by Orrin Konheim

Created on: December 08, 2008   Last Updated: March 29, 2011

The greatest films of all time has been a long-debated issue. In 1998, the American Film Institue released a list of the 100 greatest films of all time. AFI's 100 best movies of all time is one of the boldest efforts in the history of film criticism to categorize and list great movies. 

I would even go so far as to say that my interest in films grew exponentially upon first seeing the list of films back in 1998. When I heard a list was being released of the top 100 films of all time, I tried to guess what might be on the list based on what films I had seen and liked. I thought of films like Cool Runnings, The Mighty Ducks and an obscure Vincente Minnelli musical called Kismet. When I actually looked it up, I was completely taken aback to learn that pretty much all of the films on the list were not only movies I hadn't seen but movies I hadn't even heard of. I suddenly wanted to know what exactly these films could possibly have that the Mighty Ducks didn't have. When I didn't find a job the following summer, I spent a lot of my free time going to the library and checking out films on the actual list like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The African Queen, The Graduate and Network.

It most likely was not just myself who might have a gained a new appreciation of film history around this time. The AFI list came in the middle of a craze occurring around the turn of the century in which every major media outlet came up with some definitive list to mark the year 2000. Between 1995 and 2002, the Time Out Film Guide, The San Fransisco Chronicle, The LA Daily News, the British Film Institute, Video Detective, and the National Society of Film Critics, in addition to Premiere, Empire, Movie Line and Rolling Stone magazines published either top 50 or top 100 film lists recapping choices for the top films of the century.

Despite cynics who might say that these lists are just an arbitrary gimmick, the fact is that they have performed a very useful function in the promotion of classic film: They act as a reference for sorting between the quality films and the generic drivel for those who dare to venture beyond the new release sections of the video store. Before 1995, the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, the Oscars (along with countless other film critics' awards) and Sight and Sound Magazine's decennial film poll were the only guides to the history of films and they were all insufficient. The Library of Congress list isn't particularly well-publicized and the

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