The usual suspects, not the film, but the movies you would expect, made the list of the 2008 American Film Institute’s “100 films/100 years” – “All About Eve”, “Casablanca”, “Lawrence of Arabia” and the same #1 as 10 years ago when AFI published its 1st poll, Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane”. (Don’t quite know how accurate this all is, since it is all opinion, but, it is fun.)
Chosen from ballots sent to 1,500 Hollywood filmmakers, actors, writers, critics, etc, a few of the films have moved around, up, down or a complete move out into the ether. And, there were additions: “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (#50), “Saving Private Ryan” (# 71), “Titanic” (#83) and “The Sixth Sense” (#89).
Those that dropped from the 1998 “100” were: “Doctor Zhivago” 1965, “Amadeus” 1984, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” 1977 , “Dances With Wolves” 1990 and “The Jazz Singer” 1927.
How many have you seen/ missed/ want to revisit? See the top 25 below:
1. “Citizen Kane,” 1941.
2. “The Godfather,” 1972.
3. “Casablanca,” 1942.
4. “Raging Bull,” 1980.
5. “Singin’ in the Rain,” 1952.
6. “Gone With the Wind,” 1939.
7. “Lawrence of Arabia,” 1962.
8. “Schindler’s List,” 1993.
9. “Vertigo,” 1958.
10. “The Wizard of Oz,” 1939.
11. “City Lights,” 1931.
12. “The Searchers,” 1956.
13. “Star Wars,” 1977.
14. “Psycho,” 1960.
15. “2001: A Space Odyssey,” 1968.
16. “Sunset Blvd.”, 1950.
17. “The Graduate,” 1967.
18. “The General,” 1927.
19. “On the Waterfront,” 1954.
20. “It’s a Wonderful Life,” 1946.
21. “Chinatown,” 1974.
22. “Some Like It Hot,” 1959.
23. “The Grapes of Wrath,” 1940.
24. “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” 1982.
25. “To Kill a Mockingbird,” 1962.
(Some of my favorites: # 51- “Westside Story”1959, and #92 -“Goodfellas” 1990)
