American Film Institute’s
100 Years . . . 100 Songs
The American Film Institute (AFI) celebrated the centennial of cinema by airing a number of television specials, each honoring a different aspect of excellence in American film. On June 22, 2004 AFI broadcast a program entitled “100 Years . . . 100 Songs—America’s Greatest Movie Songs.”
To determine the winners, AFI invited more than 1,500 leaders from across the American film community—screenwriters, directors, actors, producers, cinematographers, editors, executives, film historians and critics, among them—to choose from a list of nominated films compiled by AFI. The selected films (and their ranking) are listed below.
The
symbol appears next to those films which also received an Academy Award nomination (although this was not a requirement for inclusion on the list). Click on the name of one of those films to display more information about it. You can also click on the IMDb link to to open a new browser window or tabshowing information about the film from the Internet Movie Database. Or, click on a title in the column on the right to display the winners from another AFI program.
For more information, you can follow this link to the American Film Institute’s website.
| 1. | “Over the Rainbow” |
| The Wizard of Oz (1939) IMDb | |
| 2. | “As Time Goes By” |
| Casablanca (1943) IMDb | |
| 3. | “Singin’ in the Rain” |
| Singin’ in the Rain (1952) IMDb | |
| 4. | “Moon River” |
| Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) IMDb | |
| 5. | “White Christmas” |
| Holiday Inn (1942) IMDb | |
| 6. | “Mrs. Robinson” |
| The Graduate (1967) IMDb | |
| 7. | “When You Wish upon a Star” |
| Pinocchio (1940) IMDb | |
| 8. | “The Way We Were” |
| The Way We Were (1973) IMDb | |
| 9. | “Stayin’ Alive” |
| Saturday Night Fever (1977) IMDb | |
| 10. | “The Sound of Music” |
| The Sound of Music (1965) IMDb | |
| 11. | “The Man That Got Away” |
| A Star Is Born (1954) IMDb | |
| 12. | “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” |
 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) IMDb | |
| 13. | “People” |
| Funny Girl (1968) IMDb | |
| 14. | “My Heart Will Go On” |
| Titanic (1997) IMDb | |
| 15. | “Cheek to Cheek” |
| Top Hat (1935) IMDb | |
| 16. | “Evergreen (Love Theme from ‘A Star Is Born’)” |
| A Star Is Born (1976) IMDb | |
| 17. | “I Could Have Danced All Night” |
| My Fair Lady (1964) IMDb | |
| 18. | “Cabaret” |
| Cabaret (1972) IMDb | |
| 19. | “Some Day My Prince Will Come” |
| Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) IMDb | |
| 20. | “Somewhere” |
| West Side Story (1961) IMDb | |
| 21. | “Jailhouse Rock” |
| Jailhouse Rock (1957) IMDb | |
| 22. | “Everybody’s Talkin’” |
| Midnight Cowboy (1969) IMDb | |
| 23. | “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” |
| Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) IMDb | |
| 24. | “Ol’ Man River” |
| Show Boat (1936) IMDb | |
| 25. | “High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’)” |
| High Noon (1952) IMDb | |
| 26. | “The Trolly Song” |
| Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) IMDb | |
| 27. | “Unchained Melody” |
| Ghost (1990) IMDb | |
| 28. | “Some Enchanted Evening” |
| South Pacific (1958) IMDb | |
| 29. | “Born to Be Wild” |
| Easy Rider (1969) IMDb | |
| 30. | “Stormy Weather” |
| Stormy Weather (1943) IMDb | |
| 31. | “Theme from ‘New York, New York’” |
| New York, New York (1977) IMDb | |
| 32. | “I Got Rhythm” |
| An American in Paris (1951) IMDb | |
| 33. | “Aquarius” |
| Hair (1979) IMDb | |
| 34. | “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” |
| Shall We Dance (1937) IMDb | |
| 35. | “America” |
| West Side Story (1961) IMDb | |
| 36. | “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” |
| Mary Poppins (1964) IMDb | |
| 37. | “Swinging on a Star” |
| Going My Way (1944) IMDb | |
| 38. | “Theme from ‘Shaft’” |
| Shaft (1971) IMDb | |
| 39. | “Days of Wine and Roses” |
| Days of Wine and Roses (1962) IMDb | |
| 40. | “Fight the Power” |
| Do the Right Thing (1989) IMDb | |
| 41. | “New York, New York” |
| On the Town (1949) IMDb | |
| 42. | “Luck Be a Lady” |
| Guys and Dolls (1955) IMDb | |
| 43. | “The Way You Look Tonight” |
| Swing Time (1936) IMDb | |
| 44. | “Wind Beneath My Wings” |
| Beaches (1988) IMDb | |
| 45. | “That’s Entertainment” |
| The Band Wagon (1953) IMDb | |
| 46. | “Don’t Rain on My Parade” |
| Funny Girl (1968) IMDb | |
| 47. | “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” |
| Song of the South (1947) IMDb | |
| 48. | “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” |
| The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) IMDb | |
| 49. | “Make ’em Laugh” |
| Singin’ in the Rain (1952) IMDb | |
| 50. | “Rock Around the Clock” |
| Blackboard Jungle (1955) IMDb | |
| 51. | “Fame” |
| Fame (1980) IMDb | |
| 52. | “Summertime” |
| Porgy and Bess (1959) IMDb | |
| 53. | “Goldfinger” |
| Goldfinger (1964) IMDb | |
| 54. | “Shall We Dance” |
| The King and I (1956) IMDb | |
| 55. | “Flashdance . . . What a Feeling” |
| Flashdance (1983) IMDb | |
| 56. | “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” |
| Gigi (1958) IMDb | |
| 57. | “The Windmills of Your Mind” |
| The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) IMDb | |
| 58. | “Gonna Fly Now” |
| Rocky (1976) IMDb | |
| 59. | “Tonight” |
| West Side Story (1961) IMDb | |
| 60. | “It Had to Be You” |
| When Harry Met Sally . . . (1989) IMDb | |
| 61. | “Get Happy” |
| Summer Stock (1950) IMDb | |
| 62. | “Beauty and the Beast” |
| Beauty and the Beast (1991) IMDb | |
| 63. | “Thanks for the Memory” |
| The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938) IMDb | |
| 64. | “My Favorite Things” |
| The Sound of Music (1965) IMDb | |
| 65. | “I Will Always Love You” |
| The Bodyguard (1992) IMDb | |
| 66. | “Suicide Is Painless” |
| M*A*S*H (1970) IMDb | |
| 67. | “Nobody Does It Better” |
| The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) IMDb | |
| 68. | “Streets of Philadelphia” |
| Philadelphia (1993) IMDb | |
| 69. | “On the Good Ship Lollipop” |
| Bright Eyes (1934) IMDb | |
| 70. | “Summer Nights” |
| Grease (1978) IMDb | |
| 71. | “The Yankee Doodle Boy” |
| Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) IMDb | |
| 72. | “Good Morning” |
| Singin’ in the Rain (1952) IMDb | |
| 73. | “Isn’t It Romantic?” |
| Love Me Tonight (1932) IMDb | |
| 74. | “Rainbow Connection” |
| The Muppet Movie (1979) IMDb | |
| 75. | “Up Where We Belong” |
| An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) IMDb | |
| 76. | “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” |
| Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) IMDb | |
| 77. | “The Shadow of Your Smile” |
| The Sandpiper (1965) IMDb | |
| 78. | “9 to 5” |
| 9 to 5 (1980) IMDb | |
| 79. | “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” |
| Arthur (1981) IMDb | |
| 80. | “Springtime for Hitler” |
| The Producers (1968) IMDb | |
| 81. | “I’m Easy” |
| Nashville (1975) IMDb | |
| 82. | “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” |
| The Wizard of Oz (1939) IMDb | |
| 83. | “The Rose” |
| The Rose (1979) IMDb | |
| 84. | “Put the Blame on Mame” |
| Gilda (1946) IMDb | |
| 85. | “Come What May” |
| Moulin Rouge! (2001) IMDb | |
| 86. | “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” |
| Dirty Dancing (1987) IMDb | |
| 87. | “Buttons and Bows” |
| The Paleface (1948) IMDb | |
| 88. | “Do Re Mi” |
| The Sound of Music (1965) IMDb | |
| 89. | “Puttin’ on the Ritz” |
| Young Frankenstein (1974) IMDb | |
| 90. | “Seems Like Old Times” |
| Annie Hall (1977) IMDb | |
| 91. | “Let the River Run” |
| Working Girl (1988) IMDb | |
| 92. | “Long Ago and Far Away” |
| Cover Girl (1944) IMDb | |
| 93. | “Lose Yourself” |
| 8 Mile (2002) IMDb | |
| 94. | “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” |
| The Big Chill (1983) IMDb | |
| 95. | “(We’re Off on the) Road to Morocco” |
| Road to Morocco (1942) IMDb | |
| 96. | “Footloose” |
| Footloose (1984) IMDb | |
| 97. | “42nd Street” |
| 42nd Street (1933) IMDb | |
| 98. | “All That Jazz” |
| Chicago (2002) IMDb | |
| 99. | “Hakuna Matata” |
| The Lion King (1994) IMDb | |
| 100. | “Old Time Rock and Roll” |
| Risky Business (1983) IMDb |