Last week I posted the IMDB Top 250, and I listed the ones I'd seen in bold. I had only seen 91 out of 250 at the time of that post, but since then I've added three more. Subsequently, we all pretty much came to the conclusion that lists like this are meaningless... especially the IMDB list, which is chosen by popular votes from ordinary yokels. (If you have any illusions that the masses are capable of choosing the best movies, just look at the weekly top grosses so far in 2008).
In spite of all that, I thought I'd waste a bit more time, and post the AFI 100. This list was published in 2007, and was chosen, of course, by the American Film Institute. The main glaring flaw of this list, in my opinion, is that it fully ignores foreign language films (which include many of my favorites). So, whatever. If my count is correct, I've seen 39 of these.
- Citizen Kane (1941)
- The Godfather (1972)
- Casablanca (1942)
- Raging Bull (1980)
- Singin' in the Rain (1952)
- Gone With the Wind (1939)
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- Schindler's List (1993)
- Vertigo (1958)
- The Wizard of Oz (1939)
- City Lights (1931)
- The Searchers (1956)
- Star Wars (1977)
- Psycho (1960)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
- Sunset Blvd. (1950)
- The Graduate (1967)
- The General (1927)
- On the Waterfront (1954)
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
- Chinatown (1974)
- Some Like It Hot (1959)
- The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
- E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
- To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
- High Noon (1952)
- All About Eve (1950)
- Double Indemnity (1944)
- Apocalypse Now (1979)
- The Maltese Falcon (1941)
- The Godfather Part II (1974)
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
- Annie Hall (1977)
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
- Dr. Strangelove (1964)
- The Sound of Music (1965)
- King Kong (1933)
- Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
- Midnight Cowboy (1969)
- The Philadelphia Story (1940)
- Shane (1953)
- It Happened One Night (1934)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
- Rear Window (1954)
- Intolerance (1916)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
- West Side Story (1961)
- Taxi Driver (1976)
- The Deer Hunter (1978)
- M*A*S*H (1970)
- North by Northwest (1959)
- Jaws (1975)
- Rocky (1976)
- The Gold Rush (1925)
- Nashville (1975)
- Duck Soup (1933)
- Sullivan's Travels (1941)
- American Graffiti (1973)
- Cabaret (1972)
- Network (1976)
- The African Queen (1951)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
- Unforgiven (1992)
- Tootsie (1982)
- A Clockwork Orange (1971)
- Saving Private Ryan (1998)
- The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
- The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
- In the Heat of the Night (1967)
- Forrest Gump (1994)
- All the President's Men (1976)
- Modern Times (1936)
- The Wild Bunch (1969)
- The Apartment (1960)
- Spartacus (1960)
- Sunrise (1927)
- Titanic (1997)
- Easy Rider (1969)
- A Night at the Opera (1935)
- Platoon (1986)
- 12 Angry Men (1957)
- Bringing Up Baby (1938)
- The Sixth Sense (1999)
- Swing Time (1936)
- Sophie's Choice (1982)
- Goodfellas (1990)
- The French Connection (1971)
- Pulp Fiction (1994)
- The Last Picture Show (1971)
- Do the Right Thing (1989)
- Blade Runner (1982)
- Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
- Toy Story (1995)
- Ben-Hur (1959)
Well, that's it. I think it might also be fun to do a list of all the Academy Awards for Best Picture (it's always fun to count along during the Oscar montage), and maybe the top-grossing films of all time. But eventually I'll do the perfect list... which, of course, will be my own Top 100. Because my list will be flawless, naturally.
...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.
