AFI's 2007 List of 10 Greatest American Movies: Citizen Kane Leads, Vertigo and Raging Bull Surge
The American Film Institute's 2007 edition of its 100 Years...100 Movies list ranks Citizen Kane as the greatest American film, a position it also held in the original 1998 survey. The Godfather, Casablanca, Raging Bull, Singin' in the Rain, Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Schindler's List, Vertigo, and The Wizard of Oz complete the top 10. The 2007 list, based on a ballot of 1,500 industry professionals, reordered the top tier and elevated films like Raging Bull (from No. 24 in 1998 to No. 4) and Vertigo (from No. 61 to No. 9). Voters weighed critical recognition, awards history, enduring popularity, historical significance, and cultural impact, with eligibility limited to American feature films. The ranking spans studio-era classics to New Hollywood, highlighting technical innovations such as deep focus in Citizen Kane, the dolly zoom in Vertigo, and the editing of Raging Bull. Schindler's List is the most recent film in the top 10, while The Wizard of Oz closes the list. The AFI's 2007 edition remains the most frequently cited version of the ranking.
Key facts
- AFI's 2007 list of the 10 greatest American movies is topped by Citizen Kane, which also held the top spot in 1998.
- The Godfather ranks second, Casablanca third, Raging Bull fourth, and Singin' in the Rain fifth.
- Gone with the Wind is sixth, Lawrence of Arabia seventh, Schindler's List eighth, Vertigo ninth, and The Wizard of Oz tenth.
- The 2007 edition was based on a ballot of 1,500 people from the American film industry, including directors, actors, critics, and historians.
- Raging Bull climbed from No. 24 in 1998 to No. 4 in 2007, while Vertigo rose from No. 61 to No. 9.
- Eligible films had to be American feature films, and voters considered critical recognition, awards, popularity over time, historical significance, and cultural impact.
- Schindler's List (1993) is the most recent film in the top 10; The Wizard of Oz (1939) is the oldest.
- The 2007 list is the version most often quoted and was released as a 10th anniversary update to the 1998 original.
Entities
Artists
- Orson Welles
- Herman J. Mankiewicz
- Gregg Toland
- William Randolph Hearst
- Steven Spielberg
- Martin Scorsese
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Mario Puzo
- Marlon Brando
- Al Pacino
- Gordon Willis
- Nino Rota
- Sacheen Littlefeather
- Michael Curtiz
- Humphrey Bogart
- Ingrid Bergman
- Claude Rains
- Dooley Wilson
- Conrad Veidt
- Robert De Niro
- Jake LaMotta
- Joe Pesci
- Thelma Schoonmaker
- Paul Schrader
- Mardik Martin
- Michael Chapman
- Gene Kelly
- Stanley Donen
- Debbie Reynolds
- Donald O'Connor
- Betty Comden
- Adolph Green
- Arthur Freed
- Nacio Herb Brown
- Jean Hagen
- Lennie Hayton
- Victor Fleming
- Margaret Mitchell
- Vivien Leigh
- Clark Gable
- David O. Selznick
- George Cukor
- Sam Wood
- Sidney Howard
- Hattie McDaniel
- David Lean
- Peter O'Toole
- T.E. Lawrence
- Freddie Young
- Omar Sharif
- Alec Guinness
- Anthony Quinn
- Maurice Jarre
- Anne V. Coates
- Gregory Peck
- Robert A. Harris
- Steven Zaillian
- Thomas Keneally
- Liam Neeson
- Ben Kingsley
- Ralph Fiennes
- Janusz Kamiński
- John Williams
- Alfred Hitchcock
- James Stewart
- Kim Novak
- Pierre Boileau
- Thomas Narcejac
- Bernard Herrmann
- Saul Bass
- Edith Head
- Judy Garland
- L. Frank Baum
- Richard Thorpe
- King Vidor
- Buddy Ebsen
- Jack Haley
- Margaret Hamilton
- Herbert Stothart
Institutions
- American Film Institute
- RKO Pictures
- Paramount Pictures
- MGM
- HBO Max
- USC Shoah Foundation
- British Film Institute
- Sight and Sound
- CBS
- Academy Awards
Locations
- United States
- Hollywood
- California
- Morocco
- Vichy France
- Paris
- Miami
- Sicily
- Atlanta
- Massachusetts
- Los Angeles
- Jordan
- Spain
- Cairo
- Egypt
- Poland
- Kraków
- Auschwitz-Birkenau
- Płaszów
- San Francisco
- Bay Area
- Golden Gate Bridge
- Mission San Juan Bautista
- Kansas
- Oz
Sources
- Quartz —