How many of AFI's top 100 movies have you actually seen?
So many so-called cinephiles I know haven't seen much made before 1970.
How many of AFI's top 100 movies have you actually seen?
How many of AFI's top 100 movies have you actually seen?
So many so-called cinephiles I know haven't seen much made before 1970.
I've probably see like 20 of those. Something I notice is that there's no movies from the 21st century. It's just a list made by old people who think
>my stuff better than your stuff 🙂
Also, I don't even know what AFI stands for.
It's the American Film Institute. They publish a list of what they consider to be the most important American films ever made that they update every few years. They poll people in the industry itself, not just critics.
Isn’t that list from 2007 and never updated
It was updated once in 2008 then never again. I assume they're waiting until some specific anniversary for the next iteration. It will probably be much worse.
Of all the animated Disney movies Snow White seems seems like an odd choice. I get it was an important film from a historical standpoint but The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin,Mulan and the Lion King are all way better movies
Ninety, missing Annie Hall, Birth Of a Nation, Amadeus, An American in Paris, The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, Duck Soup, The Jazz Singer, Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Frick off, capeshitter.
A lot of these are British, to me anyway.
I've seen 18, but I'm not a "cinephile" or someone who goes out of my way to watch movies from critics' lists. I watch what interests me and a lot of the time that's very different than what the critics are watching.
Yeah, I'm exactly the same. The word critic actually means nothing to me. Cinemaphile is full of critics; Someone being paid to give their opinion doesn't give the opinion more value.
If someone I like suggests a movie, then I will consider watching it. I can't think of any critics I like.
>I can't think of any critics I like.
I unironically agree with Ebert's opinions 99.9% of the time. His approach of "how much _I_ enjoy the movie as a regular viewer first, and all other snobby reasons the far second" is spot on. Miss that old homie.
Why the frick would i watch something made before 1970? Lmao frick off
Probably about 80 but just right off the top for example I probably have little to no working knowledge of Citizen Kane. I have absolutely no idea what the actual plot is. Just the general setting, characters, etc. I've probably seen it at least twice but a very long time ago and likely didn't really digest then either. Same with The Godfather. I have absolutely no idea what the actual plot is.
It's basically just the biography of a successful newspaper businessman loosely based on a real figure of the period. The plot is nothing special it's the innovative cinematography that was what made it such a groundbreaking film.
That's the old list. The new one has Lord of the Rings and Toy Story
JFC
<<Of course Bogdanovich wouldn't laugh since he made the list.
ok. I've only seen 77 from this list.
Same guy who just posted their chart going through the new additions in the 2007 version.
Unwatched but own it
>Fellowship of the Ring
>Titanic
>The Sixth Sense
Seen it
>Shawshank
>A Night at the Opera
>Blade Runner (workprint version)
>Toy Story
That makes for 38 movies I've seen and 19 I own (and are thus higher up in my backlog than things I don't own) out of 123 movies. 46% from that alone, which doesn't even consider that I'll probably eventually watch everything else (other than Annie Hall).
why the frick is there so much Spielberg? raiders was really the only good movie he made and george lucas basically made it
Early 2000s Hollywood loved Spielberg
65
Zardoz!!!
>not a single movie from the last 25 years
Yeah im not taking this boomer list seriously
That's what I said. They legitimately think old = better, which isn't true at all. Consider this: The decision of old people are why Western nations are diverse shitholes. What do they really know about anything?
The decisions of old people*
The list is concerned with the most important and influential movies, not necessarily the best. Older movies have had more time to influence other works.
Then why isn’t Iron Man on the list?
The last update was in 2007
Then who the frick cares
So this is a list of what old people liked 17 years ago? Half these people are probably dead now
The list is a document of which American movies people most valued in the 20th century. It's not a definitive list of the greatest films of all time.
I would shit on this but it's hard to think of many deserving films from the past two decades.
Lotr. Spirited away. The departed. Oldboy. Parasite. Eternal sunshine. Doesn’t really matter what i say youll probably shit on it to be contrarian.
Lord of the Rings, Oldboy, and Spirited Away are now all older than two decades
Fair enough. Still more modern than anything on that list and more deserving imo. Sidenote, i had to google LOTR:ROTK. Dam. Im old
It's not contrarian, you clearly have not watched enough movies to know what you are looking at.
No Country for Old Men would be an obvious one
I've seen most of the list, it's decent but flawed. I really enjoy Jonathan Rosenbaum's critique of the list and he offered a far more interesting alternative list of films.
>Unlike every other comparable national institution on the globe, which considers world cinema of national importance, the American Film Institute restricts its focus to films of its own nationality. (The organization was launched during the Johnson administration, at a time when patriots must have been concerned about Americans seeing too many foreign pictures.) This means that a mere survey of the best 100 movies, full stop, is a lot more than the AFI can handle, and a recycling of already overtouted product has to be delivered to our doorsteps all over again, just to prove what fine citizens we are. To make matters worse, as Michael Wilmington recently pointed out in the Tribune, “The battle-weary NEA, which used to supply The AFI with several million dollars in annual grants now gives about $100,000. By contrast, Britain supports its own Film Institute to the tune of over $60 million a year.”
>Yet on reflection, whether the AFI can justify getting even two cents on its present agenda is doubtful in my opinion. I’m told that when they recently shut down their art theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the AFI’s director, Jean Firstenberg, said to the press that video made repertory programming unnecessary; if that’s what she said and that’s what she meant, I’d rather see the same funds used to reduce the AFI to rubble. Given its egregious industry ass-kissing throughout its existence, I’m tempted to conclude that the AFI’s only substantial contribution to film culture — American or global — is the fact that David Lynch’s Eraserhead was produced at its film school.
>Let me hasten to add that if I were drawing up my own list of the 100 greatest American movies from scratch, roughly a quarter of the AFI’s list would be on it. But because I’m writing for an alternative newspaper, it seems more useful to offer an alternative list of 100 features rather than an unwieldy composite of the 25 or so AFI titles I can live with and 75 others. I’ve also decided to list my choices alphabetically rather than impose any kind of order based on merit, which would be tantamount to ranking oranges over apples and declaring Wednesday superior to Monday. For if these lists have any purpose at all from our standpoint (as opposed to the interests of the merchandisers), this is surely to rouse us out of our boredom and stupor, not to ratify our already foreshortened definitions and perspectives. Above all, the impulse to provide another list is to defend the breadth, richness, and intelligence of the American cinema against its self-appointed custodians, who seem to want to lock us into an eternity of Oscar nights.
>But the malaise I’m talking about, provoked by the aforementioned list of 100 movies, isn’t just a response to the long-term uselessness of the AFI; it’s about the increasing lack of any viable distinction between what used to be called Public Works and corporate greed. Whether in the present circumstances this has grown out of a holy or unholy alliance between the AFI, Blockbuster Video, CBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, and the home video divisions of 13 film studios — all of which have planned a summer full of jolly hooplah around this tacky list to promote their joint efforts — doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the rise of corporate cultural initiatives bent on selling and reselling what we already know and have, making every alternative appear more scarce and esoteric, and not even attempting to expand or illuminate the choices made in the process.
>The vicissitudes of availability (read: access) always play a major role in developing film tastes and canons, and if the AFI and its business cronies had wanted to do something genuinely useful, they might have polled the same group of individuals about the 100 most neglected America movies and then made an effort to make them available, on film and on video. I can’t say I’d agree with all the results, and, as I’ve already suggested, some of the most neglected films are experimental works that wouldn’t work on video anyway. But it’s emblematic of how far we are from any reasonable film culture that, even if the AFI and company had elected to make the first ten or 25 films on its own list available in new 35-millimeter prints, to be shown in theaters across the country, a veritable revolution would have to occur in the studios to make such an occurrence possible.
>Should one snobbishly conclude from this that non-Americans are necessarily more intelligent and discerning when it comes to American movies? I wouldn’t. It’s important to bear in mind that the RFA polled 203 film professionals — historians, critics, archivists, directors, teachers, and even a few students — whereas the AFI polled over 1500 Americans of every conceivable stripe in terms of their knowledge about film. (If memory serves, I was one of them.) One should add that the RFA’s and the AFI’s notions of what a “film professional” is couldn’t be more disparate: in this country, where familiarity with film history rarely plays any role in the hiring of reviewers, “film professionals” tend to get defined in tautological terms as people who write about films. (Combined with institutional validation, this produces all sorts of strange anomalies — such as the process by which, say, Pauline Kael and Daphne Merkin might be regarded as sisters under the skin.) The differences between Americans and non-Americans in judging American movies are basically matters of access and cultural conditioning — not taste or intelligence in isolation from these factors — and the consequences of these differences can be staggering.
The whole thing is worth reading
https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/06/list-o-mania-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-american-movies/
while I mostly agree with the guy, and he writes well, his list, and the notable omissions he mentions, gives me the suspicion that he cribbed a fair bit from 'A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies'.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112120/movieconnections/
I appreciate his candor about his own limitations and how his particular access to film, and he himself being of his particular era, informs his list, which is a valuable one, as I had never heard of a handful that are on it, and I think it's a fine thing that he kept animated films separate.
What I'd really like to see, though, is a set of 'top x' lists that don't attempt to compare across vastly different eras. Roughly speaking, I'd group them like this:
>1929 and previous
>1930-1958
>1959-1975
>1976-1993
>1994-2014
>2015-onward
It always struck me as silly to try to compare silent films to talkies; they're just too different. In the same way, I'd separate animated films from live-action, and I'd separate musicals too: again, just too different; it's its own genre, in the same way that one wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) try to judge concert films in the same way one would a narrative movie.
Like Rosenbaum, I think we'd start to see a lot more interesting neglected stuff if we took any of these well-worn lists and said 'make a list that doesn't include any of the following.'
Good post, and thanks.
I understand separating silent pictures from talkies, but could you elaborate on what made you pick certain years for all your other groupings?
>what made you pick certain years for all your other groupings?
mostly playing it by feel, to be perfectly honest. I considered a cross-section of films from the early 30s (Arrowsmith, M, The Public Enemy, The Front Page, Scarface, 42nd Street, King Kong, etc.) and thought, 'what's the latest date where it feels like those films could be made and sit comfortably next to films actually made that year?' The mid-50s had lots of bad monster movies that didn't have animation significantly better than that of King Kong; 12 Angry Men came out in 1957 and there's nothing about it technically-speaking that that couldn't have been done in the 30s; 3-strip technicolor movies stopped being made in 1955 (Foxfire), etc. Choosing 1958 is ultimately a compromise: the start of French and English New Wave was around that time, and there was still a considerable gap between the US technologically and Europe/USSR/Japan, so while B&W pictures were just beginning to wane in the US, a considerable number of immortal B&W classics would still be produced abroad for the next decade or so—like I said, a compromise.
1959 had North by Northwest, Rio Bravo, Ben-Hur, Some Like it Hot, Fires on the Plain, dozens of others; to me it feels like a turning point, and is an exceptionally rich year. This is also the shortest period I've chosen, because the social upheaval of the Vietnam/civil rights era changed everything. A case could be made for making this period even shorter.
I'm tired and I have to sleep now, but if this is still around later I will continue if you are still interested
No matter how you try to make a top x list it will get questioned by someone else. case in point
(which is a valid question). When it comes to movies, eras and genres are especially hard to define, even more so if your list is global.
Also, if you decide to go to through great lengths and make a 1001-list, people will still complain about the size of it and probably ask why their obscure "favourite" film from country x was obmitted.
The important thing to do with these lists is to state the inherent bias of the list, like Rosenbaum did. Who made it, how, why, with what knowledge/experience, how long, for what? But even then these lists rarely age well because new movies get made and older movies get "discovered" (since they've become more tuned to the current era).
>make a list that doesn't include any of the following
>a 1001-list, people will still complain about the size of it
So my idea that springs forth from these dueling sentiments is a list of the bottom 100 of your top 500 films. Entries 401-500, essentially.
who'd be interested in such junk?
the main idea with these lists is to establish which movies are consired "great" or "above the others in terms of significance" or whatever criteria there is
who'd be interested in "the bottom of the top 500 movies"?
Why not make a top 500 and divide the seections from 1-500...
You only prove my point with how imposing that chart is, and how entry 401 is something I've never heard of before.
>The Sadist (1963)
>Three people driving into Los Angeles for a Dodgers game have car trouble and pull off into an old wrecking yard where they are held at bay by a bloodthirsty psycho and his crazy girlfriend. [Letterboxd synopsis]
Immediately added to my backlog.
If you want a real challenge then look here
https://archive.4plebs.org/tv/thread/189896220
Oh, so that guy made an even more complex version of that series of charts? Good to know, dankeschoen.
>if this is still around later I will continue if you are still interested
My interest won't waver until I know all the considerations you put into these groupings, but I also am gonna pass out soon so I hope other people keep the thread bumped.
>The Sadist
It's an allright flick, perhaps a bit forgotten but not top1000- or even top2000-worthy.
Once you've watched most of the imdb top250 or AFI's top100, your taste have mostly been set; you know what you want and likely how to find it. Looking up your fav director and what movies inspired him sets you up on your own path. I think that's a better route than aiming to watch every movie on a top 500 list.
Eh, I like to be surprised. Just recently I watched Stars & Bars, which is this culture clash dramedy starring Daniel Day-Lewis in a non-biopic role with Harry Dean Stanton in the supporting cast. It's not the most phenomenal, but it was quite intriguing & funny. That's the sort of stuff I'm on the lookout for when I say "bottom 100 of the top 500".
post the 2024 updated one
Cinemaphile has fallen
>1929 and previous
In the early era you two-three distinct markers:
The invention of the sound-technology, other cinematographical techniques (editing, camera-movement) and quality-improvement. There's a big difference between movies from the late 10s and the late 20s but hard to make a clear divide.
>1930-1958
Here you have The Hays Code, World War II and the rising force of foreign cinema (european/japanese) as evolutional signposts. The years between 1940-1945 is a clear black spot in terms of depth in cinematic history, yet many of the most acknowledged goats were made then.
>1959-1975
During the 50s, drive-ins and such started commercialisation of the media, as well as allowing independet productions.
>1976-1993
>1994-2014
>2015-onward
I've felt that since the early 30s, every other decade has produced a set of innovative flicks which worked for a generation or so, the 50s had the foreign new waves, the 70s had the great american independent creations/1 million dollar movies, the 90s had CGI, Tarantino-wave and such, the 10s marked the end of film as a medium and digital as a new technique. Naturally, I feel there isn't a need to set the exact year for when this different cultures/movement started as you become aware of them when you've watched a lot of movies and develop a distinct feel for when they were made.
And of course, some movies are more timeless than others.
AFI's list is fine provided that you don't see it as an attempt to establish a definitive canon. It's just the list of American films people in the industry like the most, which is valuable data in the same way that IMDB's top 250 is a decent barometer of popular tastes.
I've seen 77
Some are way overrated (The Philadelphia Story, To KIll a Mockingbird, It Happened One Night, Giant, Some Like It Hot, The Gold Rush, Fargo and a few more) and doesn't deserve a spot in a top 100 list. A few glaring obmissions such as Die Hard, The Terminator, Alien, Scarface makes it obvious that the list-composers are biased against science fiction/action/adventure. It's also weird to include Snow White and Fantasia but no other animation.
Like said it's a rather flawed list mostly because it ignores independent or non-mainstream filmmaking, and as such it's only useful for those who know the full motiviation behind making the list.
There are much much better lists out there now so I don't know why people obsess about these.
The Philadelphia Story is one of the better films on that list. Almost made me understand the hype behind Katharine Hepburn.
I don't get the hype behind the flick. She's just a rich broad whom can't choose between two chads (ok, one semi-chad and one chad). Stewart does not fit in that role and Hepburn looks less hot in it than she did 10 years later when she played the title role of the African Queen
>glaring omissions such as Die Hard, The Terminator, Alien, Scarface
Those are nothing more than techno gussied-up modern versions of Poverty Row / Republic Pictures
If no "remake" should make the list, why is Ben Hur, Star Wars and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on it?
You should see Patton
69
I would've thought I'd seen more than that. I'm a little surprised tbh.
this shit is all normie tier
seen them all
that's not even uncommon.
I've seen 60 of them. 18 out of the top 20. So not soo bad, I guess.
I think I've not seen 7 of them, though I could be mistaken on a couple if I rewatched. Sometimes even classic stuff isn't memorable at certain times, at certain ages, and to degrees of actual importance. I have had enough drama nerd friends over the years that I'm sure I would remember something (for certain, not anything iffy, as is the case with some) of the 7 I'm not sure of if they actually mattered.
I’ve seen about half of this list. There are some films I just never want to watch. Like Singing in the Rain.
>Singing in the Rain
If there's one musical every "cinephile" should watch, it is The Wizard of Oz, but damn, not watching Singin in the Rain becaused you're prejudiced against it makes you miss a lot of entertainment.
Those people were horny freaks in that movie. I am pretty sure the subtext was that the two guys were spit roasting her every night.
The term "gay" didn't just mean happy. It specifically meant a happy horny feeling like 20 year olds feel.
23
42/100
I’ve seen 62
Is Schindler’s List worth watching even though I don’t believe in the holocaust?
I've seen the majority of these. I try to do a classic movie night with my wife every week or so. We watched Sea of Love the other night. It was sad to see how good an actor al Pacino used to be compared to the trash he put out in the 2000s. The part where he sees the girl has a gun and freaks out is great and John Goodman plays a "hilariously overweight" guy who just looks normal by modern standards
Keep that in mind when you hear an old movie talk about gay fun or a gay old time. They were talking about hormonal young people looking to finger and do three ways
>63
This is just some israelite loving “everything was better before” bullshit lists for people who believe they’re better than you for watching boring movies
Early 00s adventure movies is where its at
A lot of that list isn't very good.
I've seen 57, btw. There might be 10 TOPS that belong on a list of the top 100.
Seen all of them except Wuthering Heights. Do I win anything?
10 shekels have been deposited into your account
I've seen most of those. Kind of a shit list though. And yes kids, old movies are better than new slop.
I think 94
56
Crossed out all the ones I have seen, and highlighted the ones I own physical copies of but haven't watched yet.
Of the unmarked movies, the only one I have actively been avoiding has been Annie Hall because I don't find Woody Allen funny.
Frick, forgot to attach the pic
>no kurosawa
>no kobayashi
They're not American, so the American Film Institute didn't put em on their list.
>Lawrence of Arabia
That list was obviously created in 1993 or 1994. Schindler's List doesn't belong in the top 100. It was the beneficiary of recency bias. Where is Stalker or Mirror?
Tarkovsky isn't American, and Mirror is dogshit anyway.
Neither is david lean and he has 3 movies on there.
Huh, didn't even notice.
So yeah, why isn't Stalker or Seven Samurai on there?
Lawrence of Arabia is a UK/US joint production
>One proof of how landlocked we are is the inclusion on the AFI list of British films like Lawrence of Arabia (no. 5), The Bridge on the River Kwai (no. 13), Doctor Zhivago (no. 39), The Third Man (no. 57), and, more arguably, A Clockwork Orange (no. 46) — a gesture no doubt of unconscious imperialism on the part of those polled, apparently justified by the tentacles of American finance and/or a few Hollywood actors.
do you guys have other lists from reputable sources like this?
Seen around 30 or 40.
test
42 and none of them are in my top 10
This list kind of forgot other countries
I've seen 39 but don't care for that list.
I have seen 81 of these films.
It's A Wonderful Life is a classic for good reason.
Smith, Sierra Madre & the next 2 I had to watch for my film class in college, and I think I was still too young to really appreciate them.
It Happened One Night honestly surprised me that it's on this list at all. It's just a screwball romcom starting Clark Gable, what's so special about it?
The Searchers, which was a fairly thrilling John Wayne cowboy flick, we watched in class so I don't know if I even finished it.
Fargo isn't my favorite Coen Bros movie, but it's still pretty fantastic.
Griffith is still regarded as one of the first great directors, even with his racist tendencies. Notice how in the 2007 update they added Intolerance to cover their asses, much in the same way Griffith MADE Intolerance to cover HIS ass.
>It Happened One Night honestly surprised me that it's on this list at all. It's just a screwball romcom starting Clark Gable, what's so special about it?
I agree with you but from what I've come to understand its because it's THE screwball romcom; the prototypical lover-in-trouble meets helpful soulmate. It made Claudette a star and Gable a bigger star, arrived just at the right time, after the Hays Code, during the depressed era, a humours film about love, swept the Oscars (probably because of the lack of competition) which made it stand out, an idol of an achievement. A successful box office-draw resulted in nostalgic and romantized perception of it among the people which with time formed a clody aura of greatness attached to it. One of those flicks that is great becaues it's always been great.
I would personally rank Philadelphia Story Ball of Fire and Bringing Up Baby above it though
Ball of Fire is a fun movie. Danny Kaye did a remake in 1948 ("A Song Is Born")
I've seen everything highlighted in green
Schindlers list is a very good movie but that is waaay too high up
What the unholy frick is Birth of a Nation doing there? You almost made me do a spit take, you motherfricker.
Seriously though, Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of my favorite movies of the sci-fi genres.
It's usually on the list because it is credited with developing several film techniques
No shit? Frick. Here I was scrolling down the list and BOOM there’s the recruitment film for the KKK.
Early movies have the advantage of breaking new ground. So, even though the subject of BoaN is pretty bad, you can't get past the fact that it's still the first film to generally use several techniques. See this link for a rundown of the innovations from the film.
https://www.sparknotes.com/film/birthofanation/section1/
> the close-up
> the dissolve
> flashbacks
> nighttime filming
> use of extras
> first film to have an original score
etc
>Seriously though, Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of my favorite movies of the sci-fi genres.
Based 5-tone communicator
I never bothered with such lists.
You’ve obviously known at least 5 people who unalived themselves.
What makes you think that?
>unalived
this isn't tiktok, you can say "killed"
How is trash like Pulp Fiction on a Top 100 all time list?
Is birth of a nation actually worth watching or is it just one of those films that you appreciate for it's contribution to cinema?
it's not actually bad, it's pretty watchable, it makes you understand the propaganda value of the medium and how hard it is to shed nuance to certain topics/stories
it's like a mix of Braveheart and American History X but in Foxy Grandpa Dance style
It's a long slog to sit through, not that entertaining aside from some amusing political incorrectness. More interesting for it's context in film history and it's legacy than the actual film. Intolerance, Griffith's follow-up, is a much better film whose only flaw is that it was made after Birth of a Nation.
rate
Watch more movies/10.
48 I think for me I think, some of those picks are dubious though particularly if you hate musicals
this is epic moronation, they forgot to put Star Wars for the top 6 films. so no I don't plan to intentionally go out of my way to watch any of the crap on this dumb fricking moron's list. I won't actively avoid watching these films, just not making an effort view them
27
63. I'm a zoomer and find it odd how so many people absolutely refuse to watch anything older than an arbitrary year in their heads. One of my roommates had never seen a film older than 1990 before me and my other roommate forced him to watch Dr. No. He was a moron and couldn't pay rent, so it's no wonder he was a tasteless pleb too.
I can generally tolerate anything starting from the 1930's with sound movies. The silent film era is just something I can't get into, the style of those movies is just too off-putting and weird for me.
there's hardly any difference between something like Frankenstein 1931 and The General 1926, just because the former has some grunts doesn't make it more or less compelling than the later
I felt the same way. But the more I watched them, the more I was surprised how modern some of them felt.
My favorite silent film is Haxan.
Watch Buster Keaton movies, they hold up
I'll be honest. I have watched around 10 movies from before the 00s. and I don't get the hype. life seemed to suck back then. no net, ugly stinky hairy women, kingworshippin, drugcancer and all kinds of racism and toxic individualism.
I've seen 41 out of 100.
80, but I'm gonna try to finish it and the 100ish films I have left on the Sight and Sound 250 this year if I have the time.
48
basically most of them made between he late 60's and late 90's
Is this the same list?
https://letterboxd.com/meyerzm/list/afi-100/
65 for me
35, at least half of them pre -1970.
39 if you count ones that I'm pretty sure I've seen as a kid but it was to long ago and was too young to care or remember anything about them (Grapes, Mockingbird, Streetcar, Manchurian).
Thanks for the list, seems like a good plan to catch up with it this year.