I have come not to knock the American Film Institute's formulaic propensity for cobbling together lists, but rather to praise the lunch-table conversations that result therefrom.

So, OK, let's get the obvious out of the way first. Yes, the list of the top 100 U.S. screen romances, lovingly unveiled during a star-studded three-hour CBS prime-time special this past week, contained its share of silliness: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (87) and Last Tango In Paris (48) always put me in the mood for amour. When it came to the highest rankings, there was little that could really be called a surprise: Casablanca tops the list? Not exactly a shocker. And there were the standard egregious omissions: Where was Red Dust? Pat and Mike? The Year of Living Dangerously? Say Anything?

Has there really never been a romantic Western? Such wonderful films as My Darling Clementine, Duel in the Sun, even Shane, suggest otherwise.

And yes, there's a definite issue of diminishing returns when it comes to the AFI lists, which now number five. The first ranked the 100 greatest American films of any genre (Citizen Kane topped the list), the second the 50 top actors and actresses (led by Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn). Both led to all sorts of spirited debate and piqued all manner of interest in our cinematic heritage.

The third and fourth, ranking comedies (No. 1: Some Like It Hot) and thrillers (Psycho), generated less discussion - and more thoughts that maybe this well has been dipped into too often.

And yet, you're still reading, aren't you? I know I'm not the only one to write about it. And if a list such as this is the only way to get vintage clips of such disparate artists as Rudolph Valentino, Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Lillian Gish, Henry Fonda, Dorothy Dandridge, Leslie Caron and Burt Lancaster onto prime-time TV and - however briefly - into the national consciousness, then I say, 'Godspeed, AFI.'

In a world of ever-shortening attention spans, where history is what happened last month and old is anything that wouldn't play on MTV, something that reminds people that today's movie blockbusters weren't created in a vacuum, that film is a continuum where what was created 75 years ago can be as viable and as enjoyable as what is playing at the multiplex today, is downright laudable.

As always, there are plenty of enjoyable quirks on the list, movies you'd never think would have made it - King Kong at No. 24? Who knew the Big Guy had it in him? - and films you're delighted to see get the recognition they're due.

That's never been more true than the film that ranked at No. 10, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, in which the Little Tramp befriends a blind woman, steals money from a millionaire so she can afford the operation to restore her sight (she thinks he's the rich man), then is so afraid of what she'll think of his ragamuffin appearance that he's scared to even approach her. It is a little-seen gem, a perfectly modulated seriocomic romance. Kudos to all the AFI voters who remembered it fondly.

Watching the list countdown, I was reminded of how even the silliest, most overrated movie can contain moments of magic. The melodrama of An Affair to Remember (No. 5) may be achingly earnest and almost burdensomely ham-fisted, but that doesn't make it any less affecting - or resonant.

Love Story (No. 9) remains one of the most overblown, over-praised and over-quoted movies of all time (regardless of whether it was or was not inspired by the courtship of Al and Tipper Gore). But the clip shown, of Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal's smart-mouthing each other within an inch of resorting to fisticuffs, was genuinely clever and warm-hearted. The film captured an era and a spirit better than some critics (myself included) have given it credit for.

And whatever you have to slog through to make it that far, An Officer and a Gentleman (No. 29) still ends with an emotional punch that would move even the most stonehearted.

Then there are the great movies, the ones that somehow make those killer moments stretch into hours.

Movies like The African Queen (No. 14), featuring a love that is at once one of Hollywood's unlikeliest and most endearing; Sunrise (63), a silent masterpiece from F.W. Murnau with a beauty that hasn't been surpassed in 75 years; that most adult romance, Two for the Road (57), with honest, heart-rending performances from Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney; the uncomplicated romanticism of Disney's Lady and the Tramp (95), suggesting that a dog's life may not be so bad after all.

All are films worth remembering, and watching, and cherishing. The AFI's lists serve no better purpose than simply to remind us of that.