Young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz, and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others' wishes.
Directors: Victor Fleming, King Vidor| Stars: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr
Votes: 428,145 | Gross: $2.08M
A | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
91 Metascore
An ex-prize fighter turned New Jersey longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses, including his older brother, as he starts to connect with the grieving sister of one of the syndicate's victims.
Director: Elia Kazan| Stars: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger
Votes: 164,653 | Gross: $9.60M
G | 103 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
99 Metascore
A silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his delusionally jealous screen partner are trying to make the difficult transition to talking pictures in 1920s Hollywood.
Directors: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly| Stars: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen
Votes: 260,356 | Gross: $8.82M
G | 161 min | Adventure, Drama, War
88 Metascore
British POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.
Director: David Lean| Stars: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa
Votes: 233,061 | Gross: $44.91M
A | 121 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
98 Metascore
After two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
Director: Billy Wilder| Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft
Votes: 283,219 | Gross: $25.00M
NRC | 121 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
90 Metascore
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.
Director: George Lucas| Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness
Votes: 1,447,928 | Gross: $322.74M
G | 105 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
91 Metascore
In WWI East Africa, a gin-swilling Canadian riverboat captain is persuaded by a strait-laced English missionary to undertake a trip up a treacherous river and use his boat to attack a German gunship.
Director: John Huston| Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull
Votes: 84,237 | Gross: $0.54M
SOA | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
97 Metascore
A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock| Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin
Votes: 717,397 | Gross: $32.00M
M | 133 min | Drama
84 Metascore
In the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse.
Director: Milos Forman| Stars: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman, Peter Brocco
Votes: 1,071,060 | Gross: $112.00M
G | 129 min | Drama
96 Metascore
An Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
Director: John Ford| Stars: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin
Votes: 99,856 | Gross: $0.06M
G | 149 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
84 Metascore
After uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.
Director: Stanley Kubrick| Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter
Votes: 718,521 | Gross: $56.95M
A | 100 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
97 Metascore
San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.
Director: John Huston| Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre
Votes: 166,455 | Gross: $2.11M
A | 95 min | Comedy, War
97 Metascore
An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick| Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 517,461 | Gross: $0.28M
G | 129 min | Comedy, Drama
73 Metascore
A naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character.
Director: Frank Capra| Stars: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold
Votes: 121,293 | Gross: $9.60M
A | 126 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
98 Metascore
Two down-on-their-luck Americans searching for work in 1920s Mexico convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Director: John Huston| Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett
Votes: 132,314 | Gross: $5.01M
M | 93 min | Comedy, Romance
92 Metascore
Alvy Singer, a divorced Jewish comedian, reflects on his relationship with ex-lover Annie Hall, an aspiring nightclub singer, which ended abruptly just like his previous marriages.
Director: Woody Allen| Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane
Votes: 278,125 | Gross: $39.20M
G | 85 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
89 Metascore
A town Marshal, despite the disagreements of his newlywed bride and the townspeople around him, must face a gang of deadly killers alone at "high noon" when the gang leader, an outlaw he "sent up" years ago, arrives on the noon train.
Director: Fred Zinnemann| Stars: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges
Votes: 110,070 | Gross: $9.45M
PG | 105 min | Comedy, Romance
87 Metascore
A rogue reporter trailing a runaway heiress for a big story joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York and they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops along the way.
Director: Frank Capra| Stars: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns
Votes: 112,129 | Gross: $4.36M
G | 170 min | Drama, Romance, War
93 Metascore
Three World War II veterans, two of them traumatized or disabled, return home to the American midwest to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed.
Director: William Wyler| Stars: Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Fredric March, Teresa Wright
Votes: 70,464 | Gross: $23.65M
A | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
95 Metascore
A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.
Director: Billy Wilder| Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr
Votes: 167,273 | Gross: $5.72M
A | 197 min | Drama, Romance, War
69 Metascore
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.
Director: David Lean| Stars: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger
Votes: 81,995 | Gross: $111.72M
G | 136 min | Action, Adventure, Mystery
98 Metascore
A New York City advertising executive goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and falls for a woman whose loyalties he begins to doubt.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock| Stars: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis
Votes: 345,708 | Gross: $13.28M
A | 112 min | Mystery, Thriller
100 Metascore
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window and, despite the skepticism of his fashion-model girlfriend, becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock| Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter
Votes: 521,461 | Gross: $36.76M
PG | 195 min | Drama, History, War
The Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.
Director: D.W. Griffith| Stars: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper
Votes: 26,316 | Gross: $10.00M
SOA | 122 min | Drama
97 Metascore
Disturbed Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law while her reality crumbles around her.
Director: Elia Kazan| Stars: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden
Votes: 114,240 | Gross: $8.00M
M | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
87 Metascore
When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.
Director: Steven Spielberg| Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
Votes: 658,591 | Gross: $260.00M
G | 83 min | Animation, Adventure, Family
96 Metascore
Exiled into the dangerous forest by her wicked stepmother, a princess is rescued by seven dwarf miners who make her part of their household.
Directors: William Cottrell, David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen| Stars: Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille La Verne, Roy Atwell
Votes: 215,154 | Gross: $184.93M
A | 110 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
66 Metascore
In 1890s Wyoming, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid lead a band of outlaws. When a train robbery goes wrong, they find themselves on the run with a posse hard on their heels. After considering their options, they escape to South America.
Director: George Roy Hill| Stars: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Strother Martin
Votes: 226,558 | Gross: $102.31M
A | 118 min | Drama, Romance, War
85 Metascore
At a U.S. Army base in 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his commanding officer's wife and top aide begin a tentative affair.
Director: Fred Zinnemann| Stars: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed
Votes: 50,769 | Gross: $30.50M
A | 104 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
97 Metascore
Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
Director: Carol Reed| Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard
Votes: 181,671 | Gross: $0.45M
G | 124 min | Animation, Family, Fantasy
96 Metascore
A series of eight famous pieces of classical music, conducted by Leopold Stokowski and interpreted in animation by Walt Disney's team of artists.
Directors: James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe Jr., Norman Ferguson, David Hand, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen| Stars: Leopold Stokowski, Deems Taylor, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Corey Burton
Votes: 103,877 | Gross: $76.41M
NRC | 115 min | Action, Adventure
86 Metascore
In 1936, archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis can obtain its awesome powers.
Director: Steven Spielberg| Stars: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies
Votes: 1,035,867 | Gross: $248.16M
SOA | 128 min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller
100 Metascore
A former San Francisco police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful woman he has been hired to trail, who may be deeply disturbed.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock| Stars: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore
Votes: 426,363 | Gross: $3.20M
G | 96 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
93 Metascore
A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo and learn something about each other in the process.
Director: John Ford| Stars: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine
Votes: 53,686
NRC | 138 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
90 Metascore
Roy Neary, an Indiana electric lineman, finds his quiet and ordinary daily life turned upside down after a close encounter with a UFO, spurring him to an obsessed cross-country quest for answers as a momentous event approaches.
Director: Steven Spielberg| Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon
Votes: 216,602 | Gross: $132.09M
R | 118 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
86 Metascore
A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.
Director: Jonathan Demme| Stars: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine
Votes: 1,546,108 | Gross: $130.74M
M | 121 min | Drama
83 Metascore
A television network cynically exploits a deranged former anchor's ravings and revelations about the news media for its own profit, but finds that his message may be difficult to control.
Director: Sidney Lumet| Stars: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall
Votes: 170,384
G | 118 min | Drama, Western
85 Metascore
A weary gunfighter in 1880s Wyoming begins to envision a quieter life after befriending a homestead family with a young son who idolizes him, but a smoldering range war forces him to act.
Director: George Stevens| Stars: Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde
Votes: 44,089 | Gross: $20.00M
R | 104 min | Action, Crime, Drama
94 Metascore
A pair of NYPD detectives in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a heroin smuggling ring based in Marseilles, but stopping them and capturing their leaders proves an elusive goal.
Director: William Friedkin| Stars: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco
Votes: 135,465 | Gross: $15.63M
M | 142 min | Drama, Romance
82 Metascore
The history of the United States from the 1950s to the '70s unfolds from the perspective of an Alabama man with an IQ of 75, who yearns to be reunited with his childhood sweetheart.
Director: Robert Zemeckis| Stars: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Sally Field
Votes: 2,253,108 | Gross: $330.25M
M | 181 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
72 Metascore
Lieutenant John Dunbar, assigned to a remote western Civil War outpost, finds himself engaging with a neighbouring Sioux settlement, causing him to question his own purpose.
Director: Kevin Costner| Stars: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant
Votes: 290,134 | Gross: $184.21M
PG | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
97 Metascore
A group of teenagers in California's central valley spend one final night after their 1962 high school graduation cruising the strip with their buddies before they pursue their varying goals.
Director: George Lucas| Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith
Votes: 98,015 | Gross: $115.00M
NRC | 120 min | Drama, Sport
70 Metascore
A small-time Philadelphia boxer gets a supremely rare chance to fight the world heavyweight champion in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect.
Director: John G. Avildsen| Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers
Votes: 627,630 | Gross: $117.24M
R | 120 min | Drama, War
92 Metascore
Chris Taylor, a neophyte recruit in Vietnam, finds himself caught in a battle of wills between two sergeants, one good and the other evil. A shrewd examination of the brutality of war and the duality of man in conflict.
Director: Oliver Stone| Stars: Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Keith David
Votes: 438,977 | Gross: $138.53M
G | 69 min | Comedy, Musical
93 Metascore
Rufus T. Firefly is named the dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of his wealthy backer Mrs. Teasdale, contending with two inept spies who can't seem to keep straight which side they're on.
Director: Leo McCarey| Stars: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx
Votes: 62,705
G | 132 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
87 Metascore
First mate Fletcher Christian leads a revolt against his sadistic commander, Captain Bligh, in this classic seafaring adventure, based on the real-life 1789 mutiny.
Director: Frank Lloyd| Stars: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Herbert Mundin
Votes: 24,818
SOA | 95 min | Adventure, Drama
85 Metascore
Two bikers head from L.A. to New Orleans through the open country and desert lands, and along the way they meet a man who bridges a counter-culture gap of which they had been unaware.
Director: Dennis Hopper| Stars: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Antonio Mendoza
Votes: 116,840 | Gross: $41.73M
A | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
94 Metascore
A Manhattan insurance clerk tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.
Director: Billy Wilder| Stars: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston
Votes: 196,492 | Gross: $18.60M
G | 119 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
94 Metascore
An American Civil War veteran embarks on a years-long journey to rescue his niece from the Comanches after the rest of his brother's family is massacred in a raid on their Texas farm.
Which film was rated as the greatest film score ever by the American Film Institute?
1. Star Wars [1977]
What is the best movie of all time according to AFI?
1. Citizen Kane [1941]
What is the most inspirational movie by the American Film Institute?
The list.
What is the top 10 of the AFI 2024?
This year's AFI Top 10 film list featured Barbie, Oppenheimer, American Fiction, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, May December, Past Lives, Poor Things and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.