In this episode, Matt and I wind up the Better than AFI’s Top 100 project that has taken up a lot of my time and effort over the past few months. We discuss the poll that thirty-seven (whoo!) different folks voted on; the results are below, next to the corresponding rank of the movie on my list.
We also cover some other topics along the way. After we talk about the top ten movies (and the two interlopers that weren’t on my list), I did a little math and talked about the ages of different voters and how that affected rankings one way or another. Matt has some interesting connections to make between movies that got the same number of votes but are totally different. We touch on near misses (eleven votes! so close!), talk about surprising movies that got Top 5 consideration, and finally preview some lists that we’ve been working on/will begin to publish in the near future.
| Movie | Poll Results | Tim’s List |
| Casablanca (dir. Michael Curtiz) | 1 | 9 |
| The Godfather (dir. Francis Ford Coppola) | 2 | 12 |
| Star Wars (dir. George Lucas) | 3 | 24 |
| Pulp Fiction (dir. Quentin Tarantino) | T-4 | 10 |
| It’s a Wonderful Life (dir. Frank Capra) | T-4 | 37 |
| Psycho (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) | 6 | 29 |
| Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) | T-7 | 8 |
| Schindler’s List (dir. Steven Spielberg) | T-7 | Not listed |
| The Silence of the Lambs (dir. Jonathan Demme) | 9 | Not listed |
| Toy Story (dir. John Lasseter) | 10 | 23 |
| Jaws (dir. Steven Spielberg) | 11 | Not listed |
| Raiders of the Lost Ark (dir. Steven Spielberg) | 12 | 42 |
| The Sound of Music (dir. Robert Wise) | 13 | Not listed |
| Goodfellas (dir. Martin Scorsese) | 14 | 33 |
| North by Northwest (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) | 15 | 70 |
| The Graduate (dir. Mike Nichols) | 16 | Not listed |
| Citizen Kane (dir. Orson Welles) | 17 | 4 |
| The Wizard of Oz (dir. Victor Fleming) | 18 | 51 |
| The Shawshank Redemption (dir. Frank Darabont) | 19 | Not listed |
| The Godfather Part II (dir. Francis Ford Coppola) | T-20 | 30 |
| Amadeus (dir. Milos Forman) | T-20 | 89 |
| Saving Private Ryan (dir. Steven Spielberg) | 22 | Not listed |
| Jurassic Park (dir. Steven Spielberg) | 23 | 71 |
| One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (dir. Milos Forman) | 24 | Not listed |
| 2001: A Space Odyssey (dir. Stanley Kubrick) | T-25 | 2 |
| Apocalypse Now (dir. Francis Ford Coppola) | T-25 | 5 |
| The Empire Strikes Back (dir. Irvin Kershner) | 27 | Not listed |
| Taxi Driver (dir. Martin Scorsese) | T-28 | 19 |
| To Kill a Mockingbird (dir. Robert Mulligan) | T-28 | Not listed |
| Singin’ in the Rain (dir. Stanley Donen) | 30 | 35 |
| Network (dir. Sidney Lumet) | T-31 | 34 |
| Titanic (dir. James Cameron) | T-31 | Not listed |
| Fargo (dir. Joel Coen) | T-33 | 17 |
| Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott) | T-33 | 16 |
| Back to the Future (dir. Robert Zemeckis) | T-33 | 99 |
| E.T. (dir. Steven Spielberg) | T-33 | Not listed |
| A Streetcar Named Desire (dir. Elia Kazan) | T-37 | 75 |
| The Lion King (dir. Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers) | T-37 | Not listed |
| Rocky (dir. John G. Avildsen) | T-37 | Not listed |
| Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) | 40 | 3 |
| Gone with the Wind (dir. Victor Fleming) | 41 | 45 |
| The Princess Bride (dir. Rob Reiner) | 42 | 94 |
| Mr Smith Goes to Washington (dir. Frank Capra) | 43 | Not listed |
| Alien (dir. Ridley Scott) | T-44 | 95 |
| 12 Angry Men (dir. Sidney Lumet) | T-44 | Not listed |
| All the President’s Men (dir. Alan J. Pakula) | T-44 | Not listed |
| O Brother Where Art Thou? (dir. Coen Brothers) | T-44 | Not listed |
| Dr. Strangelove (dir. Stanley Kubrick) | T-48 | 44 |
| The Dark Knight (dir. Christopher Nolan) | T-48 | Not listed |
| The Incredibles (dir. Brad Bird) | 50 | Not listed |
| Some Like It Hot (dir. Billy Wilder) | 51 | 25 |
| There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson) | T-52 | 14 |
| The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick) | T-52 | 49 |
| WALL-E (dir. Andrew Stanton) | T-52 | 58 |
| The Social Network (dir. David Fincher) | T-52 | 93 |
| Groundhog Day (dir. Harold Ramis) | T-52 | Not listed |
| Raging Bull (dir. Martin Scorsese) | T-57 | 21 |
| The Maltese Falcon (dir. John Huston) | T-57 | 82 |
| Airplane! (dir. Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker) | T-57 | Not listed |
| Young Frankenstein (dir. Mel Brooks) | 60 | Not listed |
| Sunset Blvd (dir. Billy Wilder) | T-61 | 7 |
| No Country for Old Men (dir. Coen Brothers) | T-61 | 50 |
| When Harry Met Sally (dir. Rob Reiner) | T-61 | Not listed |
| The Matrix (dir. the Wachowskis) | T-61 | Not listed |
| Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (dir. John Hughes) | T-65 | Not listed |
| Up (dir. Pete Docter) | T-65 | Not listed |
| Fight Club (dir. David Fincher) | T-65 | Not listed |
| The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder) | T-68 | 28 |
| Annie Hall (dir. Woody Allen) | T-68 | 59 |
| Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry) | T-68 | Not listed |
| The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin) | T-71 | 31 |
| Mary Poppins (dir. Robert Stevenson) | T-71 | Not listed |
| Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (dir. George Roy Hill) | T-71 | Not listed |
| The Departed (dir. Martin Scorsese) | T-71 | Not listed |
| Shrek (dir. Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson) | T-71 | Not listed |
| It Happened One Night (dir. Frank Capra) | 76 | Not listed |
| The Deer Hunter (dir. Michael Cimino) | T-77 | Not listed |
| Ben-Hur (dir. William Wyler) | T-77 | Not listed |
| Cool Hand Luke (dir. Stuart Rosenberg) | T-77 | Not listed |
| The Big Lebowski (dir. Coen Brothers) | T-77 | Not listed |
| Unforgiven (dir. Clint Eastwood) | T-77 | Not listed |
| Double Indemnity (dir. Billy Wilder) | T-82 | 27 |
| Chinatown (dir. Roman Polanski) | T-82 | 60 |
| Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee) | T-82 | 66 |
| All About Eve (dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz) | T-82 | Not listed |
| Planet of the Apes (dir. Franklin J. Schaffner) | T-82 | Not listed |
| Reservoir Dogs (dir. Quentin Tarantino) | T-82 | Not listed |
| Who Framed Roger Rabbit (dir. Robert Zemeckis) | T-82 | Not listed |
| Close Encounters of the Third Kind (dir. Steven Spielberg) | T-82 | Not listed |
| Rebel without a Cause (dir. Nicholas Ray) | T-82 | Not listed |
| Beauty and the Beast (dir. Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale) | T-91 | Not listed |
| Inglourious Basterds (dir. Quentin Tarantino) | T-91 | Not listed |
| The Royal Tenenbaums (dir. Wes Anderson) | T-91 | Not listed |
| The Searchers (dir. John Ford) | T-94 | 6 |
| The Manchurian Candidate (dir. John Frankenheimer) | T-94 | Not listed |
| Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee) | T-96 | 11 |
| The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (dir. John Huston) | T-96 | 38 |
| Tootsie (dir. Sydney Pollack) | T-96 | Not listed |
| Apollo 13 (dir. Ron Howard) | T-96 | Not listed |
| Blazing Saddles (dir. Mel Brooks) | T-96 | Not listed |
| Patton (dir. Franklin J. Schaffner) | T-96 | Not listed |
| Roman Holiday (dir. William Wyler) | T-96 | Not listed |
| 12 Years a Slave (dir. Steve McQueen) | T-96 | Not listed |
| Ocean’s Eleven (dir. Steven Soderbergh) | T-96 | Not listed |
| Rain Man (dir. Barry Levinson) | T-96 | Not listed |
| Dances with Wolves (dir. Kevin Costner) | T-96 | Not listed |
Seeing Things Secondhand 
[…] given as choices. And after getting a crowdsourced top 100 (the results of which are discussed in this podcast), I compared the movies which made it into the top 100 with the movies which didn’t get a […]