'Hot,' 'Tootsie' turn AFI's comedy list into drag race
By David Finnigan

LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- "Some Like It Hot," Billy Wilder's 1959 film starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, tops the American Film Institute's list of America's 100 funniest movies, the third such AFI salute to the 100th anniversary of American film.

The list was unveiled Tuesday night during a three-hour CBS special, "AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Laughs," hosted by Drew Barrymore.

Following Wilder's classic in the top slots are Sydney Pollack's cross-dressing 1982 smash "Tootsie," Stanley Kubrick's 1964 "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb," Woody Allen's 1977 Oscar winner "Annie Hall" and the Marx Brothers' 1933 classic "Duck Soup."

The Farrelly brothers' 1998 "There's Something About Mary" (No. 27) is the most recent film on the list, while silent film star Buster Keaton's 1924 "Sherlock Jr." (No. 62) is the oldest. The AFI only allowed feature films of at least one hour in length to qualify.

Cary Grant is the list's most celebrated actor, starring in eight of the 100 films, while the Marx Brothers and Allen starred in five each. Katharine Hepburn and Margaret Dumont share the title of most represented actress on the list, each having starred in four films in the top 100. Five of Allen's films made the list, making him the most represented director. Brooks directed three of the top 13.

AFI director and CEO Jean Picker Firstenberg said this latest list will pull movie fans out of the routine of constantly talking about weekend grosses and instead talk about a movie's inherent value.

"It creates excitement about film history," Firstenberg said.

But veteran film critic Roger Ebert thinks the list is meaningless. "I think it's important to understand what it is: It's a fund-raising event. The list fuels the TV special and the video store (rentals) and that raises money for the AFI and the AFI is a good cause."

The list was culled from 500 entries by means of 1,800 ballots sent out to entertainment industry executives, actors, film critics, cinematographers and directors. Prior AFI "100 Years" lists have honored the 100 best American films and the top 50 screen legends.



1. Some Like It Hot (1959)
2. Tootsie (1982)
3. Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying About And Love The Bomb (1964)
4. Annie Hall (1977)
5. Duck Soup (1933)
6. Blazing Saddles (1974)
7. M*A*S*H (1970)
8. It Happened One Night (1934)
9. The Graduate (1967)
10. Airplane! (1980)
11. The Producers (1968)
12. A Night At The Opera (1935)
13. Young Frankenstein (1974)
14. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
15. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
16. Singin' In The Rain (1952)
17. The Odd Couple (1968)
18. The General (1927)
19. His Girl Friday (1940)
20. The Apartment (1960)
21. A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
22. Adam's Rib (1949)
23. When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
24. Born Yesterday (1950)
25. The Gold Rush (1925)
26. Being There (1979)
27. There's Something About Mary (1998)
28. Ghostbusters (1984)
29. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
30. Arsenic And Old Lace (1944)
31. Raising Arizona (1987)
32. The Thin Man (1934)
33. Modern Times (1936)
34. Groundhog Day (1993)
35. Harvey (1950)
36. National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
37. The Great Dictator (1940)
38. City Lights (1931)
39. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
40. It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
41. Moonstruck (1987)
42. Big (1988)
43. American Graffiti (1973)
44. My Man Godfrey (1936)
45. Harold And Maude (1972)
46. Manhattan (1979)
47. Shampoo (1975)
48. A Shot In The Dark (1964)
49. To Be Or Not To Be (1942)
50. Cat Ballou (1965)
51. The Seven Year Itch (1955)
52. Ninotchka (1939)
53. Arthur (1981)
54. The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek (1944)
55. The Lady Eve (1941)
56. Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
57. Diner (1982)
58. It's A Gift (1934)
59. A Day At The Races (1937)
60. Topper (1937)
61. What's Up, Doc? (1972)
62. Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
63. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
64. Broadcast News (1987)
65. Horse Feathers (1932)
66. Take The Money And Run (1969)
67. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
68. The Awful Truth (1937)
69. Bananas (1971)
70. Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936)
71. Caddyshack (1980)
72. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)
73. Monkey Business (1931)
74. 9 To 5 (1980)
75. She Done Him Wrong (1933)
76. Victor/Victoria (1982)
77. The Palm Beach Story (1942)
78. Road To Morocco (1942)
79. The Freshman (1925)
80. Sleeper (1973)
81. The Navigator (1924)
82. Private Benjamin (1980)
83. Father Of The Bride (1950)
84. Lost In America (1985)
85. Dinner At Eight (1933)
86. City Slickers (1991)
87. Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)
88. Beetlejuice (1988)
89. The Jerk (1979)
90. Woman Of The Year (1942)
91. The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
92. Ball Of Fire (1941)
93. Fargo (1996)
94. Auntie Mame (1958)
95. Silver Streak (1976)
96. Sons Of The Desert (1933)
97. Bull Durham (1988)
98. The Court Jester (1956)
99. The Nutty Professor (1963)
100. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)


My reactions

Why the 60 minute rule? That left out more classic Laurel & Hardy, not to mention the Stooges. Glaring omissions: Back to the Future, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, The Blues Brothers and The Truth About Cats and Dogs to name a few. For the most part I like this list the most of all of them since comedy is so underappreciated anyway.

Bogart, Hepburn Top Stars List

By JEFF WILSON Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Humphrey Bogart and his "African Queen" co-star Katharine Hepburn led the American Film Institute's list today of the 50 greatest screen legends, a lineup missing many of the biggest stars of silent films and musicals.

The roster was unveiled during a three-hour special on CBS.

Cary Grant was No. 2 on the list of greatest male actors, followed by James Stewart, Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy and Charlie Chaplin. Only four on the men's list -- Brando, Gregory Peck, Kirk Douglas and Sidney Poitier -- are still alive.

Following Miss Hepburn among female legends were, in order: Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford. There are five living female legends -- Miss Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, Shirley Temple and Sophia Loren.

"For a guy who didn't think of acting as a competitive sport, he would have been honored and awestruck by this," Bogart's son Stephen said. "You look at the 75 films he's done, from 'The African Queen' to 'Casablanca,' 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre' and 'The Maltese Falcon.' These were all such disparate roles, yet he carried them all off."

Stephen Bogart's mother is Miss Bacall, who was No. 20 among the actresses.

"I'm shocked and I'm flattered beyond words," she said by telephone from Italy. "My God! I would never have expected it. But I'm not surprised that Bogie's No. 1." She added: "Gee, this makes me feel a hell of a lot more important than I am. I'm going to call my agent right now."

The Tuesday night show was patterned after last summer's AFI special that named the 100 best American movies. "Citizen Kane" was No. 1, followed by "Casablanca," "The Godfather," "Gone With the Wind," "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Wizard of Oz."

Critics and movie buffs jumped on the AFI for overlooking so many silent movies. Only four were chosen, and way down in 44th place was D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation."

"We expect that sort of thing again. Someone will find fault," AFI chairman Tom Pollock said. "Lists by their nature create controversy because of who is on them and who is left off them."

Those who didn't make the top 50 greatest stars included Douglas Fairbanks, Ronald Colman, Rudolph Valentino, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Harold Lloyd, Alec Guinness, Mickey Rooney, Fredric March, Doris Day, Loretta Young, Olivia de Havilland, Bob Hope, Will Rogers, Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Clara Bow, Gloria Swanson and Tom Mix.

"The silent film people always get the shaft. This is more a comment on a lack of cinema literacy," film critic and historian Leonard Maltin said. "But who on this list isn't deserving? I'd find it hard to argue against anyone who's on the list."

The AFI compilation also paid little regard to musicals. Astaire, Miss Rogers and Miss Garland appeared from that film genre, but Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra were missing.

By design, current box office stars like Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, John Travolta, Harrison Ford and Susan Sarandon weren't included.

AFI defined "American screen legend" as an actor with a significant presence in movies whose debut occurred before 1951 or whose debut occurred after 1950 but produced a significant body of work before the performer's death.

That allowed the inclusion of James Dean (No. 18) and Grace Kelly (No. 13).

Jurors were asked to consider five criteria: star quality (charisma and presence), craft (ability to embody different characters), legacy (body of work), popularity and historical context.

Ballots were sent to more than 1,800 people in the film industry -- both behind and in front of the camera -- critics, writers, cultural leaders, President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. It wasn't known whether Clinton and Gore voted.

Entertainment writers and editors of The Associated Press, in a recently compiled list of the 25 most significant stars of the century, also selected Bogart, Miss Bacall and Miss Hepburn, but included Fairbanks, Valentino and Laurel and Hardy. Not limited by the AFI's rules, the AP also singled out Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mickey Mouse.



AFI's 50 Greatest Screen Legends

By The Associated Press

The American Film Institute's 50 greatest screen legends:

MEN

1. Humphrey Bogart

2. Cary Grant

3. James Stewart

4. Marlon Brando

5. Fred Astaire

6. Henry Fonda

7. Clark Gable

8. James Cagney

9. Spencer Tracy

10. Charlie Chaplin

11. Gary Cooper

12. Gregory Peck

13. John Wayne

14. Laurence Olivier

15. Gene Kelly

16. Orson Welles

17. Kirk Douglas

18. James Dean

19. Burt Lancaster

20. The Marx Brothers

21. Buster Keaton

22. Sidney Poitier

23. Robert Mitchum

24. Edward G. Robinson

25. William Holden

WOMEN

1. Katharine Hepburn

2. Bette Davis

3. Audrey Hepburn

4. Ingrid Bergman

5. Greta Garbo

6. Marilyn Monroe

7. Elizabeth Taylor

8. Judy Garland

9. Marlene Dietrich

10. Joan Crawford

11. Barbara Stanwyck

12. Claudette Colbert

13. Grace Kelly

14. Ginger Rogers

15. Mae West

16. Vivien Leigh

17. Lillian Gish

18. Shirley Temple

19. Rita Hayworth

20. Lauren Bacall

21. Sophia Loren

22. Jean Harlow

23. Carole Lombard

24. Mary Pickford

25. Ava Gardner


AFI Names Top 100 U.S. Films
By BOB THOMAS
.c The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (June 17) - Frankly, my dear, ''Gone With the Wind'' doesn't measure up.

A panel of the American Film Institute says the best American feature film ever is ''Citizen Kane,'' followed by ''Casablanca'' and ''The Godfather.''

Scarlett and Rhett wound up in fourth place.

The rest of the top 10 are ''Lawrence of Arabia,'' ''The Wizard of Oz,'' ''The Graduate,'' ''On the Waterfront,'' ''Schindler's List,'' and ''Singin' in the Rain.''

Who chose this list of the top 100? Apparently it was done by 1,500 film people, critics and moviegoers. The only voters identified were President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

Whoever the voters were, they seem deficient in film history.

Astoundingly, only four silent movies were chosen. Way down at No. 44 came D.W. Griffith's ''The Birth of a Nation,'' perhaps the most influential film of all time. (It has been harshly criticized for its anti-black depictions, including Ku Klux Klan heroes and black villains.)

The other silents were all Charlie Chaplin - ''Gold Rush'' (No. 74), ''City Lights'' (No. 76) and ''Modern Times'' (No. 81).

What about the great Buster Keaton comedies such as ''The General''? Or King Vidor's monumental war film, ''The Big Parade''? Or the first great western, ''The Covered Wagon''?

Not to mention ''The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,'' ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame,'' ''The Thief of Bagdad'' and the films of Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. All were no shows on the list.

Most of the movies were dramas. In addition, there were 11 comedies, eight musicals, nine war movies, eight westerns, four science fiction films and four horror movies. Two were animated features, both from Disney, ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' (No. 49) and ''Fantasia'' (No. 58).

The choices were made public in a three-hour CBS special Tuesday night, and the hoopla continues with a Newsweek special edition, a cable series, Blockbuster video store tie-ins and more. All this to help raise cash for the AFI, which helps preserve films, sponsors research and trains filmmakers.

It wasn't known how many votes each film received, or exactly who did the voting. The criteria were wide-ranging and vague in what organizers said was an admittedly subjective enterprise.

The time period spans from 1896, when the first commercial films were shown in New York, to 1996. Of the 400 films voters chose from, the oldest was 1912's ''Richard III,'' the earliest known surviving silent feature.

The voters seem to have short memories about crime movies, too. They made such questionable selections as ''Fargo'' (No. 84), ''Goodfellas'' (No. 94) and ''Pulp Fiction'' (No. 95), overlooking such 1930s classics as ''Scarface,'' ''Little Caesar'' and ''Public Enemy.'' Also missing is John Huston's 1950 gem, ''The Asphalt Jungle.''

''Life is a cabaret, old chum,'' but not to the AFI voters. They overlooked Bob Fosse's great 1972 musical ''Cabaret'' with Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, as well as ''42nd Street,'' ''Top Hat,'' ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' ''The Band Wagon'' and ''Gigi.''

Musicals were recognized: ''The Wizard of Oz'' (No. 6), ''Singin' in the Rain'' (No. 10), ''West Side Story'' (No. 41), ''An American in Paris'' (No. 68), ''My Fair Lady'' (No. 91).

The great James Cagney vehicle, ''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' was No. 100.

Thirty Oscar winners as best pictures made the list, but there were some surprising omissions: ''Grand Hotel,'' ''Lost Weekend,'' ''All the King's Men,'' ''The Sting,'' ''Out of Africa'' and ''Rain Man.''

Greta Garbo, regarded by many critics as the screen's greatest actress, was not represented in the list. Her greatest film, ''Camille,'' failed to qualify.

Katharine Hepburn led the actresses with four films, while Natalie Wood, Diane Keaton and Faye Dunaway had three each.

In all, Steven Spielberg directed five of the top 100 movies, more than any other director on the list. Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder had four each.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out Oscars, has always been negligent about recognizing comedy. AFI voters did better. Among those cited: ''Some Like It Hot'' (No. 16), ''M A S H'' (No. 56), ''Tootsie'' (No. 62), ''Duck Soup'' (No. 85), ''Bringing Up Baby'' (No. 97) and the three Chaplin silents.

''Bringing Up Baby'' was the only example of a screwball comedy. What about ''The Awful Truth,'' ''My Favorite Wife,'' ''His Girl Friday'' and others? Also overlooked was the Marx Brothers' best film, ''A Night at the Opera.''

The great social commentator, Preston Sturges, is woefully missing. Such films as ''The Lady Eve,'' ''The Miracle of Morgan's Creek'' and ''Sullivan's Travels'' were comedic milestones.

And how could any list of the 100 greatest American films not include the second best western after ''Stagecoach,'' Howard Hawks' ''Red River''?



Top Movies? It's Up to the Voters
By IRVIN MOLOTSKY

WASHINGTON -- Charlton Heston does not think "Casablanca" is among the best American movies ever made, but Newt Gingrich does.

Gingrich, the speaker of the House, is joined in his opinion of "Casablanca" by President Clinton. That is one of the few things they have agreed on lately.

Anyone who has ever stood in a movie line, stayed up half the night watching an old film on television or argued a movie's merits around the office water cooler has an opinion, often defended passionately.

So which are the best movies? To celebrate 100 years of American cinema, the American Film Institute compiled a list of the top 400, based on the recommendations of a 1,500-member panel, and then turned to people like Heston and Clinton to vote on the 100 best on secret ballots. It will present its findings on Tuesday night in a three-hour television program on CBS.

Heston voted, but it is not known whether Clinton did. Vice President Al Gore, who also got a ballot, did not vote, his staff said. Heston was not pleased that Clinton and Gore even got ballots. "They don't know anything about movies," said Heston, a former head of the film institute and new president of the National Rifle Association. "They will make safe choices."

Several people were asked by The New York Times to select the 10 best, a daunting task. Heston gamely submitted his list, as did the actor Gregory Peck, who chose 10 without ranking them, and the film critic Leonard Maltin, who listed them in order. Gingrich provided a list of his 10 favorites, not necessarily the best, including three not on the list of 400.

Jodie Foster, the actor-director, declined to offer a list, saying: "I don't think I could do it. The films that influenced me were French movies of the 1950s and '60s," including "The 400 Blows," "A Man and a Woman" and "Breathless."

Every movie that won the Academy Award as best picture is on the list of nominees, except the Laurence Olivier version of "Hamlet," which was made and financed by the British.

The film institute restricted the list of nominees (the cutoff date was 1996) to feature-length works of fiction in English "with significant creative and/or financial production elements from the United States."

The financial provision allowed the inclusion of several movies that many Americans won't recognize as American, like the 1939 "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," which Maltin describes in his annual Movie and Video Guide as British. By the same token, money came before art in the nomination of "The Bridge on the River Kwai," which was directed by David Lean and which Maltin lists as British.

There are numerous commercial tie-ins to the institute's project. Sponsors for the three-hour CBS program include the Cadillac Division of General Motors. Its hosts will be Ms. Foster, Richard Gere and Sally Field, and there will be interviews with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, Dustin Hoffman, Candice Bergen, Richard Dreyfuss, Julia Roberts and Heston.

Starting next week, the TNT cable channel will present 10 weekly one-hour specials, each devoted to 10 movies, grouped in categories like family values and anti-heroes.

In September, the Turner Classic Movies cable channel will hold a weeklong film festival and show as many of the top 100 films as it can get the rights to. Some will be readily available to Turner, whose interests own most of the film libraries of MGM, Warner Bros. and RKO. Warner Bros. is said to have 56 of the 100 selected films.

Finally, the 13 film studios and companies represented in the project will rerelease videotape copies of the films in boxes with commemorative stickers. This could produce a commercial windfall for the studios, which have had little luck selling videos of some of even the greatest classics. These will not be new prints of the films but rather old movies in new boxes.

The commercialization has its critics, like Jessica Rosner, who rents copies of films to colleges and other institutions.

"It's a paid commercial for the studios," she said. "It gives them free publicity with the AFI's seal of approval. It has no relation to great films but is a promotion by the studios and the AFI to sell videos."

A film historian, who spoke on condition that he not be identified, because he did not want to jeopardize his institution's relations with the film institute and the studios, was also dismissive of the project. The videos available from the top 100 list, he said, will not provide the best versions that are on the market.

If, as seems certain, D.W. Griffith's 1915 classic, "The Birth of a Nation," makes the top 100, he said, the print that will get the film institute's sticker is the one sold by Republic, which runs at the wrong speed and has missing footage. Another version, which is sold by Keno International, runs at the proper speed and is complete.

And some of those who voted on the list had to overlook their own interests in considering the best films. Peck, the first chairman of the institute, who has six movies among the 400 nominees, had "Casablanca" on his top-10 list but took it off to find a spot for "Grand Hotel." He said he had to include something with Greta Garbo, who memorably said "I want to be alone" in a hotel where, it was said: "People come, people go. Nothing ever happens."

At first reluctant to put together a list, Peck compiled one during a telephone interview, though he excluded from consideration his own nominated films, which include "Gentleman's Agreement" and "Twelve O'Clock High." Most of Peck's selections were from the 1930s, but he included "Raging Bull" (1980) in homage to its director, Martin Scorsese, whom he regards as outstanding.

He wrestled with his selections, saying at one point: "I didn't include 'Citizen Kane.' Oh, boy! But I don't want to give up 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."' He removed "The Big Parade" and added "The Bridge on the River Kwai." He juggled two Chaplin classics, dropping "The Kid" and substituting "City Lights." He also put Chaplin's "Gold Rush" on his best-10 list.

Some hours after the interview, Peck telephoned back and squeezed "A Night at the Opera" onto his list, saying, "I've got to have a Marx Brothers movie."

Heston, who recently completed filming his 75th movie, "Gideon," also declined to select the 10 best, but later weakened. Like Peck, he said, propriety dictated that he not select any of his own; he, too had six movies among the 400 nominees, including "Ben-Hur," for which he won the Oscar as best actor of 1959, and "The Ten Commandments," in which he played Moses.

His selection of "Citizen Kane" as No. 1 is likely to be the popular one -- Maltin also made it his No. 1 pick -- but omitting "Casablanca" from the top 10 may put Heston in the minority.

"'Casablanca' has become a cult film, which perhaps makes it more than it was," he said. "I would not rank it with 'The Grapes of Wrath' or 'Shane."'

Gingrich, an ally of Heston in conservative politics, made "Casablanca" his No. 8 selection.

"It is a great romance," Gingrich said. "It's totally camp, but it's about a great moment in the history of the 20th century, the triumph of good over evil. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman! Wouldn't every couple you know want to have spent that weekend in Paris?"

Most important, Gingrich said, "I'm very big on good winning over evil."

Ms. Foster, who has two movies -- "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Taxi Driver" -- among the 400, said the selectors "tried to be fair" but included some movies that were not worthy. "Great filmmaking is not about special effects and pyrotechnics," she said.

While Clinton may not have voted for the best movies, he is known to be a film buff. In 1992, The Associated Press reported that his favorites were "High Noon" and "Casablanca."

Maltin picked both a Chaplin film ("Modern Times") and one by the Marx Brothers ("A Night at the Opera") among his top 10. Asked how he could account for the panel's not including another Chaplin classic, "The Great Dictator," among the 400 nominees, even though Chaplin's "Gold Rush" and "City Lights" were on the list, Maltin said he preferred to see the glass as three-quarters full instead of one-quarter empty.

"I was heartened to find as many films of that period that I did," he said. "I thought they would pick pictures of recent years. If you are talking about great important films, you could put every Charlie Chaplin, every Buster Keaton, every John Ford, every Preston Sturges, every Alfred Hitchcock film on the list and be justified."

Maltin reflected on his selection of mostly older movies, saying: "People chide me for putting so many old films on my lists of favorites. I admire a lot of films that I see today, but I don't love them."

And he said of Clinton's choices: "You can't go wrong when we have a president who says his favorite films are 'Casablanca' and 'High Noon."'



1 Citizen Kane, 1941
2 Casablanca, 1942
3 The Godfather, 1972
4 Gone With the Wind, 1939
5 Lawrence of Arabia, 1962
6 The Wizard of Oz, 1939
7 The Graduate, 1967
8 On the Waterfront, 1954
9 Schindler's List, 1993
10 Singin' in the Rain, 1952
11 It's a Wonderful Life, 1946
12 Sunset Blvd., 1950
13 The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957
14 Some Like It Hot, 1959
15 Star Wars, 1977
16 All About Eve, 1950
17 The African Queen, 1951
18 Psycho, 1960
19 Chinatown, 1974
20One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975
21 The Grapes of Wrath, 1940
22 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968
23 The Maltese Falcon, 1941
24 Raging Bull, 1980
25 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, 1982
26 Dr. Strangelove, 1964
27 Bonnie & Clyde, 1967
28 Apocalypse Now, 1979
29 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939
30 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948
31 Annie Hall, 1977
32 The Godfather, Part II, 1974
33 High Noon, 1952
34 To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962
35 It Happened One Night, 1934
36 Midnight Cowboy, 1969
37 The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946
38 Double Indemnity, 1944
39 Doctor Zhivago, 1965
40 North by Northwest, 1959
41 West Side Story, 1961
42 Rear Window, 1954
43 King Kong, 1933
44 The Birth of a Nation, 1915
45 A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
46 A Clockwork Orange, 1971
47 Taxi Driver, 1976
48 Jaws, 1975
49 Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, 1937
50 Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, 1969
51 The Philadelphia Story, 1940
52 From Here to Eternity, 1953
53 Amadeus, 1984
54 All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930
55 The Sound of Music, 1965
56 M*A*S*H, 1970
57 The Third Man, 1949
58 Fantasia, 1940
59 Rebel Without a Cause, 1955
60 Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981
61 Vertigo, 1958
62 Tootsie, 1982
63 Stagecoach, 1939
64 Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977
65 The Silence of the Lambs, 1991
66 Network, 1976
67 The Manchurian Candidate, 1962
68 An American in Paris, 1951
69 Shane, 1953
70 The French Connection, 1971
71 Forrest Gump, 1994
72 Ben-Hur, 1959
73 Wuthering Heights, 1939
74 The Gold Rush, 1925
75 Dances With Wolves, 1990
76 City Lights, 1931
77 American Graffiti, 1973
78 Rocky, 1976
79 The Deer Hunter, 1978
80 The Wild Bunch, 1969
81 Modern Times, 1936
82 Giant, 1956
83 Platoon, 1986
84 Fargo, 1996
85 Duck Soup, 1933
86 Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935
87 Frankenstein, 1931
88 Easy Rider, 1969
89 Patton, 1970
90 The Jazz Singer, 1927
91 My Fair Lady, 1964
92 A Place in the Sun, 1951
93 The Apartment, 1960
94 GoodFellas, 1990
95 Pulp Fiction, 1994
96 The Searchers, 1956
97 Bringing Up Baby, 1938
98 Unforgiven, 1992
99 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 1967
100 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942


My Reactions

There's been so much else written on this page, so there's not much more to add. There were precious few comedies on the list. Where was The General or many other works by Buster Keaton for that matter? Where was Airplane!, "the greatest comedy of all time" according to Entertainment Weekly? Where was Mel Brooks? Young Frankenstein, The Producers, and Blazing Saddles could've all made that list. And Duck Soup, but no Night at the Opera? Frankenstein, but no Bride of Frankenstein? The Empire Strikes Back should've been ranked somewhere ahead of Star Wars. Finally, 2001: A Space Odyssey was so revolutionary, it should've at least been in the top 10.
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