Lists are funny things. Often they are interesting enough to catch your attention, but without any real meat in them they aren’t enough to hold it. Take for example, The American Film Institute’s Top 100 Movie list. They actually published it on the Web without so much as a single link to external reference material!
Well, I wanted to check out the movies, and searched everywhere for a modified version of the list, but came up empty. So, I sat down and built one myself. After about 20 hours of adding 300 links, I now present the list in an actually useful format. I hope someone other than me gets some enjoyment from it too. :-)
The title of each movie is now a direct link to the Internet Movie Database description of that film, followed by a direct link to the theatrical trailer so you can see the video. I attempted to link directly to video sharing sites for trailers whenever possible to avoid having to watch commercials. Finally, should you decide to add it to your collection there is a link to an Amazon.com search for that title. This way you can decide which format suits you best (DVD, HD-DVD, BlueRay, Special Edition, etc.)
If you find any bugs, or have suggested changes please drop me a comment to let me know for the good of all. Enjoy!
- Citizen Kane (1941) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Casablanca (1942) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Godfather (1972) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Gone with the Wind (1939) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Wizard of Oz (1939) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Graduate (1967) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- On the Waterfront (1954) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Schindler’s List (1993) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Singin’ in the Rain (1952) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Sunset Boulevard (1950) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Some Like It Hot (1959) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Star Wars (1977) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- All About Eve (1950) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The African Queen (1951) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Psycho (1960) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Chinatown (1974) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Grapes of Wrath (1940) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Maltese Falcon (1941) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Raging Bull (1980) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Bonnie and Clyde (1967) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Apocalypse Now (1979) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Annie Hall (1977) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Godfather Part II (1974) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- High Noon (1952) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- It Happened One Night (1934) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Midnight Cowboy (1969) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Double Indemnity (1944) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Doctor Zhivago (1965) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- North by Northwest (1959) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- West Side Story (1961) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Rear Window (1954) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- King Kong (1933) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Birth of a Nation (1915) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- A Clockwork Orange (1971) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Taxi Driver (1976) – Trailer / Trailer / Amazon Link
- Jaws (1975) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Philadelphia Story (1940) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- From Here to Eternity (1953) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Amadeus (1984) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Sound of Music (1965) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- M*A*S*H (1970) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Third Man (1949) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Fantasia (1940) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Rebel Without a Cause (1955) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Vertigo (1958) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Tootsie (1982) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Stagecoach (1939) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Silence of the Lambs (1991) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Network (1976) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Manchurian Candidate (1962) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- An American in Paris (1951) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Shane (1953) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The French Connection (1971) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Forrest Gump (1994) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Ben-Hur (1959) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Wuthering Heights (1939) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Gold Rush (1925) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Dances with Wolves (1990) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- City Lights (1931) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- American Graffiti (1973) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Rocky (1976) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Deer Hunter (1978) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Wild Bunch (1969) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Modern Times (1936) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Giant (1956) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Platoon (1986) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Fargo (1996) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Duck Soup (1933) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Frankenstein (1931) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Easy Rider (1969) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Patton (1970) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Jazz Singer (1927) – No Trailer / Amazon Link
- My Fair Lady (1964) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- A Place in the Sun (1951) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Apartment (1960) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Goodfellas (1990) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Pulp Fiction (1994) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- The Searchers (1956) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Bringing up Baby (1938) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Unforgiven (1992) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) – Trailer / Amazon Link
- Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) – Trailer / Amazon Link
This is the old list. Lord of the Rings is on there as well as Sixth Sense. Go to Wikipedia and they have both lists side by side to see what kinds of changes there were as well as a complete list of new and replaced films. It is really quite interesting.
Wow!! Great list. You might think this to be a little bit funny but I’m using your list to preview movies for my NetFlix choices.. Great Job!!
Sincerely,
Glen Barnhardt
You’re cool Beavis.
Those idiots couldn’t get that list right if they had 1000 years. Any list that excludes Office Space has no merit in my book.
Ok Mr. Smarty-pants. Now we’ve got to go and get someone who actually READS… ;-)
Does this mean we’ll have to wait until 2096 to see the list updated?
Reason why no movies from this century were included:
The nominated films were all made in the first 100 years of American cinema (1896-1996). Movies produced after 1996 were not included
Taken from the notes below the list…
Doh! I wish I had known that. ;-)
Well, I will say though, there was no way to build the list of links directly to the movie trailers and that is what took by far the longest time.
I’ve noticed that when you watch them from the IMDB page there are often a lot of ads and other crap that you have to put up with. So I linked directly to as many trailers on YouTube, ITunes, etc. to avoid all that. There is only one movie that I wasn’t able to find a trailer to anywhere (even IMDB didn’t have one), but hopefully someone will find it and let me know! :-)
John
You should have let me know.. I have an automated way of building lists like this with imdb/rottentomatoes links.
http://engtech.wordpress.com/2007/02/08/top-romance-movies-76-romantic-flicks-for-guys-and-girls/
http://engtech.wordpress.com/2006/12/09/81-movies-for-geeks-that-do-not-suck-ggg7/
Interesting Jim. I had not noticed that until you pointed it out.
I guess either they all suck, or the critics who judge these things aren’t willing to vote for anything until it’s stood the test of time a bit. It looks like 1994 was the most recent year to hit the chart.
I’d think that eventually a few of the recent ones would make their way onto the list. For example:
I noticed that there is not one movie from the 21st Century. Guess the last seven years really have sucked for movies.
Incidentally, if you watch all of the trailers (which is an interesting and educational experience) you’ll notice repetition amongst many of the actors. Marlon Brando, Charles Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn, John Carradine, Karl Malden, Jack Nickolson, Deborah Kerr, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Deniro, Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne James Stewart, etc. Which begs the question… do the actors make the movie great? Or do great movies just attract top actors?