Top 15 Baffling Things About the AFI Lists

Top 15 Baffling Things About the AFI Lists

I have an in-no-way-constructive hobby of seriously hating on the American Film Institutes’ various Top 100 lists. Their initial 100 Years…100 Movies list from 1998 was decent enough – a fine collection of American films with pretty solid rankings. But in the subsequent decade, AFI released a different list every year, which resulted in their laughable 100 Years…100 Movies update in 2008. Here are a few things I’ve never been able to understand about AFI’s lists. Be sure to check out all of their lists here, then come back and tell me what you find most baffling.

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Rocky Balboa is a bigger hero than Gandhi

The Sixth Sense is a better movie than Goodfells, Pulp Fiction and Do the Right Thing

The Fugitive is more thrilling than 2001: A Space Odyssey

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a thrilling movie

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a “great love story”

Titanic is a better movie than 12 Angry Men

The Wicked Witch of the West is more villainous than Amon Goeth

The Way We Were is more passionate than From Here to Eternity and It Happened One Night

 Thelma & Louise are bigger heroes than Moses

Big is funnier than Harold and Maude

Sophie’s Choice is one of the 100 best American movies of all time, The Sweet Smell of Success is not

Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” is a better song than “Cheek to Cheek,” “Theme from Shaft” and “Gonna Fly Now”

Jerry Maguire is one of the Top 10 Sports movies ever made

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence is not one of the Top 10 westerns ever made

Neither David Mamet nor Quentin Tarantino has never written a top movie quote of all time

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Any other complaints for the AFI lists? Voice them in comment section below. 

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  • The big for me, when the did the second list, was not only, “Titanic,” which shouldn’t be on there, but “The Sixth Sense,” would never in a million years have occurred to me. Especially, when you consider 1999, that came out, the same year as “American Beauty,” “Magnolia”, “Being John Malkovich”, “Three Kings”, “Boys Don’t Cry”, on top of “The Matrix,” “The Green Mile”, “Fight Club”, which I think is severely overrated, but still “Eyes Wide Shut”, “The Virgin Suicides”, “Man on the Moon”, etc. That was one of the great years in American movies, I’ll put that year of film, up against almost any other year, and the first time, that year’s film are eligible, and they picked “The Sixth Sense” over all those films. Alright, maybe over “Fight Club”, I get it, but still, “The Talented Mr. Ripley” came out that year, “Election”, was out that year. That one, I could not believe. Didn’t understand it then, don’t understand it now.

    At the time, I couldn’t believe “Vertigo” went from the 60s, to higher than “Psycho”, or course now, it’s passed “Citizen Kane,” on the other list, but I wouldn’t rank it on a Ten Best Hitchcock list, much less ninth all-time, didn’t understand that one.

    On the ’07 list, the only other films, that I would’ve kicked off completely, shouldn’t be on the list were, shouldn’t have even been seriously considered, were “The Best Years of Our Lives”, “Midnight Cowboy,” although I do like that film, it’s not in this league, “Lord of the Rings…” shouldn’t be on there, “Spartacus” shouldn’t be there, “A Night at the Opera,” I love the Marx Brothers, “Duck Soup”, anything post-“Duck Soup”, when they had to split screen time with a Kitty Carlisle teen romance…; it may be the best of that bunch, I wouldn’t have considered it, and I would’ve knocked off “Blade Runner”. I know I’m in a minority on that, but overrated.

    As to your complaints, “Rocky” is a better movie, than “Ghandi”, and Rocky is a better hero. Same with “Thelma & Louise” and Moses, and actually “The Ten Commandments” is another, very overrated film. That’s not even the best “The Ten Commandments” Cecil B. DeMille, the original silent film one he did, is far superior to the never-ending, ugly as sin, with stiff-as-a-board acting, they keep playing on Easter.

    You can interpret “…Virginia Woolf?” as a love story, if you want, I don’t have a problem with that.

    I don’t get why people like “Harold & Maude” at all, that movie doesn’t work at all, it’s badly edited; if you take out, whatever emotional pull, people seem to think (Which it doesn’t) that movie’s full of problems, and not that funny either, “Big” is funnier, and smarter than “Harold & Maude”.

    I’m not gonna I don’t get “Sophie’s Choice” being on there, but “Sweet Smell of Success,” should definitely have been on those lists. I get that one.

    And, I count “Jerry MaGuire” as a sports movie; I don’t have a problem with that one. I have a bigger problem with “Pride of the Yankees” being three on that list, way too high. Should not be the number one baseball movie, not over “Bull Durham”, or “Field of Dreams”, which missed that list completely, strangely.

    Or how about, not one, non-Disney, or non-Children’s film, in the Top Ten Animated films? That one, kinda predictable, but I would’ve like to have seen, one, interesting choice that went against that, maybe “Waking Life”, perhaps?

    • The Sixth Sense was a huge surprise to me too. Any of the films you mentioned should’ve topped it.

      The Rocky/Ghandi, Thelma&Louise/Moses comments were just
      me being silly and poking fun at the very nature of AFI’s Heroes and Villains list. I
      think those lists in particular are just… off.

      So with you on the animated films list. Waking Life… now there’s a GREAT pick.

  • Steven Flores

    If that’s the way the AFI operates their list, then they can kiss my fucking ass! I don’t want to subscribe to some organization that will abide to these nonsensical facts. Fuck them. I bury dem cockroaches!

  • Teddy Casimir

    I was nodding my head all through this list in amusement. And then I got to the last one. Ouch. That’s just plain criminal. And even I didn’t notice that huge oversight.

    • I’m right there with you Teddy.

    • Isn’t that criminal? I had to triple check that fact – I was so taken aback by it.

  • TheNoah

    Don’t forget these:

    Star Wars was ranked higher than 2001: ASO on the Top 100 (even though, fortunately, it wasn’t on the Top Sci-Fi films. Still unfortunate overall)

    Rocky is ranked higher than Murnau’s Sunrise

    The list completely excludes all films not in the English language, so way more than half of the films or half of the great films even have a chance.

  • TheNoah

    Oh, another thing is that none of Chaplin’s films make the Top 20 comedies. They’re still the funniest things going, WAY funnier than Tootsie (which was ranked at #2…)