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Top American Films (#1-100)

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 Citizen Kane 1941 Orson Welles 1
2 Casablanca 1942 Michael Curtiz 2
3 The Godfather 1972 Francis Ford Coppola 3
4 2001: A Space Odyssey1 1968 Stanley Kubrick 4
5 Singin' in the Rain 1952 Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly 5
6 The Wizard of Oz 1939 Victor Fleming 6
7 Star Wars 1977 George Lucas 7
8 Psycho 1960 Alfred Hitchcock 9
9 Vertigo 1958 Alfred Hitchcock 10
10 Gone with the Wind 1939 Victor Fleming 11
11 Some Like It Hot 1959 Billy Wilder 12
12 It's a Wonderful Life 1946 Frank Capra 13
13 The Godfather: Part II 1974 Francis Ford Coppola 15
14 Taxi Driver 1976 Martin Scorsese 16
15 Apocalypse Now 1979 Francis Ford Coppola 17
16 Raging Bull 1980 Martin Scorsese 18
17 Chinatown 1974 Roman Polanski 19
18 Pulp Fiction 1994 Quentin Tarantino 20
19 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982 Steven Spielberg 21
20 Schindler's List 1993 Steven Spielberg 22
21 The Searchers 1956 John Ford 23
22 Annie Hall 1977 Woody Allen 24
23 Blade Runner 1982 Ridley Scott 25
24 Jaws 1975 Steven Spielberg 27
25 North by Northwest 1959 Alfred Hitchcock 28
26 On the Waterfront 1954 Elia Kazan 29
27 Rear Window 1954 Alfred Hitchcock 30
28 Goodfellas 1990 Martin Scorsese 31
29 Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981 Steven Spielberg 32
30 The Maltese Falcon 1941 John Huston 33
31 Sunset Blvd. 1950 Billy Wilder 34
32 All about Eve 1950 Joseph L. Mankiewicz 35
33 One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest 1975 Milos Forman 37
34 The Graduate 1967 Mike Nichols 38
35 The Silence of the Lambs 1991 Jonathan Demme 39
36 Double Indemnity 1944 Billy Wilder 40
37 Bonnie and Clyde 1967 Arthur Penn 41
38 The General 1927 Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton 42
39 Bringing Up Baby 1938 Howard Hawks 44
40 High Noon 1952 Fred Zinnemann 45
41 The Empire Strikes Back 1980 Irvin Kershner 46
42 King Kong 1933 Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack 47
43 The Shawshank Redemption 1994 Frank Darabont 48
44 Touch of Evil 1958 Orson Welles 49
45 Fargo 1996 Joel Coen 50
46 The Wild Bunch 1969 Sam Peckinpah 51
47 The Bridge on the River Kwai1 1957 David Lean 52
48 It Happened One Night 1934 Frank Capra 53
49 Alien1 1979 Ridley Scott 54
50 City Lights 1931 Charles Chaplin 55
51 Duck Soup 1933 Leo McCarey 56
52 To Kill a Mockingbird 1962 Robert Mulligan 57
53 The Matrix2 1999 Andy and Larry Wachowski 59
54 The Gold Rush 1925 Charles Chaplin 60
55 Blue Velvet 1986 David Lynch 61
56 The Sound of Music 1965 Robert Wise 62
57 The Usual Suspects3 1995 Bryan Singer 64
58 Saving Private Ryan 1998 Steven Spielberg 67
59 The Grapes of Wrath 1940 John Ford 68
60 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 1948 John Huston 69
61 Nashville 1975 Robert Altman 70
62 The African Queen1 1951 John Huston 71
63 The Deer Hunter 1978 Michael Cimino 72
64 The Night of the Hunter 1955 Charles Laughton 73
65 Forrest Gump 1994 Robert Zemeckis 75
66 Stagecoach 1939 John Ford 76
67 Titanic 1997 James Cameron 79
68 Unforgiven 1992 Clint Eastwood 80
69 The Philadelphia Story 1940 George Cukor 81
70 Toy Story 1995 John Lasseter 83
71 West Side Story 1961 Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise 84
72 Rebel without a Cause 1955 Nicholas Ray 85
73 His Girl Friday 1940 Howard Hawks 86
74 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937 David Hand 87
75 Aliens1 1986 James Cameron 88
76 Reservoir Dogs 1992 Quentin Tarantino 90
77 Modern Times 1936 Charles Chaplin 92
78 The Manchurian Candidate 1962 John Frankenheimer 93
79 Braveheart 1995 Mel Gibson 94
80 Sunrise 1927 F.W. Murnau 95
81 The Best Years of Our Lives 1946 William Wyler 96
82 A Streetcar Named Desire 1951 Elia Kazan 99
83 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969 George Roy Hill 100
84 Ben-Hur 1959 William Wyler 101
85 The Exorcist 1973 William Friedkin 102
86 Close Encounters of the Third Kind1 1977 Steven Spielberg 103
87 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring4 2001 Peter Jackson 104
88 L.A. Confidential 1997 Curtis Hanson 105
89 Do the Right Thing 1989 Spike Lee 106
90 Rocky 1976 John G. Avildsen 107
91 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939 Frank Capra 109
92 The Terminator1 1984 James Cameron 110
93 Platoon1 1986 Oliver Stone 111
94 The Birth of a Nation 1915 D.W. Griffith 112
95 Sullivan's Travels 1941 Preston Sturges 113
96 Frankenstein 1931 James Whale 114
97 Bride of Frankenstein 1935 James Whale 116
98 M*A*S*H 1970 Robert Altman 117
99 Fight Club3 1999 David Fincher 118
100 All Quiet on the Western Front 1930 Lewis Milestone 119

1 Joint production with the United Kingdom.
2 Joint production with Australia.
3 Joint production with (West) Germany.
4 Joint production with New Zealand.
5 Joint production with France.
6 Joint production with Italy.
7 Joint production with Hong Kong.
8 Joint production with Taiwan.
9 Joint production with the People's Republic of China.
10 Joint production with Japan.
11 Joint production with Canada.
12 Joint production with Switzerland.
13 Joint production with Austria.
14 Joint production with Ireland.
15 Joint production with India.
16 Joint production with Spain.
17 Joint production with Mexico.
18 Joint production with the Netherlands.
19 Joint production with Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
20 Joint production with South Africa.
21 Joint production with Greece.
22 Joint production with the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia.
23 Joint production with Morocco.
24 Joint production with Cuba.
25 Joint production with Argentina, Chile, and Peru.
26 Joint production with Brazil.
27 Joint production with Israel.
28 Joint production with Malta.
29 Joint production with Yugoslavia.

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This page was last modified on April 2, 2008