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AMERICAN MOVIES 100 Years...100 Movies 10th Anniversary Edition Summary - Part 4 Films from the 1998 List That Were Dropped in 2007 |
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The 400 Nominated Films were feature-length fictional movies produced between 1912 and 1996 with newly-eligible films from 1996 to 2006. The original 400 Greatest American Films (nominees) |
AMERICA's 100 GREATEST MOVIES |
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Doctor Zhivago (1965)  Lean's sweeping saga set against the Russian Revolution is the story of a young doctor/poet torn between two women. But it is his love for Lara that propels the film, memorable for its haunting music score and stunning cinematography. Lean collaborated with cinematographer Freddie Young for the second time. |
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| The Birth of a Nation (1915) A groundbreaking technical achievement, this controversial milestone epic about the Civil War and its aftermath still sparks debate today. President Woodrow Wilson said, "It is like writing history with lightning." |
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| From Here to Eternity (1953) The image of waves crashing over the passionately embracing Kerr and Lancaster is one of the most sensual ever filmed, in this story of Army life in Honolulu on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack. The US' sudden involvement in World War II interrupts the two love affairs in the film. |
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| Amadeus (1984) Abraham's Antonio Salieri declares war against the heavens for speaking through the genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, played by Hulce. Flashbacks illuminate the mad, energetic brilliance of Mozart and Salieri's struggle with his own mediocrity. "There are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect." |
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| All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
This antiwar drama based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel follows the lives of a group of fresh-faced German boys who join the Army during World War I. In one of the film's most memorable moments, Ayres reaches for a butterfly, juxtaposing all the violence swirling around him in the trenches. |
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| The Third Man (1949)
The rotting streets of postwar Vienna are a metaphor for the paranoia in this bleak film noir of a supposed dead man and the old friend who wants to get to the bottom of the mystery. Mercury Theatre collaborators Welles and Cotten play a chilling game of cat and mouse. |
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| Fantasia (1940)
Disney's groundbreaking union of classical music and animated images is a visual feast for young and old. Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice is one of film history's most indelible icons. |
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| Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Dean's defining role as a tortured high-school student also seemed to define a generation of 1950s teenagers who felt isolated from their parents and sought solace with friends and authority-defying drag racing. |
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| Stagecoach (1939)
Ford's first film shot in his beloved Monument Valley, the film single-handedly reinvented the Western genre. The movie also made a star out of Wayne, a vengeance-seeking fugitive transformed when he boards the stagecoach. |
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| Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Dreyfuss is a power company technician who becomes obsessed with the possibility of extra-terrestrial life after a brief encounter with them. He shuns career and family in pursuit of something that he knows means something: “This is important." |
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| The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
An ex-Korean War POW is brainwashed by communists to become a political assassin. This paranoid cold-war thriller shocked audiences with its terrifying look at a Soviet sleeper/mole who can be triggered into action by simply playing a little solitaire. |
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| An American in Paris (1951)
Kelly and Caron fall in love to the tunes of Gershwin—I Got Rhythm, Our Love Is Here To Stay and S'Wonderful—in postwar Paris. The film's legendary finale, the 17-minute ballet, was both daring and innovative in 1951. |
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| Wuthering Heights (1939)
Olivier stars as the brooding master of Wuthering Heights, who roams the English moors in search of his lost love, Cathy, played by Oberon. Gregg Toland's moody cinematography infuses the Emily Brontë-based film with a haunting atmosphere. |
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| Dances With Wolves (1990)
Costner directs and stars in this lasting vision of the old West, where a disillusioned soldier leaves the Civil War and strikes out to the prairie on his own. After a difficult start, he learns to live, love, and respect the land when the Sioux Indians welcome him into their tribe. |
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| Giant (1956) This sprawling epic is based on the celebrated Edna Ferber novel about two generations of an American ranching family, who clash over money, property and racism in Texas. Dean was killed just prior to the last day of shooting. |
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| Fargo (1996)
A frigid Minnesota landscape is the setting for a series of gruesome murders intertwined with a botched kidnapping. McDormand is Marge, the pregnant police officer who reconstructs the crime with a style all her own. "You betcha." |
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| Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Based on a historical incident, this film features Laughton as Captain William Bligh, an excellent seaman whose lack of humanity and rigid adherence to regulations forces Gable's Fletcher Christian to lead a mutiny against him. |
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| Frankenstein (1931)
Dr. Frankenstein is obsessed with creating a man from parts of dead people. "It's alive. It's alive." But the creature's grotesque looks and strange manner cause him to be mistaken for a monster. Whale's movie ushered in a new era of horror films, and Karloff was stuck with the image of the monster for the rest of his career. |
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| Patton (1970)
The film's opening scene—Scott as Patton speaking in front of a giant American flag—sets the stage for an epic biography of the controversial World War II general. "Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." |
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| The Jazz Singer (1927)
The story of a cantor's son who rejects tradition and heritage for the stage was supposed to be a movie with only synchronized music. But Jolson's ad-lib, "You ain' t heard nothin' yet," marked the beginning of the end for the silent era. |
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| My Fair Lady (1964)
Professor Henry Higgins bets he can turn a flower girl into a lady just by teaching her to speak properly. Based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, Lerner and Loewe's celebrated Broadway musical comes to the screen with Hepburn celebrating her transformation with, "The rain in Spain, stays mainly in the plain!" |
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| A Place in the Sun (1951)
Theodore Dreiser's celebrated novel, An American Tragedy, comes to the silver screen in Stevens' re-telling of the tragic story. When the brooding Clift meets beautiful socialite Taylor, he has to do something about his pregnant girlfriend Winters. Whether or not Winter's drowning death is accidental, Clift must pay the ultimate price. |
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| Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Tracy and Hepburn, in their final film pairing, are forced to come to terms with their progressive views, when their daughter wants to marry an African-American doctor. Poitier and Houghton, Hepburn's real life niece, broke some barriers in a movie that sparked controversy and asked many difficult questions. |
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