Overall, I'm happy with the new AFI Top 100 list. After all, my favorite film, The Searchers, jumped from 96 to number 12. Raging Bull, City Lights, and Vertigo also made big jumps to much more appropriate positions.

I was also happy with some of the new films added. The General, Intolerance, Nashville, Sullivan's Travels, In The Heat of the Night, All the President's, Sunrise, A Night at the Opera, 12 Angry Men, Do the Right Thing and Blade Runner are all welcome additions for me.

I wasn't as thrilled with the additions of Cabaret, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Shawshank Redemption, Spartacus, Swing Time and Sophie's Choice.

I really liked The Last Picture Show and Toy Story, but frankly I'm surprised to see them on this list.

I'm also not a big fan of any of the "new" pictures added. I think The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Saving Private Ryan, and The Sixth Sense were good movies but not worthy of this list. I especially think Titanic is out of place. I almost got physically ill listening to William Friedkin compare it to Casablanca.

I liked all of the movies that got cut : Doctor Zhivago, Birth of a Nation, From Here to Eternity, Amadeus, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Third Man, Fantasia, Rebel Without a Cause, Stagecoach, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Manchurian Candidate, An American in Paris, Wuthering Heights, Dances With Wolves, Giant, Fargo, Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Frankenstein, Patton, The Jazz Singer, My Fair Lady, A Place in the Sun and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. However, of them I only think Fargo, The Manchurian Candidate, The Third Man, Amadeus and Stagecoach belonged.

As far as movies I think I might have included are : The Adventures of Robin Hood The Last of the Mohicans (1992), The Producers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Rain Man, The Conversation, Paths of Glory, The Bank Dick and The Freshman.

One movie I hope drop out pretty soon is Gone With the Wind. It dropped from 4th to 6th this last time but I am confident it will drop forty or fifty places in the next polling and then will be eventually be gone forever. Gone With the Wind is a beautifully made film and has some very good acting by some great stars. It is also one of the great soap opera stories of all time played out with the Civil War as a backdrop. It has all the ingrediants to be considered a great film and it has been for the last sixty years. However, it is first and foremost a justification and glorification of the Southern plantation system and I think it will be seen as such in the coming years. Although I hope it drops off the great film lists I think it will always be a very interesting period piece, telling us much about 1930's America.

But overall, I think this is a very good list that Americans can be proud of. I'm just hoping that in 2017 I'll look at the new list and not see Titanic on it and I'll see Gone with the Wind take a big drop.

The New AFI List

1. "Citizen Kane" (1941)
2. "The Godfather" (1972)
3. "Casablanca" (1942)
4. "Raging Bull" (1980)
5. "Singin' in the Rain" (1952)
6. "Gone With the Wind" (1939)
7. "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962)
8. "Schindler's List" (1993)
9. "Vertigo" (1958)
10. "The Wizard of Oz" (1939)
11. "City Lights" (1931)
12. "The Searchers" (1956)
13. "Star Wars" (1977)
14. "Psycho" (1960)
15. "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968)
16. "Sunset Boulevard" (1950)
17. "The Graduate" (1967)
18. "The General" (1927)
19. "On the Waterfront" (1954)
20. "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946)
21. "Chinatown" (1974)
22. "Some Like It Hot" (1959)
23. "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940)
24. "E.T. -- The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982)
25. "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962)
26. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939)
27. "High Noon" (1952)
28. "All About Eve" (1950)
29. "Double Indemnity" (1944)
30. "Apocalypse Now" (1979)
31. "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)
32. "The Godfather, Part II" (1974)
33. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975)
34. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937)
35. "Annie Hall" (1977)
36. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957)
37. "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)
38. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948)
39. "Dr. Strangelove" (1964)
40. "The Sound of Music" (1965)
41. "King Kong" (1933)
42. "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967)
43. "Midnight Cowboy" (1969)
44. "The Philadelphia Story" (1940)
45. "Shane" (1953)
46. "It Happened One Night" (1934)
47. "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951)
48. "Rear Window" (1954)
49. "Intolerance" (1916)
50. "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001)
51. "West Side Story" (1961)
52. "Taxi Driver" (1976)
53. "The Deer Hunter" (1978)
54. "M*A*S*H" (1970)
55. "North by Northwest" (1959)
56. "Jaws" (1975)
57. "Rocky" (1976)
58. "The Gold Rush" (1925)
59. "Nashville" (1975)
60. "Duck Soup" (1933)
61. "Sullivan's Travels" (1941)
62. "American Graffiti" (1973)
63. "Cabaret" (1972)
64. "Network" (1976)
65. "The African Queen" (1951)
66. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981)
67. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966)
68. "Unforgiven" (1992)
69. "Tootsie" (1982)
70. "A Clockwork Orange" (1971)
71. "Saving Private Ryan" (1998)
72. "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994)
73. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969)
74. "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991)
75. "In the Heat of the Night" (1967)
76. "Forrest Gump" (1994)
77. "All the President's Men" (1976)
78. "Modern Times" (1936)
79. "The Wild Bunch" (1969)
80. "The Apartment" (1960)
81. "Spartacus" (1960)
82. "Sunrise" (1927)
83. "Titanic" (1997)
84. "Easy Rider" (1969)
85. "A Night at the Opera" (1935)
86. "Platoon" (1986)
87. "12 Angry Men" (1957)
88. "Bringing Up Baby" (1938)
89. "The Sixth Sense" (1999)
90. "Swing Time" (1936)
91. "Sophie's Choice" (1982)
92. "Goodfellas" (1990)
93. "The French Connection" (1971)
94. "Pulp Fiction" (1994)
95. "The Last Picture Show" (1971)
96. "Do the Right Thing" (1989)
97. "Blade Runner" (1982)
98. "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942)
99. "Toy Story" (1995)
100. "Ben-Hur" (1959)