AFI's Typical New List

I am a pretty big fan of classic movies and I heard about AFI's new list last year when I was looking at their All-Time Top 100 movies list. The new list is the "10 Top 10", ranking the top 10 movies in the following genres: Animation, Romantic Comedy, Western, Sports, Mystery, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Gangster, Court Room Drama, and Epic. The complete lists can be found at here at AFI's website. I am not going to touch on the entire lists, rather, just the number ones. But rest assured, they are as typical as ever. You only need limited knowledge of film to think like AFI. Anyway, the Top 10 of the 10 genres are as follows:

Animation - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Romantic Comedy - City Lights

Western - The Searchers

Sports - Raging Bull

Mystery - Vertigo

Fantasy - The Wizard of Oz

Sci-Fi - 2001: A Space Odyssey

Gangster - The Godfather

Court Room Drama - To Kill A Mockingbird

Epic - Lawrence of Arabia


There was a quiz on the site prior to the big unveiling tonight on CBS, and me and a good friend of mine attempted to guess the number one in each category. We got 8 of them right. The only ones we missed were in the Western and Romantic Comedy categories. We thought High Noon would win for sure in the Western category (It came in Second) and we picked The Philadelphia Story for number one Romantic Comedy (That came in fifth).

I am OK with all of the Number ones except for The Searchers. But the one that was really surprising to me was City Lights. I just knew the jury would look over City Lights. First, it was the oldest film on the list (made in 1931) and second, it is silent. But it has such a great story mixed with classic humor, and the ending is one of the best ever put to film. This was by far my favorite pick ever as well as one of my favorite movies of all time.

Throughout the show, I couldn't help but feel that AFI was making up for leaving some films off of the top 100, i.e. Adam's Rib. I also felt that these lists were really pointless. Most of the lists are disasters with Gangster and Mystery being the exceptions.

Other than my elation for the love that was shown to City Lights, I feel that Hitchcock being on the Mystery list 4 times was well deserved (Dial M For Murder, North by Northwest, Rear Window, and Vertigo). The only problem I have with the Mystery list is that Chinatown comes in at number 2. Personally, I could care less about Chinatown. I don't think the story is compelling at all, and the whole movie feels real standard. I have never understood the love for that movie. Granted Nicholson gives a great performance. But Nicholson always outshines even in his most underwritten roles.

The Gangster list was really interesting to me because Goodfellas split the Godfathers. Of course The Godfather was going to be number one, but I was sure that Part II would come in second. I thought Goodfellas did deserve its number 2 spot however. I know a lot of people that just don't like Goodfellas and I never understood that. But now that I think about it, I am sure those same people would probably like Chinatown.

Now that I have ranted incoherently for a little while, I think it is time to sign off. Seriously though, check out the complete lists at the link above. I dare you to disagree with me that those lists more or less suck.