watch the AFI Top 100 American movies

...It’s a Wonderful Life in the United States Senate.

...is the best of the John Wayne movies I’ve seen so far. Natalie Wood was smoking hot if a bit irritating as a WASP girl raised by Comanche Indians. John Wayne’s portrayal of the American cowboy ideal as strong, competent, chauvinist, and bigoted represents a dramatic turning point within the genre.

And some think Tony Curtis in drag is nearly as hot as Marilyn Monroe in drag. Then there’re the Jack Lemmon fans. Who are just way too kinky for me.

Even though the script lays the jingoism on a bit thick with this one – though really, how could a biography of Broadway superstar George M. Cohan, who gave us such military marching band classics as Yankee Doodle Dandy and Grand Ol’ Flag, be other than über-patriotic – you gotta admire the way James Cagney could walk on air. I liked it.

My list now looks like this:

bold = seen

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

The African Queen (1951)

All About Eve (1950)

All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)

An American In Paris (1951)

Annie Hall (1977)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Ben-Hur (1959)

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

The Big Parade (1925)

The Big Sleep (1946)

The Birth Of A Nation (1915)

Blade Runner (1982)

Bonnie And Clyde (1967)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Broken Blossoms (1919)

Casablanca (1942)

Chinatown (1974)

Citizen Kane (1941)

City Lights (1931)

The Crowd (1928)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love

Gone With The Wind (1939)

The Graduate (1967)

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Greed (1924)

High Noon (1952)

His Girl Friday (1940)

Intolerance (1916)

It Happened One Night (1934)

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

Jaws (1975)

King Kong (1933)

The Lady Eve (1941)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948)

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Modern Times (1936)

My Darling Clementine (1946)

Nashville (1975)

A Night At The Opera (1935)

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Ninotchka (1939)

North By Northwest (1959)

Notorious (1946)

On The Waterfront (1954)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Out Of The Past (1947)

Paths of Glory (1957)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Psycho (1960)

The Quiet Man (1952)

Raging Bull (1980)

Rear Window (1954)

Rebecca (1940)

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Red River (1948)

Roman Holiday (1953)

Schindler’s List (1993)

The Searchers (1956)

Shane (1953)

Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Stagecoach (1939)

A Star Is Born (1954)

Star Wars (1977) (tie)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Sunrise (1927)

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Taxi Driver (1976)

The Third Man (1949)

To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)

Top Hat (1935)

Touch Of Evil (1958)

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Trouble in Paradise (1932)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Vertigo (1958)

West Side Story (1961)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Wuthering Heights (1939)

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Man oh man, Kay Francis was hot. This smoking example of the “Lubitsch Touch” makes me wish they still made ‘em like they used to.

Absolute classic directed by Sam Peckinpaw. I never noticed before how much the portrayal of the Mexicans in this film (especially Mapache’s second-in-command) owes to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. William Holden and Ernest Borgnine are fantastic. Violent as all bloody hell.

Another film to add to the list of absolute classics.

I loved everything about this movie, from the zither music to the atmospheric evocation of postwar Vienna to the closing shot, which surely must be one of the greatest moments in film.

Damn DeNiro was young in this! But not as young as Jodie Foster. I feel dirty. But I love this movie.