Wednesday, June 20, 2007

New Best list

"AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies - 10th Anniversary Edition," "Citizen Kane" held the same No. 1 billing it earned in the institute's first top-100 ranking in 1998.

There were notable changes elsewhere, though, with Martin Scorsese's 1980 masterpiece "Raging Bull" bounding upward from No. 24 in 1998 to No. 4 on the new list and Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 thriller "Vertigo" hurtling from No. 61 to No. 9 this time.

Charles Chaplin's 1931 silent gem "City Lights" jumped from No. 76 to No. 11, while the 1956 John Ford-John Wayne Western "The Searchers" took the biggest leap, from No. 96 all the way to No. 12.

Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 epic "The Godfather" ranked No. 2, up one notch from 1998, switching places with Michael Curtiz's 1942 favorite "Casablanca," which dipped from second-place to third.

Both 1967's "The Graduate" and 1954's "On the Waterfront," which ranked Nos. 7 and 8 respectively in 1998, fell out of the top 10, "The Graduate" coming in at No. 17 and "On the Waterfront" finishing at No. 19.

The other five films in the new top 10 also were among the original 10 best, though they shuffled positions: 1952's "Singin' in the Rain (No. 5 now, No. 10 in 1998), 1939's "Gone With the Wind" (No. 6 now, No. 4 in 1998), 1962's "Lawrence of Arabia" (No. 7 now, No. 5 in 1998), 1993's "Schindler's List" (No. 8 now, No. 9 in 1998) and 1939's "The Wizard of Oz" (No. 10 now, No. 6 in 1998).

The top-100 were chosen from ballots sent to 1,500 filmmakers, actors, writers, critics and others in Hollywood from a list of 400 nominated movies, 43 of which came from the decade since the first list was compiled.

Sorry Chicago, Brokeback Mountain ,Gladiator ,Beautiful Mind ......You are not on the list Of those newer films, only four made the top-100: 2001's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (No. 50), 1998's "Saving Private Ryan" (No. 71), 1997's "Titanic" (No. 83) and 1999's "The Sixth Sense" (No. 89).

Other additions to the list: "The General," "Intolerance," "Nashville," "Sullivan's Travels," "Cabaret," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" "The Shawshank Redemption," "In The Heat of the Night," "All the President's Men," "Spartacus," "Sunrise," "A Night at the Opera," "12 Angry Men," "Swing Time," "Sophie's Choice," "The Last Picture Show," "Do the Right Thing," "Blade Runner" and "Toy Story."

Of course, with new choices come notable subtractions.

Titles that didn't make the cut this time: "Doctor Zhivago," "Birth of a Nation," "From Here to Eternity," "Amadeus," "All Quiet on the Western Front," "The Third Man," "Fantasia," "Rebel Without a Cause," "Stagecoach," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "The Manchurian Candidate," "An American in Paris," "Wuthering Heights," "Dances With Wolves," "Giant," "Fargo," "Mutiny on the Bounty," the 1931 "Frankenstein," "Patton," "The Jazz Singer," "My Fair Lady," "A Place in the Sun" and "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

"Close Encounters" director Steven Spielberg had the most films on the list with five, while Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Billy Wilder each had four. James Stewart and Robert De Niro were the most-represented actors with five films apiece.

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