Pres. Lyndon Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965. This created the National Endowment for the Arts, which established the American Film Institute (AFI), an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to preserving film and television heritage; identifying and training new talent; and increasing recognition and understanding of the moving image as an art form.

"The Top 100 Greatest American Movies," according to a poll of filmmakers and conducted by AFI, were announced on a CBS-TV special in 1998. The list below is comprised of the Top 50 films from that list.

Trivia of note:

• The Top 10 films include movies from every decade, from the 1930s to the 1990s, with the exception of the 1980s. The first film on the AFI list from the 1980s is Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, at Number 24.
• Citizen Kane, starring Orson Wells, ranks as the all-time Number 1 film in American history.
• The Godfather, Part II is the only sequel, at Number 32, represented on the list. The Godfather (1972) ranked at Number 3.
• Singin' in the Rain is the highest-ranking musical on the list, at Number 10; West Side Story follows at Number 41.
• D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation is the highest-ranking silent film, at Number 44.
• The highest-ranking film from the 1990s is Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, at Number 9.

Author: Vicki McClure Davidson

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