After the American Film Institute asked a blue-ribbon panel to pick the top 100 films, we asked Sun readers to do the same. More than 1,200 of you responded. Here are the top 10 picks from both groups. See page 4F for the lists.
Take that, AFI. Baltimore film fans have voted, and even added their two cents' worth on what you could have done better.
Last night during a three-hour TV special, the American Film Institute announced the films that its jury of 1,500 filmmakers, critics, exhibitors and scholars (not to mention President Clinton and Vice President Gore) deemed the 100 greatest American movies of all time.
There weren't too many surprises: "Citizen Kane" came in first, followed by usual suspects "Casablanca," "The Godfather," "Gone With the Wind" and "Lawrence of Arabia." The remaining 95 films were largely safe, mainstream American movies, with a few oddballs thrown in for subversion's sake. (It speaks volumes that "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," No. 26 on the AFI's list, is squeezed in between "E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial" and "Bonnie & Clyde.")
Few could quibble with the AFI, aside from the chauvinistic premise of limiting its nominees to American-made movies. Still, "The Graduate" (No. 7) seems awfully high up for what is essentially a canny but insubstantial period piece, and -- to give a dead horse yet another half-hearted lash -- "Forrest Gump" should be so lucky to be at the table, let alone seated between "The French Connection" and "Ben-Hur."
Far more interesting are the results of The Sun's own poll. Last month, we published the AFI's ballot of 400 movie titles and asked readers to choose their own top 100. The response was overwhelming: 1,280 of you wrote or e-mailed, having painstakingly checked off 100 tiny boxes.
Many of you included notes chiding the AFI, bemoaning the exclusion of foreign films and adding your own favorites. Best of all, you wrote in with the memories those films inspired.
Although Baltimore agreed with the AFI (the institute would not disclose how many ballots it received) around two-thirds of the time, there were some glaring differences. The AFI picked such classics as "Sunset Boulevard," "The Best Years of Our Lives," "The Birth of a Nation" and three Charlie Chaplin films, which Baltimore ignored in favor of such sentimental favorites as "Miracle on 34th Street," "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Mary Poppins."
And Baltimoreans had the wisdom to include "The Caine Mutiny," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "The Thin Man," "Laura" and "Rebecca."
Sure, Baltimore's Top 10 is top-heavy with safe bets: "Casablanca," "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz." But isn't it just like Baltimoreans to add "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?" Better yet, "The Sound of Music" and "Psycho?"
Local voters also have another thing over the AFI's impressively credentialed jury. Whereas Steve Spielberg is represented five times on the AFI's list, Baltimore reserved that honor for Alfred Hitchcock. And respect was paid to homegrown director Barry Levinson with the inclusion of "Rain Man." (None of John Waters' films were nominated, which points up both the AFI's centrism and Waters' convention-flouting integrity.)
Still, we didn't get everything right. Do we really want to rank "Dances With Wolves" ahead of "The Grapes of Wrath," "Lawrence of Arabia" and "All Quiet on the Western Front"? Did we actually mean to include "Field of Dreams" and "Pretty Woman," but not "The Best Years of Our Lives" or "Chinatown"? "The Color Purple" over "Fantasia" (which didn't even make Baltimore's top 100)?
The best-represented decade on both Baltimore's and the AFI's lists is the 1950s, with 22 and 20 entries, respectively. And, not surprisingly, the best represented year on both lists is 1939: It was probably the most extraordinary year for movies ever, when "Gone With the Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Wuthering Heights" and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" graced theater screens, as well as "Stagecoach," "Beau Geste," "Ninotchka," "Young Mr. Lincoln," "Destry Rides Again," "Only Angels Have Wings," "Midnight," "Golden Boy" and "Son of Frankenstein."
Many readers took issue with the AFI's American bias.
Edward J. Cunningham, of Silver Spring, wrote, "Had this poll included non-American films, I would have included such films as 'Children of Paradise,' 'The Third Man,' 'Seven Samurai,' 'Once Upon a Time in the West' and 'Les Miserables,' " he wrote. (In fact, "The Third Man" was a nominee, and came in at No. 57 on AFI's list.) "I also would have included James Cameron's 'Titanic' had it not been clear [that] the cut-off for films was 1996."
Cunningham also noted that every film that won an Academy Award for best picture -- with the exception of Laurence Olivier's British production of "Hamlet" -- was nominated. "AFI probably could have come up with a better list of nominees had they not slavishly adhered to this rule," he wrote. Even better than the movies people wrote in -- from "Orfeu Negro" to "The Bad and the Beautiful" -- were the memories conjured by the voting process. Thirza M. Brandt of Upper Falls recalled seeing silent films starring Buck Jones, Tom Mix, Ken Maynard and Clara Bow in the 1920s.
And Irene Morganstein of Baltimore, checked off 140 movies instead of the sanctioned 100. "The very first movie I remember seeing was with Al Jolson at the Metropolitan Theatre at North and Pennsylvania Avenues," she wrote. "A talkie!" Morganstein recalled living around the corner from the Avalon Theater on Park Heights Avenue, where "they changed films at least three times a week, maybe more."
Finally, Kathy Raymond of Baltimore offered a sensible approach to ascertaining whether a movie succeeds or fails. "A film should entertain, educate, enlighten and do it without being insulting to the senses," she wrote. And, of course, she's right.
Let's agree to disagree ...
Baltimore and the AFI voters agreed on 65 of the 100 top American movies. As for the other 35, here's how the two groups split:
I;
Movies on Baltimore's list that didn't make the AFI's:
Miracle on 34th Street
Rain Man
On Golden Pond
Driving Miss Daisy
The Color Purple
Mary Poppins
The Sting
Mrs. Miniver
Mister Roberts
The Ten Commandments
Field of Dreams
Fiddler on the Roof
Terms of Endearment
The Caine Mutiny
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Kramer vs. Kramer
The Birds
How Green Was My Valley
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Chariots of Fire
Dead Poets Society
The Thin Man
Stalag 17
Laura
Moonstruck
Gandhi
Pretty Woman
The Diary of Anne Frank
Rebecca
Return of the Jedi
The Shawshank Redemption
Witness
An Affair to Remember
J
Movies on the AFI's list that didn't make Baltimore's:
Sunset Boulevard
Chinatown
Raging Bull
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Apocalypse Now
Annie Hall
The Best Years of Our Lives
Double Indemnity
The Birth of A Nation
A Clockwork Orange
Taxi Driver
The Third Man
Fantasia
Stagecoach
Network
The French Connection
The Gold Rush
City Lights
American Graffiti
Rocky
The Deer Hunter
The Wild Bunch
Modern Times
Giant
Fargo
Duck Soup
Easy Rider
The Jazz Singer
A Place in the Sun
The Apartment
Goodfellas
Pulp Fiction
The Searchers
Bringing Up Baby
Unforgiven
The Sun's Top 100
1 Casablanca 1942
2 Gone With the Wind 1939
3 The Wizard of Oz 1939
4 To Kill a Mockingbird 1962
5 The African Queen 1951
6 The Godfather 1972
7 The Sound of Music 1965
8 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 1975
9 Citizen Kane 1941
10 Psycho 1960
11 It's a Wonderful Life 1946
12 Schindler's List 1993
13 The Graduate 1967
14 Miracle on 34th Street 1947
15 Doctor Zhivago 1965
16 Singin' in the Rain 1952
17 Forrest Gump 1994
18 The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957
19 From Here to Eternity 1953
20 The Maltese Falcon 1941
21 Dances With Wolves 1990
22 Star Wars 1977
23 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937
24 Rain Man 1988
25 A Streetcar Named Desire 1951
26 The Grapes of Wrath 1940
27 On Golden Pond 1981
28 Driving Miss Daisy 1989
29 West Side Story 1961
30 Rear Window 1954
31 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939
32 My Fair Lady 1964
33 The Silence of the Lambs 1991
34 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982
35 The Color Purple 1985
36 Ben-Hur 1959
37 M*A*S*H 1970
38 Mary Poppins 1964
39 The Philadelphia Story 1940
40 It Happened One Night 1934
41 The Sting 1973
42 Mrs. Miniver 1942
43 Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981
44 Tootsie 1982
45 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969
46 High Noon 1952
47 Amadeus 1984
48 Mister Roberts 1955
49 Lawrence of Arabia 1962
50 Jaws 1975
51 Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977
52 King Kong 1933
53 The Ten Commandments 1956
54 All Quiet on the Western Front 1930
55 All About Eve 1950
56 Field of Dreams 1989
57 Mutiny on the Bounty 1935
58 Fiddler on the Roof 1971
59 Vertigo 1958
60 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 1967
61 Terms of Endearment 1983
62 North by Northwest 1959
63 Wuthering Heights 1939
64 Some Like It Hot 1959
65 On the Waterfront 1954
66 The Caine Mutiny 1954
67 Goodbye, Mr. Chips 1939
68 The Manchurian Candidate 1962
69 Kramer vs. Kramer 1979
70 The Birds 1963
71 How Green Was My Valley 1941
72 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 1948
73 The Godfather Part II 1974
74 Breakfast at Tiffany's 1961
75 Chariots of Fire 1981
76 Dead Poets Society 1989
77 Yankee Doodle Dandy 1942
78 The Thin Man 1934
79 Patton 1970
80 Funny Girl 1968
81 An American in Paris 1951
82 Shane 1953
83 Stalag 17, 1953
84 Laura 1944
85 Bonnie and Clyde 1967
86 Out of Africa 1985
87 Moonstruck 1987
88 Gandhi 1982
89 Midnight Cowboy 1969
90 Pretty Woman 1990
91 Platoon 1986
92 Rebel Without a Cause 1955
93 The Diary of Anne Frank 1959
94 Frankenstein 1931
95 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
96 Rebecca 1940
97 Return of the Jedi 1983
98 The Shawshank Redemption 1994
99 Witness 1985
100 An Affair to Remember 1957
AFI's Top 100
1 Citizen Kane 1941
2 Casablanca 1942
3 The Godfather 1972
4 Gone With the Wind 1939
5 Lawrence of Arabia 1962
6 The Wizard of Oz 1939
7 The Graduate 1967
8 On the Waterfront 1954
9 Schindler's List 1993
10 Singin' in the Rain 1952
11 It's a Wonderful Life 1946
12 Sunset Boulevard 1950
13 The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957
14 Some Like It Hot 1959
15 Star Wars 1977
16 All About Eve 1950
17 The African Queen 1951
18 Psycho 1960
19 Chinatown 1974
20 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 1975
21 The Grapes of Wrath 1940
22 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
23 The Maltese Falcon 1941
24 Raging Bull 1980
25 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982
26 Dr. Strangelove 1964
27 Bonnie & Clyde 1967
28 Apocalypse Now 1979
29 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939
30 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 1948
31 Annie Hall 1977
32 The Godfather Part II 1974
33 High Noon 1952
34 To Kill a Mockingbird 1962
35 It Happened One Night 1934
36 Midnight Cowboy 1969
37 The Best Years of Our Lives 1946
38 Double Indemnity 1944
39 Doctor Zhivago 1965
40 North by Northwest 1959
41 West Side Story 1961
42 Rear Window 1954
43 King Kong 1933
44 The Birth of a Nation 1915
45 A Streetcar Named Desire 1951
46 A Clockwork Orange 1971
47 Taxi Driver 1976
48 Jaws 1975
49 Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs 1937
50 Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid 1969
51 The Philadelphia Story 1940
52 From Here to Eternity 1953
53 Amadeus, 1984
54 All Quiet on the Western Front 1930
55 The Sound of Music 1965
56 M*A*S*H 1970
57 The Third Man 1949
58 Fantasia 1940
59 Rebel Without a Cause 1955
60 Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981
61 Vertigo 1958
62 Tootsie 1982
63 Stagecoach 1939
64 Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977
65 The Silence of the Lambs 1991
66 Network 1976
67 The Manchurian Candidate 1962
68 An American in Paris 1951
60 Shane 1953
70 The French Connection 1971
71 Forrest Gump 1994
72 Ben-Hur 1959
73 Wuthering Heights 1939
74 The Gold Rush 1925
75 Dances With Wolves 1990
76 City Lights 1931
77 American Graffiti 1973
78 Rocky 1976
79 The Deer Hunter 1978
80 The Wild Bunch 1969
81 Modern Times 1936
82 Giant 1956
83 Platoon 1986
84 Fargo 1996
85 Duck Soup 1933
86 Mutiny on the Bounty 1935
87 Frankenstein 1931
88 Easy Rider 1969
89 Patton 1970
90 The Jazz Singer 1927
91 My Fair Lady 1964
92 A Place in the Sun 1951
93 The Apartment 1960
94 Goodfellas 1990
95 Pulp Fiction 1994
96 The Searchers 1956
97 Bringing Up Baby 1938
98 Unforgiven 1992
99 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 1967
100 Yankee Doodle Dandy 1942
Pub Date: 6/17/98