Revisiting the AFI's Top 100 Movies 

What is the best film in the AFI's original Top 100 list? And, perhaps more interesting, what is the worst?

"I'd rather be doing something absent of politics, like continue to play Call of Duty". Masterfully done sir, 10/10

I think the sheer volume of movies is why i've become a little kinder to the canon. You gotta start somewhere, and these kinds of lists can be helpful. Just remember that it doesn't stop with the classics and good interesting films are always being added.

Please consider making a video about the curation and importance of Criterion Collection!

This is why Turner Classic Movies Robert Osborne and other hosts are so important

I think some of the critics miss the point because they think of a canon as a list of the greatest films. A canon is a set of works that you need to be familiar with to participate in conversation about that form of art. Of course the AFI canon is going to be dominated by establishment films, and exclude obscure movies. That’s the common set that film buffs talk about, almost by definition. And as you pointed out, there are multiple canons, because there are multiple groups having different conversations. And canons change over time as old participants die and new ones are born.

Trump: if I had been there I would have gotten Kong to come down from the empire state building. You see I knew Kong for many years, wonderful guy, and and and I could've gotten him to come down

Patiently waiting for AFI to update the list now that The Beekeeper is out and cinema has transformed

I was 17 when I first saw the AFI Top 100 in 2007 and I remember being completely humbled at my lack of film knowledge. Like seriously, this was where I first heard of Citizen Fucking Kane!!! It's one of the programmes I credit with turning me into the cinephile I am today.

Love Gone with the Wind. Infinitely rewatchable.

The 1998 AFI Top 100 list (and subsequent other lists) was my also gateway to exploring a broader world of movies. I will always be grateful.

Growing into a cinephile in the age of RU-vid has been really weird, especially in my teens. My main entry way to the film cannon was through film reviews online through a variety of creators, but I had 3 favorites: My favorite of them were definetly the reviews by Jeremy Jahns and Chris Stuckman. I always felt the need to group them together because they almost seemed like foils to each other. Chris was a film nerd from a super early age, and clearly knew like a bajillion things about the history of film and how they were made, but he never came across as stuck up or snobby about it. The guy just really really loved movies and wanted to share that enjoyment with people online. His A+ movies playlist was basically a blue print for my formative film-nerd years between the ages of 14-16 and a half. He would hold up these classic movies like Citizen Kane, the Dark Knight and Die Hard, yes, but he'd also introduce me to modern classics like Collateral, Brick, and Insomnia. And he'd also give A+s to then contemporary greats like Silence, the Nice Guys and the World's End. Jeremy Jahns was the opposite. He was super down to earth, even more so than Chris but he had a very frenetic and engaging editing style that Chris didn't. He would also break up his surface level comparisons with these out of nowhere incredibly insightful statements. And when the guy was in rant mode(either positively or negatively) he was everything a critic should be: articulating how you may have felt with a movie in a way you never thought to, and giving you a deeper understanding of why something may have sucked or worked well. If Chris was like your cool film teacher, Jeremy was like your smartest friend who was always hiding how smart he was. That's the good side of growing up on RU-vid reviews. The bad side was completely encapsulated by my third big influence: Doug Walker. Doug Walker is not without his talents as a writer and a critic, but a lot of his trappings really represent everything wrong with early internet film criticism. For instance, he spoke about movies(both in his own voice and vicariously through his horrible skits in his nostalgia critic vids) with an authority thats a little annoying. He talked about movies like "this is bad" or "this blows" and not "I think this is bad or blows". And he'd also be so busy trying to write jokes about the movies he was critiquing that he would miss really basic shit. I can't think of specific examples off the top of my head besides the entirety of his review of The Wall the movie. That review, frankly, was fucking infuriating to watch as someone who did and still does love Pink Floyd, because of how many times Doug says something incredibly stupid that he wouldn't have if he knew ANYTHING about Roger Waters' life or Pink Floyd in general. He has a throw away joke in there about how the song "Us and Them" is about nothing and is just called that to sound cool, and that the guys who wrote it don't even know what it's about. Even though that song is about the "Us ve Them" mentality embodied by classiest, racist, and xenophobic systems of violence and oppression, something Waters would know a lot about since his dad died for stupid reasons during world war 2. He also just phrases objective observations *as if* they were problems somehow. I remember watching his Jurassic Park video, where he talks about the "you didn't stop to think if you should" scene, and pointed out all the shots backlit by bright ass projectors and said "wow, Steven Spielberg must have a spotlight fetish hardy har har". Like, yeah? So? It's a striking visual flair that keeps the scene interesting visually in spite of the fact that it's just a half dozen characters having a philosophical debate. He says this the same way that he'd point out continuity errors and plot holes, which actually are problems. The effect of this is that it made me paranoid about the movies I liked and made me go all cinemasins mode and pick apart things that weren't even problems. All that to say, RU-vid was pretty much my(and I think a lot of people my ages) AFI, for better and for worse.

As a late Gen X I was just a little older than you were when you saw Manchurian candidate when the original AFI list came out in '98. I was also a bit of a film buff at the time, and the full court media press around the list can't be overstated. It's helpful to remember that 1998 was sort of the last days of the monoculture--the internet was a thing but just barely, and your comments about blockbuster being our only source of movies isn't all that overstated in most parts of the country. (My medium-ish childhood suburb had a blockbuster and a mom and pop place with a smattering of indies that provided cover for the porn stashed behind a curtain in the back of the store.) Yes the list was middlebrow even for its day, but I think there were at least 20 movies on that list I'd never heard of at the time. I think all in all the list was a force for good in the world of film appreciation, and has been a jumping off point for many people like you into more complex and specialized canons.

So I am a 16 yr old who only got into film last year and I used/am using the AFI list. It's helped me find some of my favorite movies (12 Angry Men, Do the Right Thing) but I would say that it does have a bias towards Hollywood productions. As an example I watched Eraserhead a few months ago and loved it, and after learning how much it influenced Stanley Kubrick and others I don't see a reason why it should not be considered a canonical American film. The only reason I can think that it is not on the list is that is considered too unconventional. So the list has been helpful to me and because of it I have watched some films that I would have never thought about watching otherwise, but I also am looking other places to find more unconventional (and foreign) films. Such as for example, your channel.

I had a similar life changing experience thanks to a movie on the list. The only reason I watched Doctor Zhivago was because of its inclusion. It sounded long and ungodly boring, but I was unprepared for its massive scope, which has always been something that draws me to my favorite movies, and while it didn't challenge much about what cinema can be, it was the death blow to judging movies based on what they're about and what genre they fall into before I watch them. I remember being appalled when I saw that it was the highest ranked movie removed in the remade 2007 list. While I know it's not a particularly highly acclaimed film these days, it's still a masterpiece in my opinion, and I'm glad that the AFI's flawed lists are still bringing it to people's attention.

I'll defend the African Queen. When I watched it, the first thing I thought was how charming it was. It's still top tier in the most charming movies of all time.

This video is great. We're are basically the same age and had a similar experience with regards to discovering this list. I started exploring the films on AFI 100 around 13 years old and had already seen a few of the classics (Casablanca and Gone With the Wind) because of myl mother, so classic Hollywood cinema wasn't completely foreign to me, but this list opened my eyes to how great classic films truly were. I became a TCM addict after that and within a few years, I began my journey discovering foreign classics.

The idea of AFI doing a second 100 Greatest Movies List in 2008 seemed like a very forced one to me. Seemed as though they were trying to "correct" the complaints over the original 1998 list (replacing Birth of a Nation with Intolerance, taking out Fantasia and adding Toy Story, pushing Gone with the Wind behind Singin in the Rain in its top 10 which makes virtually no sense, replacing Guess Who with Do the Right Thing, moving the Searchers higher but not going so far as to crown another film #1 other than Citizen Kane so therefore what is even the point? etc.). Felt a little like AFI just bowing to the mob; where the newer list seemed like it was pandering to audiences the original list was pretty solid. These days doing a special like this would be nigh impossible because of all the salty fanbases AFI would wind up offending. Also, whoever the editing team was behind those specials should have won an Emmy because the transitions between the clips were just so fluid it really made it incredible interesting to watch (watch AFI's 100 Heroes & Villains or AFI's 100 Songs to see what I mean)

For Carpenter I think his late recognition is linked to VHS. Teenagers and young adults all over the world during the late 80's and the 90s rented a lot of horror and slasher films. Then there are the directors of the mid and late 90s who talked a lot about him.

Thanks for this retrospective. It was my intro to "real cinema" as a teenager too. I still have only seen maybe 2/3 of the movies listed there but it's a great starting point for accessible, but still critically regarded movies from the USA. Love your content!

I'm so glad someome made a video about being a teen in the 2010s going through AFI's 100 years and learning about movies. That was my experience as well and it's probably the one film canon list that got me interested in movies most, at a time in my life I needed it. As of today, I have watched every film on both the original and the revised list and am working towards completing their nominees list. I'm at 393/400 from 2007's ballot and am planning on getting to 100% this year. It didn't limit my film canon, it helped me shape my own and I'm still doing it 13 years later. I never saw the broadcast but now I'm curious at seeing it. It looks cringe and uninformative haha. Thank you for your video and your analysis on the poll itself !

What a video! Keep it up, man, I love this. This year I'm watching more and more movies and I'm always fascinated at like definitive film lists. This video really made me look more into what the canon really is and what it entails. Bravo!

I will defend the first AFI 100 in that it was a different time in the world of broadcast television. You have to get through 100 movies really quickly because this isn't a 100 day programming special where you can take a half hour per movie. Your special is taking the place of other programming and you only have so long. I agree the comments were dumb for the movies given but we were never going to get the great insightful analysis. There isn't the time. As an exercise, go back and watch some old Roger and Ebert episodes. They were remember for being such great critics. They are but I feel that doesn't come across on their TV show. It is clips and synopsis of a movie followed by 1, maybe 2 minutes of debate and then we need to move onto the next movie coming out this week. Compared to how we watch movie reviews today on RU-vid with much longer commentary, it feels lacking. But at the time it was great and there is a reason they went from local PBS to national broadcast. I only bring that up because I feel like the AFI top 100 suffers in a similar way in retrospect. It was simply a different time in how these sorts of TV shows were made.

That feeling of enlightment you got with The Manchurian Candidate reminded me of the first time I saw Duck, You Sucker!, how I was floored by it and shifted my perception of cinema. That's why I still hold that movie so dearly and place it above all of Sergio Leone's movies.

The list I credit with turning me into a classic film viewer was Leonard Maltin's 100 Must See Movies of the 20th century, which I stumbled across by fluke browsing Filmsite in high school years ago. His list primarily focuses on pre-1970s cinema - which I appreciate because that's the era of movies my generation is never exposed to. In more recent years, the Criterion collection along with Sight And Sound's 250 has been the source that's exposed me to a variety of foreign and indie masterpieces/stuff that normally would be outside my comfort zone.

AFI's 1998 list was not their first list. Their first list was the 1977 AFI top 50 survey of best American Films. There was a CBS television special built around it hosted by Charlton Heston with guests like President Jimmy Carter. The show talked about the top 10 only but the list was 50 movies in all. The list is printed in full in an old movie book Cobbett Steinberg's Reel Facts. It's not surprising no one talks about this list anymore (most of its entries were ported over to the 1998 bigger list anyway) as the AFI seem to have scrubbed all mention of the 1977 list from their history. I made a video briefly talking about it last year.

One of the most formative gifts I ever received in my life was the AFI Desk Reference book, when I was thirteen. I couldn't have found a more perfect, hand holding gateway into the world of movies and filmmaking. I think that's the best thing that the AFI did for people like me. It's outdated and problematic as hell, but I can't totally spurn it either. It brought me to the dance.

What was fun about The Manchurian Candidate was that it had been out of release for so many years, and it was a movie that I had heard a lot about but knew nothing about it. So, when they re-released it in the theaters in 1988, the story and performances were still shocking and surprising. It was a thrill to watch a modern audience gasping out loud and at one point even screaming. A few years after seeing it, I met Angela Lansbury, and told her how I knew her from her previous movies, her stage musicals, and then Murder She Wrote, so I wasn't prepared for how frightening I thought she was in The Manchurian Candidate. She smiled and said to me, "You never thought this lovely face could be so evil?"

If I had to guess, I would say that The African Queen was entered into the list as a way of enshrining James Agee's legacy as an important member of American film. Obviously his tenure as a screenwriter was short, but his span in film criticism was much longer and remains vital, for me, as a guide metric for engaging with film of that time. Not just this, but Agee's legacy post Hollywood has become pronounced in American academics: his novel A Death in the Family was receiving renewed interest at the turn of the century, and his elegiac, experimental account of the South during the depression, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, has only grown in consideration as a foremost work of late American Avant-Garde literature, even though it was left incomplete at Agee's early death. Given the criteria that AFI set out for making the list, The Night of the Hunter wasn't going to pass muster for inclusion if they were working to honour Agee, so I would assume it fell to The African Queen if they were in fact looking to nod to Agee as a figure.

Fantastic video essay! Keep up the great work!

Nothing quite like a new Eyebrow Cinema video :)

Excellent work, Daniel, thoughtful, wide-ranging and nuanced.

me and the spouse just rented Manchurian Candidate tonight on the strength of your recommendation. And...it was really good, thanks

You know, my baby-cinephile first steps began with WatchMojo lists of the greatest movies of each decade when I was 12, so the AFI list is really not the cringiest route for a beginner to choose, lel. Totally agree with the sentiment that these lists may look "plebeian" to established cinephiles but are great gateways for teens/young adults who are only dipping their toes in the medium.

Masterful job as always

My “Manchurian Candidate” is Reservoir Dogs, the way it captivated me, made me think about what movies could be in a new way, and started my journey into other forms of cinema.

I’ve had to stop halfway through to tell you that you are a remarkable young man (and I can say that cos you’re younger than me!). What a great clear analytical and thought provoking mind. Thank you for all of this.

this is a really good video. Nice job! I have subscribed.

In 1998 I was sixteen and the previous Christmas I had watched It's a Wonderful Life (I'd seen parts of it on tv over the years, but never the whole film). I was head over heels for Jimmy Stewart and eager to check out more classic cinema. It was the '90s and I was sixteen, so I didn't think about the actual quality of the broadcast, but I went on a rampage at my local library. Like you, I discovered films I'd never heard of, like The Manchurian Candidate, and it blew me away. I had cable for the first time in my freshman college dorm, and turned TCM on as much as I could without flunking classes or pissing off my roommate too much. Robert Osborne provided a lot of knowledge in those pre-online criticism days. Like you, I've come to the conclusion over the years that canons are useful as introductory stepping stones for those of us who want to dip our toes in the water and don't know where to start. They should never be treated as gospel. I discovered Sight and Sound only in the social media days, largely because of how much I enjoyed going through the AFI list. I still seek out a variety of lists of movies and books, just to see what shows up on most them. Because let's be honest, I don't have time to wade through 700 films to find the best B-tier noirs. The 10 year anniversary update seems largely driven by criticisms, but they did make some good choices switching out Guess Who's Coming for In the Heat of the Night, taking out Birth of a Nation, and including Do the Right Thing. But leaving off The Third Man?! Come on!

This was a brilliant history lesson, thought piece, review and analysis. Great job 👏🏾 thank you ☺️

Really thoughtful well done video. Good job.

Another fantastic Video Sir! Great thoughts. And I do feel you!

I don’t get it, so all these movies take place in the same universe?

I remember watching Lawrence of Arabia for the first time after watching the 10th anniversary version of the special. The section from the special made it sound like it was just another White Saviour movie with some pretty visuals and great music, which at the time, I wouldn’t have cared as much if it was just that. I remember being blown away by how subversive the real movie is against that exact premise and how ultimately bleak it was, I genuinely don’t know what movie it was talking about, because it wasn’t Lawrence of Arabia!

Brilliant editing

Love all your videos. One point: John Carpenter is an Academy Award winner- best short for “The Resurrection of Bronco Billy”

Amazing video, great job! I can relate especially to the part about how canonization distanced Citizen Kane from the public: my semiotics professor at college showed the movie to our class, I was ready to be bored to death but instead I was surprised by how interesting, modern and dinamic the movie actually is!

I've never actually looked at the AFI's Top 100 Movies list before. I did, however, grow up with Turner Classic Movies and my mother's extensive DVD/VHS collection of classic films, which stoked my passion for movies like you wouldn't believe. I can't remember when that moment of enlightenment you talk about happened for me since it happened when I maybe five or six, but if I had to hazard a guess it's a four-way split between Captain Blood, The Quiet Man, Jaws, or Das Boot. Also, the first time I saw The Manchurian Candidate was in a theater in film school. It is an incredible theatrical experience.

Seeing the cut between Zach Efron's HSM3 speech and the mom from the Jazz Singer was hilarious.

the afi lists are the greatest gateway to film ever attempted. it is flawed but it understood it's effort to educate rather than dub

Greatest thing the AFI ever did was give David Lynch funding to start filming Eraserhead. Back in the day, they had money and would give talent a chance. Today they have to pimp the same old films over and over to make a buck. So I guess the moral of the story is: if you wanna work for the AFI (or in film preservation, or whatever) get a degree in fundraising, not film.

Your anecdote and experience with the Manchurian Candidate made me nostalgic for the time when I really got into movies in my teens. My college library had a huge selection of classic movies and it’s where the journey started- Movies like M, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Some like it Hot, had much of the same impact for me. I also saw Manchurian Candidate around this time and remember that same profound feeling while watching it… like this is a DAMN good movie. Great work on this video and wonderful analysis of the culture of the film industry. 👏🏻

You make a great point towards the end of the video about the AFI Top 100 list being a good starting point guide for anyone looking to get into more historic or influential movies. Sometimes it's hard to know where to start with so many old movies available, especially for people who aren't used to quieter black and white movies, but in my experience, you are more willing to check out older or obscure movie choices after getting familiar with the classics listed on the Top 100.

I wish the film had mentioned Charles Laughton movies, the Hunchback of Notre Dame (the best of the lot by far), Rembrandt, Hobson's Choice, Ruggles of Red Gap, one of the best comedies, Witness for the Prosecution. Night of the Hunter was mentioned but its director, Laughton was left out. We got a glimpse of Mutiny on the Bounty with Clark Gable, not Laughton who dominated every scene he was in. He's considered by many to be one of the greatest of actors. He's rather forgotten these days, inexplicably. He's so much better than the pretty boys.

Wonderful video as always Dan! I value the AFI list because it's one of the main ways I've connected with my grandmother. We've had countless conversations over the years about the movies on that list, she was the person who first showed me Citizen Kane and Singin' in the Rain, and without that connection and her fostering my interest in classic cinema I don't know if I'd even be watching this video in the first place. (her favorite on the list iirc is The Third Man)

I got into film in the late 90s and the original AFI list was a jumping off point for me and many of my peers. Yeah, it's not the best, but you gotta start somewhere. The slow canonization of John Carpenter fascinates me because I feel like I saw it happen in real time. When I saw the films in the late 90s and early 2000s he was still working. The DVD release of Big Trouble in Little China was in 2001 and was not an especially well marketed event, but I still left a hotel in Boston and walked 35 minutes to a Borders to buy it on vacation. When I got to film school in 2004/5 and everyone began comparing DVD collections it turns out we all owned and loved every Carpenter film. The pivotal moment in my memory was when the head of my film department (UCF) stood in front of the whole film school and casually mentioned that the Hawks version of The Thing was superior; we all simultaneously and spontaneously booed. The man was shocked and it felt like we had just blown over the Berlin Wall.

I always wanted to watch the old and updated lists and created a book based on facts and behind the scenes. That idea was long ago. But glad someone has an interest in it.

The first list came out in 1998, 2nd in 2007. It was a missed opportunity for AFI to revise it in 2017 to continue that 10 year cycle.

Its so funny; when my mom said "We are watching Manchurian Candidate with dinner" when I was like 12, I thought the EXACT same thing. Oh man was wrong; that movie blew my mind.

I like the schmaltz...

Just wanted to correct a brief mistake in your video: Sight & Sound actually DID honor John Carpenter in their top 250 list with The Thing

Almost, eerily similar to my experience in exploring classic movies, the AFI 100 came out the summer after my freshman year of high school. I'd probably seen less than 10 of them, but the first movie from the list that fully made me think there's something to these old movies - The Manchurian Candidate. I watched it at my grandmother's house on AMC (way back when they were a rival to TCM) and it remains a touchstone to that younger me. I could not agree more with your assessment of the list nowadays; and with the deluge of lists that came after, the Criterion Collection and also the influence of Roger Ebert and his list of Great Movies that helped expand my horizons. I've yet to fall down the rabbit hole of experimental cinema, it still gives me some pause, though I still (at age 41) hope to grow into it. The AFI list by any measurement is put mildly, quaint, yet it did introduce me to many of my favorite films. All that said, thank you for making this, it reminded me of the kid I was that thought that that list was the be all end all of movies and how small my movie world was back then and how much it has changed in a quarter of a century and how much it still has to expand.

I’m currently 17 and I’ve never actually looked at lists like the AFI top 100 too closely. Most of the great movies I’ve known have generally come from the film’s own reputation (or that of its director/star). And now I want to focus on expanding my horizons (ie, with more Golden Age/Silent or foreign films and films directed by a more diverse range of filmmakers). I should also reference the CNN Documentary that I watched before I really started on my journey which provided a great, if very brief, overview of over a century of American cinema from the 20s to the modern era, a documentary which I personally love for being so special to me, though I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who was already well versed in American cinema. It serves as a fantastic introduction to various eras of American cinema but not as great analysis. That’s where I think these so-called canons work. Jumping off points for individuals to explore and discover at their leisure. Finding films in the canon that they like, and then going from there. Maybe they like a Frank Sinatra performance or a Martin Scorsese picture so they explore those filmographies. Or they fall in love with a genre like horror or era such as the Silent era or even cultures like the filmographies of Europe or Asia, and explore those. This is why I try to have a wide range of films in any of my own “Best Movies” lists. However, this does make me think of Eureka’s great blu-ray series “The Masters of Cinema” of which I own two, Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

This list was an absolute first guide for me when I decided I wanted to watch "old movies." Remember, when this list came out, streaming wasn't a thing and you basically might have a wall of these types of movies and you had no idea. But this give you a place to start. And, frankly, knowing that there was controversy behind which ones made it and which ones didn't, 1) let you as a viewer not like some things, and 2) opened you up to those "snubs" as your next steps. I'm so glad this list exists, but, yeah, knowing the flaws also is a gift.

Thanks so much for this! You’re honestly my favorite film RU-vidr! I appreciate the work you do!!

What a spectacular video. I still have print ups of AFI, Filmsite, IMDb that I started checking off 15 years ago when I started film journey

My Personal Top 5 1. Apocalypse Now (1979) Coppola 2. Goodfellas (1990) Scorsese 3. Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Lumet 4. The Shining (1980) Kubrick 5. Mauvais Sang (1986) Carax

I was 14 when the 98 list came out and it was a major gateway for me into film canon. I still slightly prefer the original list to the 10th anniversary list while acknowledging that both lists have their problems. Loved the analysis and love the Manchurian Candidate!

Eyebrow Cinema.. You are a contender!

Hey, this is a really good video. I’m really glad someone I’m subscribed to finally made a video about the AFI Top 100 list, a rather divisive subject for cinephiles. You explain both sides of the argument well, and I’d like to leave some of my thoughts. * I personally never used the AFI list when I started getting into movies. While there were movies that I understood many consider great, like Citizen Kane and The Godfather, picks like Star Wars and Forrest Gump made me put off the list, because pop culture pushed these movies in my face so much that I resisted just on principle. In retrospect, this was very dumb and just me being a rebellious bugger. Recently, I’ve been watching more of the films on the list for the first time, like the two Godfathers and Sunset Boulevard, and really enjoyed them. Still, the AFI list is kind of mid, being more of a popularity contest of movies. * As for Rosenbaum’s article, I agree with him more than you do about the list’s value, but I can see where you’re coming from considering your experience with The Manchurian Candidate. Rosenbaum’s article is the first of his I’d ever read and it made me a big fan of his work, so I’m also biased. I would have loved to hear your thoughts on his alternative list. One thing I really like about it is how he seems more concerned with films that tell uniquely American stories or are about uniquely American attitudes, while the AFI’s list has five British productions because they had some American funding. You say that the AFI list being made by men in their 50s explains rather less-than-great choices like The African Queen, but Rosenbaum was in his 50s when he made his list, and some of his picks from the 1950s like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Kiss Me Deadly and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? are far more analytical of America at that time and are still great watches today. * Canonizing American films through the lens of gender still remains a problem today, as seen by BBC’s 100 Greatest American Films list in 2015. BBC did a much better job than the AFI, getting critics to make their own choices rather than giving them a pre-ordained list. The actual list isn’t bad, either, with some independent films like Night of the Living Dead and A Woman Under the Influence. The representation of women, though, is very mediocre. Despite there being many great Americans films by women in 20th century (Elaine May’s filmography and Paris Is Burning) as well as 21st (The Hurt Locker and Pariah), there are only two titles with woman directing credits, and even then, there are asterisks. Meshes of the Afternoon is the only short film in a list full of features, and Grey Gardens has two women co-direct with two men. The list is a bit better with non-white directors, with four feature-length films by black men on the list (Killer of Sheep, Do the Right Thing, 25th Hour and 12 Years a Slave). Still, there’s no directors of any other race, and actually, The Birth of a Nation is higher on the BBC list than the AFI list, now at 39 rather than 44. Going back to my original point, this list is still better than the AFI’s, but even with its interesting auteurism picks like The Shanghai Gesture and Marnie, BBC falters in not radically shaking up what many people think as great American cinema. I wish more critics did what Rosenbaum did back in 1998 and make their own 100 best list. That’d be a lot of work, sure, but the results would be far more interesting. To end this comment, have you ever considered making your own 100 best American films list? If yes, would it look more like the AFI’s list or Rosenbaum’s? Thanks and have a good day.

But i'm glad that as a teenager you gave an older movie a chance and really enjoyed it, and it opened up your view of cinema. Most teens i know have no passion for film culture and couldn't care less about movies. If more teens would just open themselves up to movies and film experiences and gain more of a knowledge and understanding of film, then this world would indeed be a better place. Film knowledge is an undervalued skill which more people need to develop and use efficiently. I hope you have bright future of film ahead of you!

These lists have a definite domino effect. First you watch one filmmaker’s “masterpiece”, then you watch their early stuff, then you watch a documentary or hear them talk about their influences Then you watch their influencer’s favorites, and suddenly you’re watching ‘Das Boot’ followed by ‘The Cook, The Theif, The Wife and Her Lover’ The beauty of cinema is they never stop making dominoes!

I was 15 when the original AFI top 100 list came out. While I did watch older movies occasionally, I didn't recognize most of the entries. A newspaper article reviewing the list and a British version of the TV special (which was more thorough than the American one), helped me to understand why those movies were chosen. 26 years later, I've seen all but four movies from the first list.

I remember that spectacular cinematography near the end of Citizen Kane in which the camera moves continuously through a gigantic warehouse of Kane's possessions that just goes on and on and on and ON!! That was pretty impressive considering when that film was made.

I think looking at the list as a flawed spring board to a deeper film journey and love is a balanced take.

Gate of Hell shout-out! An underappreciated classic.

Putting down D.W. Griffith for the subject matter being offensive is the same as banning Adventures of Huck Finn. It can be painful and inappropriate, and a work of genius. Both can be true.

What about...? Why the metric system? 100 movies. Why not best 127 movies or 211 best movies??

I'm glad that they made the list, even though I disagree with at least 50% of it. It gave me a reference list to explore some films I would never have watched.

Great video ❤👍

You can certainly appreciate Streetcar without knowing its historical importance but knowing the context certainly helps explain some of its peculiarities. On the other hand I‘m totally with you on Aftican Queen. Same goes for fucking Giant.

thanks for the lecture

good video, though i disagree on the African queen. I adore that film.

If they did the AFI list again today. And they should do another big network television special again like they did in the ‘90s and 2000s to remind people about all the movies they may have forgotten. I do think part of why movies don’t do as well anymore, is people aren’t reminded of them like they once were. The first two were just a decade part, but now it’s been 15 years. In the 1990s and 2000s the AFI list kind of came off as marketing gimmicks, but the way movies are in now such marketing gimmicks would actually come off as admirable. Movies could use something big to sell ones that aren’t brand new now, they definitely need it more than in the ‘90s and 2000s, which much of what’s on the list was mainstream movie pop culture stuff that you could just happen upon because it was still playing on television. If it was done now, my guess would be the Kubrick picks change. Four Kubrick films, and one is Dr. Strangelove, a comedy that isn’t all that funny, is insane. There’d be a more Coppola. Don Siegel would probably enter the list. Pop Spielberg would go above Serious Spielberg. All these years out, I don’t think people are still pretending Schindler's List is better than Jaws. There’d probably be more Tarantino, and Paul Thomas Anderson would be on the list. I’d also imagine Brian De Palma would enter the list, and so would David Fincher. I think the Altman picks that are there would get knocked out (MASH is probably there more for the show than the movie, and the show doesn’t hold the same pop culture place it did in the ‘90s when you could still find it playing on prime network TV, [even thought it ended in the ‘80s] or in the 2000s) but McCabe & Mrs. Miller would probably be added. There’d definitely be more genre movies. Psycho is there but no Alien, The Shining, Exorcist, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Most everything that got added in 2007 but was low on the list is probably gone from the list. Forrest Gump probably goes away. Ben-Hur probably goes away. Stagecoach maybe comes back and The Grapes of Wrath goes away, even though Grapes was really high on both previous list.

The “this is definitively the best” shows up in all sorts of genres or categories (Citizen Kane in movies, Jimi Hendrix in guitarists, Ric Flair as wrestlers, etc) so much that I think it’s a lot more illuminating to see what someone’s second pick is. Or if they say “normally people will say X is the best, but I think it’s Y” rather than just going off the consensus.

My dude spent all that time on regrettable instances of black face but not one peep about the yellow face throughout Manchurian Candidate

My AFI Top 100 was a puff piece documentary called "That’s Entertainment", made by MGM in the 70s, about the history of the studio, especially its movie musicals. I checked out a lot of movies from the library because of that movie, and it introduced me to an Era of filmmaking and a bunch of performers I wouldn't have otherwise. It got me to like old movies, so I have always been more receptive to old movies. And that was a real gift. Black and White was never a stumbling block. Plus, I had a good library and a video store with a phenomenal classics selection. I do get really sad that streaming has such limited classic options. My kids have maybe watched one Black and White movie. I want to give them that gift of liking old things, but it's a lot harder to access these days.

I remember when I was a kid and first read the AFI list and even saw some of the episodes - and it was effective as an introduction that further fired my interest in cinema, but as I came of age, I've come to realize that lists are silly, that a number of reasons for making those lists or putting selected titles on them are not entirely informed or justified, and that for all the praise and relevance heaped upon the canon, there are just too many good films out there that are cast aside that deserve better attention and just the same level of understanding or higher. As far as I'm concerned, the Criterion Collection is a far more reliable canon than the AFI ever was.

The original airing of this list was 3 hours long, subtract commercials, and it was about 150 minutes long. They had 100 movies to get through, so there was no time for subtle nuanced takes on these films. The program was there to talk about these classic films, did you really expect them to talk about the questionable parts of “The Jazz Singer” in the 90 they had to talk about it? Or delve deep into the symbolism of King Kong? Also I remember the original airing of the program in 1998 and there was a big backlash that there were no films made by women or people of color, so your assertion that people back then just assumed while males made better movies is incorrect. I recall reading about the list in a New York paper the next day (which printed the whole list, which provided me my Blockbuster VHS rental choices for the next year) and a woman film critic wrote an op-ed blasting the whiteness and maleness. Of course popular films had to be on the list. Why make a list of obscure Avant Garde underground films that hardly anyone knows? That would be absurd.

Psycho was the first black and white movie that hipped me to those classics that I previously dismissed for being "old".

First AFI list I saw was the Heroes and Villains special in 2003... I would eagerly wait for the next special every year. I even still have the original 100 Movies VHS tape and the 50 Stars DVD I used to watch and rewatch constantly. I wish AFI would put its other specials on VHS or DVD - they keep copyright striking anyone who uploads them but what's even the point if they're not going to release it themselves?

African Queen making 17th and even 65th is hilarious. I am not easily put off by racism or bad effects in old movies, so that didn't even matter much to me despite noticing it, but the film just wasn't really that good? Especially considering the expectations I had going in. They had chemistry but the film fumbled through the plot that should've had a stronger emphasis on its location rather than simply a backdrop. I don't particularly care for the criticism of colonialism, though I agree with much of it. You really inspired me to go watch "The Manchurian Candidate".

For me, it was Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list that helped me broaden my horizon as a cinephile.

As a current 16 year old, I haven’t really used the AFI list. Like, I’ve known about it of course, but I haven’t dived deep into it. Not because I didn’t like it, but just because the IMDb and Letterboxd top 250s have been more accessible to me. I should go through it soon. But more importantly this just reminded me of the Criterion Blu-ray of The Manchurian Candidate that I bought last July that I still haven’t watched… should probably get around to that

Did anyone else have the special 100 Greatest Movies of All Time issue of Entertainment Weekly they put out in 1999? That found its way into my house when I was in middle school and for some reason I glommed onto it and treated it as my ultimate checklist from then on. I still think it's a pretty interesting and idiosyncratic list.

I honestly think the AFI lists would benefit if they were to update each of them every 10 years just like with Sight & Sound, especially the big one.

Had to stop 30 seconds in when you started to talk about The Manchurian Candidate in high regard after saying you were hesitant to watch it. I just watched it. Holy shit dude

What bothers me is that they haven't updated since 2007. You'd think they'd this every 10 years like Sight & Sound does but they don't. Plus, it's only American movies, so the likes of Tarkovsky, Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, etc. won;'t be there.

Fantastic video as always. When a new Eyebrow Cinema video drops, I look for the first chance I get to watch it. I came to basically the same conclusion about canons. I think it's fine that a more populist and mainstream lists like AFI exists for the reasons you listed. There's also the Tarantino canon which mixes mainstream blockbusters, acclaimed classics and exploitation, Japanese bloodbaths and pink films, Chinese fantasy films, italian giallo, considering these films and styles just as important as the serious dramatic fare which is reflected in his style too. This earned him criticism from Paul Schrader: "There is a modern myth that you can be elitist and a common man at the same time. You can thank Quentin Tarantino for that. He'd say Killer Car Girls is the one of the great films. But Killer Car Girls is not one of the great. No matter how many times Quentin says stuff like that, it still doesn't make it true." Which I heavily disagree with, a film can be important and break cinematic ground regardless of its subject matter and marketing aspirations. Recently I was asked by a friend to give him a sort of a shortlist of films that could be considered part of the canon as he wanted to expand his familiarity with cinema. I made a list of 67 films, accounting for my knowledge of his taste and personality. Like most non cinephiles today, he has a big aversion towards black and white films and has never seen one through to the end, so those are in the minority. This list includes Top Gun(THE ORIGINAL) for its cultural and stylistic importance and representing a certain type and era of movie, while also being just plain fun. There is not a single western on the list because he just plain hates westerns. But I still took care to have a lot of diveristy so that he can expose himself to new things and expand his taste. When he watched Basic Instinct, an acclaimed and interesting but still not an extremely obvious film for such a list totally blew him away and now he's eager to watch more Veerhoven, and that felt super super gratifying.

Superb movie!! Angela Landsbury is so evil and should have won the Academy Award!!