1998 | 100 Movies |
---|---|
1999 | 100 Stars |
2000 | 100 Laughs |
2001 | 100 Thrills |
2002 | 100 Passions |
2003 | 100 Heroes & Villains |
2004 | 100 Songs |
2005 | 100 Movie Quotes |
2005 | 25 Scores |
2006 | 100 Cheers |
2006 | 25 Musicals |
2007 | 100 Movies (Updated) |
2008 | AFI's 10 Top 10 |
The first of the AFI 100 Years... series of cinematic milestones, AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies is a list of the 100 best American movies, as determined by the American Film Institute from a poll of more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the film industry who chose from a list of 400 nominated movies. The 100-best list was unveiled in 1998.
A 145-minute presentation of the 100 films aired on CBS. A 460-minute version aired as a 10-part series on TNT, hosted by Jodie Foster, Richard Gere, Sally Field and narrated by James Woods. An updated version of the list, billed as a 10th Anniversary edition, aired on CBS on June 20, 2007, and was hosted by Morgan Freeman. The AFI website notes that, "Due to licensing restrictions, the telecasts of the AFI 100 Years...100 Series are not available for distribution or purchase on DVD or VHS."
Films were judged according to the following criteria.
Twenty-three films from the original top 100 films list were removed in 2007:
Four films released between 1996–2006 were added:
Nineteen films made before 1996 were also added:
As with awards, the list of those who vote and the final vote tally are not released to the public, nor the criteria for how the 400 nominated films have been selected.
On June 26, 1998, the Chicago Reader published an article by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum which offers a detailed response to the movies in the AFI list, as well as criticism of the AFI's appropriation of British films, such as Lawrence of Arabia and The Third Man. Rosenbaum also produced an alternative list of 100 American movies that he felt had been overlooked by the AFI. Rosenbaum chose to present this alternative list alphabetically since to rank them according to merit would be "tantamount to ranking oranges over apples or declaring cherries superior to grapes."