wendkos, 1957)
The Quiet Gun (William Claxton, 1957)
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (Arnold Laven, 1957)

Murder by Contract (Irving Lerner, 1958)
The Wonderful Country (Robert Parrish, 1959)
Day of the Outlaw (Andre de Toth, 1959)
No Name on the Bullet (Jack Arnold, 1959)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963)
36 Hours (George Seaton, 1964)
The Patsy (Jerry Lewis, 1964)
Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966)
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Sydney Pollack, 1969)

Puzzle of a Downfall Child (Jerry Schatzberg, 1970)
Brewster McCloud (Robert Altman, 1970)
The Last PIcture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
Ulzana's Raid (Robert Aldrich, 1972)
Play It As It Lays (Frank Perry, 1972)
Charley Varrick (Don Siegel, 1973)
Night Moves (Arthur Penn, 1975)
3 Women (Robert Altman, 1977)
Opening Night (John Cassavetes, 1977)
Black Sunday (John Frankenheimer, 1977)

The Late Show (Robert Benton, 1977)
Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980)
Southern Comfort (Walter Hill, 1981)
Ms 45 (Abel Ferrara, 1981)
Deadly Intentions (Noel Black, 1985)
At Close Range (James Foley, 1986)
Matewan (John Sayles, 1987)
Cop (James Harris, 1988)
Do the RIght Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
A Perfect World (Clint Eastwood, 1993)

[greennui]

Salomé (1922)
3 Bad Men (1926)
Beggars of Life (1928)
The Patsy (1928)
The Wind (1928)
Morocco (1930)
Night Nurse (1931)
Shanghai Express (1932)
Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Baby Face (1933)

Wild Boys of the Road (1933)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
Swing Time (1936)
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
The Seventh Victim (1943)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Phantom Lady (1944)
Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Ride the Pink Horse (1947)
On the Town (1949)

White Heat (1949)
Wagon Master (1950)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Little Fugitive (1953)
Human Desire (1954)
All That Heaven Allows (1955)
There's Always Tomorrow (1955)
Guys and Dolls (1955)
The Wrong Man (1956)

Written on the Wind (1956)
The Tarnished Angels (1957)
Some Came Running (1958)
Imitation of Life (1959)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
The Hustler (1961)
Night Tide (1961)
Kitten with a Whip (1964)
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)
Seconds (1966)

Point Blank (1967)
Flesh (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Targets (1968)
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Zabriskie Point (1970)
Wanda (1970)
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
Cabaret (1972)

Fat City (1972)
The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)
Badlands (1973)
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
Messiah of Evil (1973)
Scarecrow (1973)
Female Trouble (1974)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Night Moves (1975)
All the President's Men (1976)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
Desperate Living (1977)
Last Chants for a Slow Dance (1977)
Opening Night (1977)
Blue Collar (1978)
Days of Heaven (1978)
Girlfriends (1978)
Martin (1978)

Cruising (1980)
Heaven's Gate (1980)
Ms 45 (1981)
Blade Runner (1982)
Cat People (1982)
The King of Comedy (1982)
Smithereens (1982)
The Verdict (1982)
White Dog (1982)
Crimes of Passion (1984)

Love Streams (1984)
Desert Hearts (1985)
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
Witness (1985)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Manhunter (1986)
Stand by Me (1986)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
All the Vermeers in New York (1990)

King of New York (1990)
Barton Fink (1991)
City of Hope (1991)
My Own Private Idaho (1991)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
The Last Seduction (1994)
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
The Doom Generation (1995)
Lone Star (1996)

[Curtis, baby]

would probably only have included 5-10 from the AFI's list anyway


He Who Gets Slapped (Victor Sjöström, 1924)
The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927)
My Best Girl (Sam Taylor, 1927)
Lonesome (Paul Fejos, 1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (Herbert Brenon, 1928)
The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick/Buster Keaton, 1928)
Her Man (Tay Garnett, 1930)
One Way Passage (Tay Garnett, 1932)
It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934)
The Thin Man (W. S. Van Dyke, 1934)

My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava, 1936)
Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937)
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (Ernst Lubitsch, 1938)
Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)
The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
Remember the Night (Mitchell Leisen, 1940)
The Long Voyage Home (John Ford, 1940)
The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941)
Come Live With Me (Clarence Brown, 1941)
Out of the Fog (Anatole Litvak, 1941)

To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942)
The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
The Gang's All Here (Busby Berkeley, 1943)
Decoy (Jack Bernhard, 1946)
Cinderella Jones (Busby Berkeley, 1946)
They Live by Night (Nicholas Ray, 1948)
Portrait of Jennie (William Dieterle, 1948)
Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)
The Set-Up (Robert Wise, 1949)
Harvey (Henry Koster, 1950)

The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950)
In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
Winchester '73 (Anthony Mann, 1950)
Born Yesterday (George Cukor, 1950)
Stars in My Crown (Jacques Tourneur, 1950)
Where Danger Lives (John Farrow, 1950)
The Prowler (Joseph Losey, 1951)
The Lusty Men (Nicholas Ray, 1952)
Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953)
The Sun Shines Bright (John Ford, 1953)

The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)
Picnic (Joshua Logan, 1955)
Marty (Delbert Mann, 1955)
The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956)
The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956)
On the Bowery (Lionel Rogosin, 1956)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
The True Story of Jesse James (Nicholas Ray, 1957)

Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957)
The Big Country (William Wyler, 1958)
A Summer Place (Delmer Daves, 1959)
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)
Ride Lonesome (Budd Boetticher, 1959)
The Atomic Submarine (Spencer Gordon Bennet, 1959)
Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)
The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961)
Blast of Silence (Allen Baron, 1961)
Underworld U.S.A. (Samuel Fuller, 1961)

The Misfits (John Huston, 1961)
Requiem for a Heavyweight (Ralph Nelson, 1962)
Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962)
Lonely are the Brave (David Miller, 1962)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
Cool Hand Luke (Stuart Rosenberg, 1967)
The Swimmer (Frank Perry/Sydney Pollack, 1968)
Downhill Racer (Michael Ritchie, 1969)
Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970)

Taking Off (Miloš Forman, 1971)
Two-Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971)
Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971)
The Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg, 1971)
What's Up, Doc? (Peter Bogdanovich, 1972)
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Peter Yates, 1973)
The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973)
Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973)
Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1973)
High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973)

Cockfighter (Monte Hellman, 1974)
Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
The Driver (Walter Hill, 1978)
Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1978)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978)
Southern Comfort (Walter Hill, 1981)
The Fox and the Hound (Ted Berman/Richard Rich, 1981)
Modern Romance (Albert Brooks, 1981)
Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1981)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Amy Heckerling, 1982)

A Christmas Story (Bob Clark, 1983)
Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)
Commando (Mark L. Lester, 1985)
Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986)
They Live (John Carpenter, 1988)
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek, 1989)
Metropolitan (Whit Stillman, 1990)
Slacker (Richard Linklater, 1991)
Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993)
Kicking and Screaming (Noah Baumbach, 1995)

[Mysterious Dude]

AFI did a new list in 2007 which added some notable omissions from the 1998 list: Intolerance, The General, Sunrise, 12 Angry Men, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Nashville, All the President's Men, Blade Runner, Do the Right Thing, and The Shawshank Redemption (among others), so I won't include those either.

Regeneration (1915)
The Italian (1915)
Hell's Hinges (1916)
The Blue Bird (1918)
Broken Blossoms (1919)
Way Down East (1920)
Tol'able David (1921)
The Kid (1921)
Orphans of the Storm (1921)
Our Hospitality (1923)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Greed (1924)
The Scarlet Letter (1926)
The Kid Brother (1927)
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
The Public Enemy (1931)
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Freaks (1932)
The Scarlet Empress (1934)
The Informer (1935)

Captains Courageous (1937)
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
Of Mice and Men (1939)
His Girl Friday (1940)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
Laura (1944)
Gaslight (1944)
Scarlet Street (1945)
Notorious (1946)
Ride the Pink Horse (1947)

Out of the Past (1947)
The Naked City (1948)
The Quiet One (1948)
The Search (1948)
White Heat (1949)
The Heiress (1949)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
On Dangerous Ground (1951)
The Sniper (1952)

Little Fugitive (1953)
Pickup on South Street (1953)
Salt of the Earth (1954)
Johnny Guitar (1954)
Crime Wave (1954)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Paths of Glory (1957)
A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Touch of Evil (1958)
The Lineup (1958)
Imitation of Life (1959)
Blast of Silence (1961)
The Miracle Worker (1962)
America America (1963)
The Birds (1963)
Fail-Safe (1964)
The Pawnbroker (1964)

In Cold Blood (1967)
Point Blank (1967)
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Little Big Man (1970)
The Panic in Needle Park (1971)
Punishment Park (1971)
Badlands (1973)
Mean Streets (1973)

Sleeper (1973)
The Exorcist (1973)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
The Conversation (1974)
Hester Street (1975)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
The Black Stallion (1979)

Manhattan (1979)
The Lathe of Heaven (1980)
Windwalker (1980)
Reds (1981)
Tron (1982)
Testament (1983)
The Terminator (1984)
Stand By Me (1986)
Raising Arizona (1987)
The Princess Bride (1987)

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
The Rapture (1991)
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
Army of Darkness (1992)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Clean, Shaven (1993)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Seven (1995)
Dead Man (1995)
Bound (1996)

[kanafani]

Coming down with a cold, so I don’t have it in me to come up with such a long list, but I do remember rosenbaum came up with exactly such a list years ago. here it is.

[sally]

how have you all come up with 100 so fast? and how do you decide if something is US only production? sometimes on imdb it lists a whole bunch of countries - do you only accept ones that just say US?

thanks kanafani

[...]

I can never figure out how y'all manage to make most of your lists. I can't keep anything sorted like that. I must have a seriously flawed memory retrieval system.

[rischka]

i'm wondering the same. this would take me all day. i'm exhausted thinking about it

[Silga]

Hey, @wba , so should we be going with the original list from 1998 or the updated one from 2007?

Not much difference to me though.

There are 3 films that I wouldn't be able to use if we go with 2007, and equally so - 3 films open up for a jump on the list.

[wba2]

My idea is to go with the original list. And to ignore anything that came afterwards.

[wba2]

i'm wondering the same. this would take me all day. i'm exhausted thinking about it

I've already done this before, so I just reused my old list and did some fine-tuning.
Otherwise it's alot of work, of course. Still, it took me some 2 hours merely to format AFI's original list, as well as mine.

As for US as production country, I always go by production company and try to find out who has/had the majority of funds.
Sometimes it's a 50/50 thing, so you have to decide on your own.
In AFI'S original list from 1998 you have a film like The Third Man, which had no US financing whatsoever - they could have equally included Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali or Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game. How it got on the list is a mystery.

[greennui]

I copy pasted from my list of favourites on icheckmovies, it was ardous as fuck but I couldn't bring myself to bail on it once I begun.

[wba2]

Yeah, once I begun, I also didn't want to stop - otherwise I probably wouldn't have finished the formatting.

EDIT: Going through all your lists, I may have to kick out one of my films to make room for LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN...
I find it very diffuclt to decide which film to include, and which one to exclude.

[Curtis, baby]

In AFI'S original list from 1998 you have a film like The Third Man, which had no US financing whatsoever - they could have equally included Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali or Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game. How it got on the list is a mystery.

This is the same country that's nicknamed Canadian-born Pam Anderson "America's sweetheart". The average yank thinks that and acts like America and the Anglosphere are coextensive.

[Mysterious Dude]

how have you all come up with 100 so fast? and how do you decide if something is US only production? sometimes on imdb it lists a whole bunch of countries - do you only accept ones that just say US?

I maintain a top ten list for every year. I went through each list and picked out the American movies. For most movies, I think it's pretty obvious if it's American or not. If I wasn't sure, I checked IMDB. There were a couple movies I left out for being a little too British (Alien and The Elephant Man).

[Silga]

Top 100:

The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin, 1940)
Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942)
Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943)
The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson, 1943)
Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944)
The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946)
The Killers (Robert Siodmak, 1946)
Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
Key Largo (John Huston, 1948)
Sorry, Wrong Number (Anatole Litvak, 1948)

Riot in Cell Block 11 (Don Siegel, 1954)
The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957)
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)
Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962)
Charade (Stanley Donen, 1963)
The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963)

Fail-Safe (Sidney Lumet, 1964)
The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, 1964)
The Naked Kiss (Samuel Fuller, 1964)
Seven Days in May (John Frankenheimer, 1964)
The Fortune Cookie (Billy Wilder, 1966)
The Producers (Mel Brooks, 1967)
The Odd Couple (Gene Saks, 1968)
The Swimmer (Frank Perry & Sydney Pollack, 1968)
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Robert Ellis Miller, 1968)
Take the Money and Run (Woody Allen, 1969)

Lawman (Michael Winner, 1971)
Vanishing Point (Richard C. Sarafian, 1971)
Serpico (Sidney Lumet, 1973)
Breezy (Clint Eastwood, 1973)
The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973)
High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973)
The Seven-Ups (Philip D'Antoni, 1973)
The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
The Sunshine Boys (Herbert Ross, 1975)
Love and Death (Woody Allen, 1975)

Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978)
Escape from Alcatraz (Don Siegel, 1979)
The Onion Field (Harold Becker, 1979)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
American Gigolo (Paul Schrader, 1980)
Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)
Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981)
The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)

Missing (Costa-Gavras, 1982)
Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983)
Rumble Fish (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983)
Blood Simple (Coen brothers, 1984)
Moscow on the Hudson (Paul Mazursky, 1984)
Broadway Danny Rose (Woody Allen, 1984)
After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 1985)
To Live and Die in L.A. (William Friedkin, 1985)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1985)
Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)

Aliens (James Cameron, 1986)
Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986)
Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)
Radio Days (Woody Allen, 1987)
The Witches of Eastwick (George Miller, 1987)
The Whales of August (Lindsay Anderson, 1987)
Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1988)
Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988)
Sea of Love (Harold Becker, 1989)
Steel Magnolias (Herbert Ross, 1989)

Batman (Tim Burton, 1989)
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, 1989)
Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990)
Misery (Rob Reiner, 1990)
Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990)
Bad Influence (Curtis Hanson, 1990)
The Hunt for Red October (John McTiernan, 1990)
JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)
Homicide (David Mamet, 1991)

Barton Fink (Coen brothers, 1991)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991)
Hoffa (Danny DeVito, 1992)
Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992)
Bad Lieutenant (Abel Ferrara, 1992)
One False Move (Carl Franklin, 1992)
The Fugitive (Andrew Davis, 1993)
Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
Friday (F. Gary Gray, 1995)

Desperado (Robert Rodriguez, 1995)
Seven (David Fincher, 1995)
Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995)
City Hall (Harold Becker, 1996)
Sling Blade (Billy Bob Thornton, 1996)
Night Falls on Manhattan (Sidney Lumet, 1996)
Trees Lounge (Steve Buscemi, 1996)
Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1996)
I'm Not Rappaport (Herb Gardner, 1996)


Directors with 3 or more films:

Sidney Lumet - 6
Woody Allen - 6
Stanley Kubrick - 4
Michael Mann - 3
Alfred Hitchcock - 3
Harold Becker - 3

[sally]

how have you all come up with 100 so fast? and how do you decide if something is US only production? sometimes on imdb it lists a whole bunch of countries - do you only accept ones that just say US?

I maintain a top ten list for every year. I went through each list and picked out the American movies. For most movies, I think it's pretty obvious if it's American or not. If I wasn't sure, I checked IMDB. There were a couple movies I left out for being a little too British (Alien and The Elephant Man).

Ah, I see. I knew even in my most berserk list-making fits, I'd not come up with a top 100 so fast without some prepared ground. I was toying with contributing my own 100, but maybe I should start with something like that first.

Besides I haven't seen enough American cinema to feel happy about any top 100 of mine (no precode Bette davis!) I'll use these lists, rather than make my own...(although a top 20 USA for each decade would be more useful)

[Angel]

In AFI'S original list from 1998 you have a film like The Third Man, which had no US financing whatsoever

Ask Selznick, who even released his own American version.

[flip]

don't forget we did this already once before, when we did the usa country poll in 2015:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/the_aut ... -t902.html

we did top 100 ballots for that, so anyone who posted a ballot there should be able to post something here fairly quickly if they want to

[...]

Besides I haven't seen enough American cinema to feel happy about any top 100 of mine (no precode Bette davis!) I'll use these lists, rather than make my own...(although a top 20 USA for each decade would be more useful)

Heh. Dang right about Bette, but more probably it's just too damn easy to have seen too many American films at the expense of having seen others instead. Nothing wrong with the best of the lot, but in bulk it makes a bad diet. Just ask me how I know...

[brian d]

i couldn't come up with 100. here's the top 80:

the americano (john emerson, 1916)
until they get me (frank borzage, 1917)
behind the door (irvin willat, 1919)
blind husbands (erich von stroheim, 1919)
the last of the mohicans (clarence brown; maurice tourneur, 1920)
the blot (lois weber, 1921)
foolish wives (erich von stroheim, 1922)
our hospitality (buster keaton; john g. blystone, 1923)
the navigator (buster keaton, donald crisp, 1924)
sherlock jr. (buster keaton, 1924)

the iron horse (john ford, 1924)
seven chances (buster keaton, 1925)
the general (buster keaton, clyde bruckman, 1926)
seventh heaven (frank borzage, 1927)
underworld (josef von sternberg, 1927)
street angel (frank borzage, 1928)
lonesome (pal fejös, 1928)
steamboat bill, jr. (buster keaton; charles reisner, 1928)
the docks of new york (josef von sternberg, 1928)
the wedding march (erich von stroheim, 1928)

the wind (victor sjöström, 1928)
queen kelly (erich von stroheim, 1929)
lucky star (frank borzage, 1929)
spite marriage (buster keaton, edward sedgwick, 1929)
city girl (f.w. murnau, 1930)
laughter (harry d’abbadie d’arrast, 1930)
the big trail (raoul walsh, 1930)
frankenstein (james whale, 1931)
freaks (tod browning, 1932)
shanghai express (josef von sternberg, 1932)

the story of temple drake (stephen roberts, 1933)
man’s castle (frank borzage, 1933)
design for living (ernst lubitsch, 1933)
the bride of frankenstein (james whale, 1935)
pinocchio (hamilton luske; ben sharpsteen, 1940)
the westerner (william wyler, 1940)
the shanghai gesture (josef von sternberg, 1941)
cat people (jacques tourneur, 1942)
i walked with a zombie (jacques tourneur, 1943)
specter of the rose (ben hecht, 1946)

canyon passage (jacques tourneur, 1946)
my darling clementine (john ford, 1946)
wagon master (john ford, 1950)
in a lonely place (nicholas ray, 1950)
the flame and the arrow (jacques tourneur, 1950)
winchester ’73 (anthony mann, 1950)
salt of the earth (herbert j. biberman, 1954)
track of the cat (william a. wellman, 1954)
stranger on horseback (jacques tourneur, 1955)
the man from laramie (anthony mann, 1955)

all that heaven allows (douglas sirk, 1955)
to catch a thief (alfred hitchcock, 1955)
dementia (john parker, 1955)
seven men from now (budd boetticher, 1956)
man from del rio (harry horner, 1956)
nightfall (jacques tourneur, 1957)
terror in a texas town (joseph h. lewis, 1958)
imitation of life (douglas sirk, 1959)
day of the outlaw (andré de toth, 1959)
shadows (john cassavetes, 1959)

the unforgiven (john huston, 1960)
spartacus (stanley kubrick, 1960)
one eyed jacks (marlon brando, 1961)
ride in the whirlwind (monte hellman, 1966)
the shooting (monte hellman, 1966)
paint your wagon (joshua logan, 1969)
punishment park (peter watkins, 1971)
days of heaven (terrence malick, 1978)
halloween (john carpenter, 1978)
the shining (stanley kubrick, 1980)

the blues brothers (john landis, 1980)
you are not i (sara driver, 1981)
indiana jones and the temple of doom (steven spielberg, 1984)
¡three amigos! (john landis, 1986)
walker (alex cox, 1987)
kafka (steven soderbergh, 1991)
at play in the fields of the lord (hector babenco, 1991)
the last of the mohicans (michael mann, 1992)
bram stoker’s dracula (francis ford coppola, 1992)
the age of innocence (martin scorsese, 1993)

[Umbugbene]

For this list I tried to rely more on my judgment than my taste. In other words, I put myself in the position of an AFI voter and tried to compile 100 deserving American films that represent the spectrum of American cinema. I felt no obligation to include every major actor, director, or genre, but I did try to catch a number of original outliers without omitting any top-tier masterpieces.

Way Down East (1920)
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
Exit Smiling (1926)
Sunrise (1927)
Abraham Lincoln (1930)
Bimbo's Initiation (1931)
Tabu (1931)
City Lights (1931)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Bombshell (1933)

The Scarlet Empress (1934)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Modern Times (1936)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Midnight (1939)
The Road to Singapore (1940)
The Letter (1940)
Ladies in Retirement (1941)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Shanghai Gesture (1941)
Citizen Kane (1941)
The Sea Wolf (1941)
When Ladies Meet (1941)
The Little Foxes (1941)
I Wake Up Screaming (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
Holiday Inn (1942)
Now, Voyager (1942)

I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Spellbound (1945)
Detour (1945)
Mildred Pierce (1945)
The Big Sleep (1946)
The Locket (1946)
The Razor's Edge (1946)
Dead Reckoning (1947)

Ride the Pink Horse (1947)
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
A Double Life (1947)
The Lost Moment (1947)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Love Happy (1949)
Born Yesterday (1950)
All About Eve (1950)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)

D.O.A. (1950)
September Affair (1950)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
A Place in the Sun (1951)
The African Queen (1951)
Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)
The Narrow Margin (1952)
Roman Holiday (1953)
The Naked Jungle (1954)
Rear Window (1954)

The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
The Killing (1956)
Bus Stop (1956)
What's Opera, Doc? (1957)
Vertigo (1958)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Psycho (1960)
Carnival of Souls (1962)
David and Lisa (1962)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Charade (1963)
The Nutty Professor (1963)
Marnie (1964)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Film (1965)
Seconds (1966)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Zabriskie Point (1970)

Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977)
Eraserhead (1977)
3 Women (1977)
Killer of Sheep (1977)
The Shining (1980)
Blade Runner (1982)
Powaqqatsi (1988)
Face Like a Frog (1988)
Dick Tracy (1990)
Wild at Heart (1990)

The Truman Show (1998)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Matchstick Men (2003)
The Counselor (2013)
Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Arrival (2016)
Get Out! (2017)

[Lencho of the Apes]

I haven't seen enough

it's too damn easy

It sounds as though 2DM's media landscape isn't as heavily weighted in favor of Hollywood as you might imagine. It'd be interesting to know to what extent US productions really do/don't dominate critical/fan discourse from country to country...

[...]

Things are different now than they had ever been before, that's certain. Anyone who wants to find media from outside the biggest mainstream productions that Hollywood specializes in, but which aren't wholly a Hollywood only phenomenon, can do so if they have the access to the right outlets and technical capacity to make use of them or are willing to take what they can get from easier to access free sources and spend the time searching through the huge mass of media out there to find things of interest. More importantly though they need to develop the interest in seeing things from outside the mainstream, or even know that stuff exists to begin the effort, something many neither know nor care about.

The most recent BBC poll on world movies I saw was much improved in regards to the breadth of participants they queried, still needed some fine tuning in the details, but at the same time it was a bit disappointing for how generic many of the ballots were, opting for the usual choices one might have found in older polls, with the US responses being particularly annoying as expected, but writers from many other countries not being much better. The problem seem to be in part the reluctance for many to strike out on their own and make new claims of merit, preferring instead to go through what had already been acclaimed and abiding by that aesthetic, not enough movie reviewers having any real depth of knowledge on their subject as movie reviewing requires no base of knowledge just the interest and ability to write on schedule, and the general compression of aesthetic where high and low art are now not differentiated between at all in many places, where aspiration for something better is lost and the expectation is in being coddled.

I'm not anti-mainstream movies, they have their merits and reasons for audience, but the push towards monolithic culture is strong and the internet is helping that at least as much as it helps work against it. Just ask Netflix about their strategy for global dominance of the "tv" and movie market for example.

Here's the BBC 100 Best Non-English Language Poll: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/201810 ... uage-films

[kanafani]

Top 100 SCFZ American movies, based on letterboxd ratings:

[rischka]

thx kanafani

i see a few uniquely scfz-ish films in there

[sally]

There's many reasons my USA viewing is poor, inc my antipathy to violence and post mccarthy/glorification of the individual, but mainly, for the classic Hollywood stuff, its just access. Youd be amazed at what's never been legally or illegally available in the UK. Less scrupulous rights policing on eg 1970's Bulgarian movies means I'm gonna watch more of the films I can see. That's it. TCM killed movies (I gather TCM in the UK is very diff from the US, as is mubi. Jem Cohen? Sigh)

[Brotherdeacon]

Top 100 SCFZ American movies, based on letterboxd ratings:

Thanks Kanafani, interesting list. Trying to form some patent on SFCZ taste is a bit like solving a zen koan in some places and becomes a lesson in the heart-breaking fickleness of statistics in others. We love our Wiseman docs, the Ernst Lubitsch touch, and everything from the mid 20's to the mid 50's. In 2019 I'd guess it's not reflective of the norm exactly, in fact it seems to point at a non-appreciation for post-millennium American titles altogether. Is SCFZ immune to influential contemporary films? Or is it easier giving many stars to old standards because of their seals from history's appreciation. Would SFCZ prove different with International films? Do newer American films all suck? Either way, for myself it's a good list from which to pull unseen titles I can well-assume will be interesting, though I may still slink away from Brigadoon.