American Film Institute’s Top 100 movies

Citizen Kane (1941) [photo credit: American Film Institute]

The American Film Institute has released its 2007 list of the top-100 American movies. And the 1941 Orson Welles classic "The Citizen Kane" is again rated the best movie ever by the Institute. The Top-100 were chosen from ballots sent to 1,500 filmmakers, actors, writers, critics and others in Hollywood.

Director Martin Scorsese once said "The Citizen Kane" made 25-year-old Orson Welles “responsible for inspiring more people to be film directors than anyone else in the history of cinema.” The film held the same No. 1 billing it earned in the institute’s first top-100 ranking in 1997.

The institute compiled a list of 400 nominated movies. Only 43 of those came from the decade since the first list was compiled in 1997. Of those newer films, only four reached the Top 100: 2001's "The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring" (No. 50); 1998's "Saving Private Ryan" (No. 71); 1997's "Titanic" (No. 83) and 1999's "The Sixth Sense" (No. 89).

Here are Top 20 films from that list of 100:
(1) "Citizen Kane," 1941. (2) "The Godfather," 1972. (3) "Casablanca," 1942. (4) "Raging Bull," 1980. (5) "Singin’ in the Rain," 1952. (6) "Gone With the Wind," 1939. (7) "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962. (8) "Schindler’s List," 1993. (9) "Vertigo," 1958. (10) "The Wizard of Oz," 1939. (11) "City Lights," 1931. (12) "The Searchers," 1956. (13) "Star Wars," 1977. (14) "Psycho," 1960. (15) "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968. (16) "Sunset Blvd.", 1950. (17) "The Graduate," 1967. (18) "The General," 1927. (19) "On the Waterfront," 1954. (20) "It’s a Wonderful Life," 1946.

For the full list, visit American Film Institute site.