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American Film Institute’s
100 Years . . . 100 Thrills

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 12, 2001 AFI broadcast a program entitled “100 Years . . . 100 Thrills—America’s Most Heart-Pounding Movies.”

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.

TheOscar Nominated marker 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.

Oscar Nominated marker1.Psycho (1960)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker2.Jaws (1975)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker3.The Exorcist (1973)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker4.North by Northwest (1959)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker5.The Silence of the Lambs (1991)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker6.Alien (1979)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker7.The Birds (1963)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker8.The French Connection (1971)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker9.Rosemary’s Baby (1968)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker10.Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker11.The Godfather (1972)   IMDb
12.King Kong (1933)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker13.Bonnie and Clyde (1967)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker14.Rear Window (1954)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker15.Deliverance (1972)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker16.Chinatown (1974)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker17.The Manchurian Candidate (1962)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker18.Vertigo (1958)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker19.The Great Escape (1963)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker20.High Noon (1952)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker21.A Clockwork Orange (1971)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker22.Taxi Driver (1976)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker23.Lawrence of Arabia (1962)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker24.Double Indemnity (1944)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker25.Titanic (1997)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker26.The Maltese Falcon (1931)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker27.Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker28.Fatal Attraction (1987)   IMDb
29.The Shining (1980)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker30.The Deer Hunter (1978)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker31.Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker32.Strangers on a Train (1951)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker33.The Fugitive (1993)   IMDb
34.The Night of the Hunter (1955)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker35.Jurassic Park (1993)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker36.Bullitt (1968)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker37.Casablanca (1943)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker38.Notorious (1946)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker39.Die Hard (1988)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker40.2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)   IMDb
41.Dirty Harry (1971)   IMDb
42.The Terminator (1984)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker43.The Wizard of Oz (1939)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker44.E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker45.Saving Private Ryan (1998)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker46.Carrie (1976)   IMDb
47.Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)   IMDb
48.Dial M for Murder (1954)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker49.Ben-Hur (1959)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker50.Marathon Man (1976)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker51.Raging Bull (1980)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker52.Rocky (1976)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker53.Pulp Fiction (1994)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker54.Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker55.Wait Unitil Dark (1967)   IMDb
56.Frankenstein (1931)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker57.All the President’s Men (1976)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker58.The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker59.Planet of the Apes (1968)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker60.The Sixth Sense (1999)   IMDb
61.Cape Fear (1962)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker62.Spartacus (1960)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker63.What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)   IMDb
64.Touch of Evil (1958)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker65.The Dirty Dozen (1967)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker66.The Matrix (1999)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker67.The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)   IMDb
68.Halloween (1978)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker69.The Wild Bunch (1969)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker70.Dog Day Afternoon (1975)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker71.Goldfinger (1964)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker72.Platoon (1986)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker73.Laura (1944)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker74.Blade Runner (1982)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker75.The Third Man (1950)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker76.Thelma & Louise (1991)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker77.Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker78.Gaslight (1944)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker79.The Magnificent Seven (1960)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker80.Rebecca (1940)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker81.The Omen (1976)   IMDb
82.The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)   IMDb
83.The Phantom of the Opera (1925)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker84.Poltergeist (1982)   IMDb
85.Dracula (1931)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker86.The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)   IMDb
87.The Thing from Another World (1951)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker88.12 Angry Men (1957)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker89.The Guns of Navarone (1961)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker90.The Poseidon Adventure (1972)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker91.Braveheart (1995)   IMDb
92.Body Heat (1981)   IMDb
93.Night of the Living Dead (1968)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker94.The China Syndrome (1979)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker95.Full Metal Jacket (1987)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker96.Blue Velvet (1986)   IMDb
97.Safety Last (1923)   IMDb
98.Blood Simple (1984)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker99.Speed (1994)   IMDb
Oscar Nominated marker100.The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)   IMDb