Here are the top three of a list of what a survey conducted by The Hollywood Reporter suggests are the 100 most popular films all-time. To check out the complete article and list, please click here.
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Who better to judge the best movies of all time than the people who make them? Studio chiefs, Oscar winners and TV royalty all were surveyed as THR publishes its first definitive entertainment-industry ranking of cinema’s most superlative.
# 3 Citizen Kane (1941)
Director: Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick
Domestic lifetime gross (adjusted for inflation, 2014): $2,998,000
Famous quote: “It isn’t enough to tell us what a man did. You’ve got to tell us who he was.” — Rawlson
Critics have hailed this for decades as “the greatest American movie ever made,” making it an all-too-easy pick for anyone’s greatest-movie list. But not all moviegoers, especially younger ones, are enthralled with the story of Charles Foster Kane and his long-lost sled. Among poll respondents in their 20s, for instance, it was only the 26th-favorite film. Among the under-20s, it was 53rd. Among those over 60, though, it was No. 1 or 2.
# 2 The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Director: Victor Fleming
Cast: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley
Domestic lifetime gross (adjusted for inflation, 2014): $32,950,500
Famous quote: “Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my!” — Dorothy
“If I was on a desert island, I’d bring The Wizard of Oz with me,” says Elizabeth Daley, dean of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. “It always makes me feel alive. I could watch it over and over.” And people have, generation after generation. In fact, it’s the most-watched film of all time, according to the Library of Congress, thanks to regular showings on broadcast television since the mid-1950s (and on cable since the ’90s). That’s not including sequels and prequels, which Hollywood keeps releasing each decade like swarms of flying monkeys. The most recent, Oz the Great and Powerful, starring James Franco as a hunky young wizard, grossed more than $230 million domestically. That yellow brick road clearly is made of gold.
#1 The Godfather (1972)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire
Domestic lifetime gross (adjusted for inflation, 2014): $626,025,500
Famous quote: “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” — Don Corleone
The Godfather came into this world, in the form of Mario Puzo‘s novel, as pulp. In a feat of creative alchemy arguably unsurpassed before or since, Coppola and his collaborators turned the Mafia melodrama into popular art that satisfies on every possible level — as a family drama, a crime saga, a visual and musical ravishment and an impeccable evocation of a historical period.
Godfather is 42 years old, meaning anyone who saw it when it came out in 1972 is pushing 60 or older. This suggests its narrative power, extraordinary performances and mythic values register as strongly for younger viewers as they did at the time. The film also happens to stand at the precise midpoint between the arrival of sound films and the present. It is both classical and modern, traditional in its storytelling and contemporary in its critical perspective. It’s a film that does it all. — Todd McCarthy