AFI's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

Last winter Ariel and I were in need of a pandemic activity so we decided to watch all 100 movies on the 2007 list of AFI’s 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. The AFI list emphasizes not just great movies, but popular films that helped change the course of cinema. After a year-and-a-half, we finally saw them all! Here are some highlights from our movie watching journey:

The Charming Silent Movies: 1916 - 1936

We loved all of the silent movies, especially the Charlie Chaplin movies which are just amazing:

Modern Times (1936)
City Lights (1931)
The Gold Rush (1925)

Chaplin’s movies are the best - they’re funny, clever, well acted and have lots of great stunts.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) is also another amazing film from this time with beautiful high production sets that feel otherworldly.

Joyful Comedies of the 30s

Our favorite decade for movies was the 1930s. These films were modern, playful, smart and silly, probably to relieve people from the pain of the great depression. Most striking of all, these movies revolve around female characters who are empowered, opinionated, weird and funny. I had assumed that female representation had only grown over time, but based on the movies we watched on this list, that’s not true. I’m not sure that films from today represent woman as well as they did in the 30s.

Our favorites:

The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Duck Soup (1933)

The last two films are Marx Brothers movies which we had never seen before and loved.

The Who-Done-Its of the 1940s

40s movies on the AFI list are very brooding but still have the fun vibe of the 1930s films, with many of them being film noirs. The plots are very prominent, with great, fast-talking scripts. Most of the 40s films we saw felt as if they were written by Aaron Sorkin (West Wing fame) with lots of clever, dense dialogue. I might argue this decade represents a high point for cinema.

Our favorites:

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
All About Eve (1950)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Citizen Kane (1941)

50s Morality Tales (1950 - 1965)

Most of the 1950s movies on the list had a strong moral message, perhaps a reaction to the chaos and trauma of WWII. However, a lot of our favorites from this time didn’t lean so heavily on trying to impart a lesson.

Our favorites:

12 Angry Men (1957)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Rear Window (1954)
Vertigo (1958)
Psycho (1960)

The last three movies above are Hitchcock films which are fantastic.

The Horrifying Traumamatic 70s (1966 - 1980)

The films from this time period are like nothing else of this list, they are raw, angry, depressing, violent and are very male oriented. Deaths are common in these movies but are rarely acknowledged as significant. Women are barely on screen and are usually prostitutes that get murdered halfway through. All or some of the main characters are randomly murdered often in the last few seconds of the film. The main characters typically have issues with expressing their feelings and frequently withdraw, lash-out, do drugs, kill or get killed. We found many of these movies were rough to watch. Here are a few examples of the tough ones, but there are many more:

Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Raging Bull (1980)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)

We found the rape scene in Clockwork Orange unwatchable. Raging Bull and The Wild Bunch were an absolute grind for us to get through. Midnight Cowboy was my favorite from the list above, but still a tough movie to watch.

70s films are way over represented on this list, but it was an important and innovative time in film making.

Here are some of the movies from this time that we enjoyed:

The Godfather (1972)
The Graduate (1967)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Cabaret (1972)
Jaws (1975)
Star Wars (1977)

Reflecting on Trauma: 80s AFI Movies

The 1980s are famous for its silly, light broad comedies. This list is missing some classic 80s comedies like The Princess Bride, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters etc. The 80s movies they do have on the AFI list are reflecting on trauma which makes sense given how traumatic the 70s movies were. E.T. looks at divorce, Tootsie looks at sexism, Sophie’s Choice looks at WWII and Platoon looks back at the Vietnam War. Unlike the 70s movies about trauma, the 80s movies create a bit of distance between the trauma and the viewer, making them much easier to watch.

Do the Right Thing was a real highlight for us — poignant, funny, emotional, well-made and sadly very relevant to this day. Outside of Do the Right Thing and In the Heat of the Night, the films on the AFI list have very few significant roles for people of color. In fact, it was not uncommon to see blackface in many of the older films on the AFI list.

Our 80s favorites:

Do the Right Thing (1989
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Blade Runner (1982)

Violent 90s Movies

Almost all of the 1990s movies on this list revolve around a fascination with violence. I’m not sure why that is, but that seemed to be the mood of the 90s!

Our favorites:

Goodfellas (1990)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Schindler's List (1993)

Our Top Favorite 25 Movies:

1 The Godfather (1972)
2 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
3 Modern Times (1936)
4 Do the Right Thing (1989)
5 Rear Window (1954)
6 The Wizard of Oz (1939)
7 Star Wars (1977)
8 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
9 Psycho (1960)
10 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
11 The Philadelphia Story (1940)
12 City Lights (1931)
13 A Night at the Opera (1935)
14 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
15 Apocalypse Now (1979)
16 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
17 Bringing Up Baby (1938)
18 Titanic (1997)
19 Cabaret (1972)
20 Vertigo (1958)
21 In the Heat of the Night (1967)
22 Pulp Fiction (1994)
23 Blade Runner (1982)
24 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
25 12 Angry Men (1957)

Films with Strong Female Characters

Since this list is dominated by strong/interesting male characters, here are the films on the list that I think are great and also have strong female characters: