FURTHER VIEWING 525American Film Institute:
One Hundred Greatest American Movies of All Time
The following list was created by a panel of over 1,500 screenwriters, directors, actors, producers, cine-
matographers, editors, executives, film historians, and critics assembled by the American Film Institute
(AFI) in 1996 in honor of cinema’s first one hundred years. The panel was given a list of 400 films nomi-
nated by the AFI, and asked to select and rank the 100 best American films from that list. All of these films
were made during the first hundred years of cinema (1896–1996), so no films made after 1996 are included.
Rank Year of Release Title Director(s)1 1941 Citizen Kane Orson Welles
2 1942 Casablanca Michael Curtiz
3 1972 The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola
4 1939 Gone with the Wind Victor Fleming
5 1962 Lawrence of Arabia David Lean
6 1939 The Wizard of Oz Victor Fleming
7 1967 The Graduate Mike Nichols
8 1954 On the Waterfront Elia Kazan
9 1993 Schindler’s List Steven Spielberg
10 1952 Singin’ in the Rain Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
11 1946 It’s a Wonderful Life Frank Capra
12 1950 Sunset Blvd. Billy Wilder
13 1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai David Lean
14 1959 Some Like It Hot Billy Wilder
15 1977 Star Wars George Lucas
16 1950 All about Eve Joseph L. Mankiewicz
17 1951 The African Queen John Huston
18 1960 Psycho Alfred Hitchcock
19 1974 Chinatown Roman Polanski
20 1975 One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Milos Forman
21 1940 The Grapes of Wrath John Ford
22 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey Stanley Kubrick
23 1941 The Maltese Falcon John Huston
24 1980 Raging Bull Martin Scorsese
25 1982 E.T. the Extra- Terrestrial Steven Spielberg
26 1964 Dr. Strangelove Stanley Kubrick
27 1967 Bonnie and Clyde Arthur Penn
28 1979 Apocalypse Now Francis Ford Coppola
29 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Frank Capra
30 1948 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre John Huston