In 1998 the American Film Institute released its “100 Greatest American Movies Of All Time,” where more than 1,500 professionals in the field choose from a list of 400 nominated movies.
This list was then updated in 2007. It hasn’t been touched since.
The result is a dated collection of movies that, while important in their own times, are irrelevant to a new generation of moviegoers whose grandparents watched in-theater debuts of many of the noted films.
The top three movies on this list are Citizen Kane, released in 1941, The Godfather, released in 1972 and Casablanca which was released in 1942.
When students were asked if they’d seen the top ten movies on the list, the vast majority had not even heard of more than two of them.
Would this have changed if teachers on campus were to be asked the same thing? Most likely. But the fact remains that this top 100 list isn’t relevant for the younger population in our country.
We need a new top 100 list from AFI.
The past 14 years since this list has been updated have shown a great evolution of both cinema and our society as a whole, this list should reflect that.
If this is the most official source to get an accurate and fair ranking of the top 100 movies from our country, they shouldn’t have such a large gap of time in which the list has not been updated, especially with all the changes cinema has seen over the past decade alone.
The fact that Toy Story made this top 100 list shows that fact perfectly. It was ranked very low on the list initially. Would it have better placement under new reviewers with updated eyes viewing it?
Although Toy Story is a good movie, it’s nothing necessarily special by today’s standards. But in 2007 when animation was really starting to grow and evolve Toy Story was a great example of cutting edge animation. And this is the only reason Toy Story made this list.
If this list were to be updated, Toy Story could be replaced with something like Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse, a movie with impeccable animation, a perfect soundtrack, a solid and intriguing plot and a movie that is universally liked amongst the younger population in this country.
And if this list were to be updated, it should have to include either a brief explanation as to why each movie was placed where it was or an overall grading criteria that could be used to understand the placement of each movie.
As of now we have no clue why Citizen Kane is the best movie of all time according to AFI, or why movies we as a society deem as classics such as Jurassic Park, Ghostbusters and The Princess Bride are not on the list at all.
We would also know why some genres are over-represented compared to others, such as there being many more comedies than there are any movies of the horror genre.
If this list were to be updated movies like Us, a psychological thriller from 2019 that won 49 awards and was nominated for 69 others, and Baby Driver, an action movie from 2017 where the soundtrack is masterfully integrated into the movie, would surely be somewhere on the list.
One could guess why they placed each movie where they did but we need a concrete explanation behind each decision for it to truly be considered the official list of the 100 best American movies.