"The Greatest Films can't be measured scientifically because greatness is extremely subjective. The artistic greatness of films (and other works of art) can never be rated or quantified, although critics, reviewers, and fans still make ten best lists, hundred best lists, all-time greatest lists, favorites lists, awards lists, and generate results of polls. Over a long period of time, it has been found that the English-language films found here in this selection of 100 Greatest Films repeatedly appear on all-time best film lists and are often noted in the collective responses of film viewers."
- filmsite
The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.
Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency.
In German-occupied Poland during World War II, Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazi Germans.
A blade runner must pursue and try to terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
A troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape Earth and return to his home-world.
After the rebels have been brutally overpowered by the Empire on their newly established base, Luke Skywalker takes advanced Jedi training with Master Yoda, while his friends are pursued by Darth Vader as part of his plan to capture Luke.
An emotionally self-destructive boxer's journey through life, as the violence and temper that leads him to the top in the ring destroys his life outside it.
During the Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade colonel who has set himself up as a god among a local tribe.
Neurotic New York comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the ditzy Annie Hall.
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle-station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader.
A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge for violent action, attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute in the process.
When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist and a grizzled fisherman set out to stop it.
Over the course of a few hectic days, numerous interrelated people prepare for a political convention as secrets and lies are surfaced and revealed.
A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients.
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption and murder.
The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York is portrayed while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on his crime syndicate stretching from Lake Tahoe, Nevada to pre-revolution 1958 Cuba.
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Two counterculture bikers travel from Los Angeles to New Orleans in search of America.
A naive hustler goes to New York to seek personal fortune but in the process finds himself a new friend.
An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.
Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial object buried beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer H.A.L. 9000, sets off on a quest.
A somewhat romanticized account of the career of the notoriously violent bank robbing couple and their gang.
A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.
A bitter, aging couple, with the help of alcohol, use a young couple to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other.
An insane general triggers a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically try to stop.
The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.
Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice.
Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.
A Phoenix secretary steals $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.
A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.
When two musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in a Mexican border town.
A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, a British colonel co-operates to oversee his men's construction of a railway bridge for their captors - while oblivious to a plan by the Allies to destroy it.
After refusing to attack an enemy position, a general accuses the soldiers of cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them.
A Civil War veteran embarks on a journey to rescue his niece from an Indian tribe.
A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies.
An ex-prize fighter turned longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses.
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
A film star helps a young singer and actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career on a downward spiral.
A bored and sheltered princess escapes her guardians and falls in love with an American newsman in Rome.
A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smoldering settler/rancher conflict forces him to act.
A marshall, personally compelled to face a returning deadly enemy, finds that his own town refuses to help him.
A retired American boxer returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love.
A silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.
In Africa during WWI, a gin-swilling riverboat captain is persuaded by a strait-laced missionary to use his boat to attack an enemy warship.
Three friends struggle to find work in Paris. Things become more complicated when two of them fall in love with the same woman.
Disturbed Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law while her reality crumbles around her.
An ingenue insinuates herself into the company of an established but aging stage actress and her circle of theater friends.
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.
Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall.
Dunson leads a cattle drive, the culmination of over 14 years of work, to its destination in Missouri. But his tyrannical behavior along the way causes a mutiny, led by his adopted son.
Fred Dobbs and Bob Curtin, two Americans searching for work in Mexico, convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses and duplicitous dames.
Three World War II veterans return home to small-town America to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed.
Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a rich family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail, and what might be love.
An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.
A Western retelling the tale of the Shoot-out at the OK Corral.
A woman is asked to spy on a group of Nazi friends in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?
An insurance representative lets himself be talked into a murder/insurance fraud scheme that arouses an insurance investigator's suspicions.
In the year before the 1904 St Louis World's Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York.
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.
A film of the life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer, and singer George M. Cohan.
Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.
A trio of classy card sharps targets the socially awkward heir to brewery millions for his money, till one of them falls in love with him.
A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.
A collection of animated interpretations of great works of Western classical music.
A poor Midwest family is forced off of their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.
When a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.
A self-conscious bride is tormented by the memory of her husband's dead first wife.
A manipulative Southern belle carries on a turbulent affair with a blockade runner during the American Civil War.
A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn't back down.
A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo and learn something about each other in the process.
Dorothy Gale is swept away to a magical land in a tornado and embarks on a quest to see the Wizard who can help her return home.
A servant in the house of Wuthering Heights tells a traveler the unfortunate tale of lovers Cathy and Heathcliff.
When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla army.
While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.
Snow White, pursued by a jealous queen, hides with the Dwarfs; the queen soon learns of this and prepares to feed her a poison apple.
The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.
Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Dr. Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.
A sly business manager and two wacky friends of two opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.
An American dancer comes to Britain and falls for a model whom he initially annoyed, but she mistakes him for his goofy producer.
A spoiled heiress, running away from her family, is helped by a man who is actually a reporter in need of a story.
Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.
A producer puts on what may be his last Broadway show and, at the last moment, a chorus girl has to replace the star.
A film crew goes to a tropical island for an exotic location shoot and discovers a colossal giant gorilla who takes a shine to their female blonde star. Then he's captured and brought back to New York City for public exhibition.
A gentleman thief and a lady pickpocket join forces to con a beautiful perfume company owner. Romantic entanglements and jealousies confuse the scheme.
With the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically.
A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I.
The life of a man and woman together in a large, impersonal metropolis through their hopes, struggles and downfalls.
A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.
When Union spies steal an engineer's beloved locomotive, he pursues it single-handedly and straight through enemy lines.
A prospector goes to the Klondike in search of gold and finds it and more.
The sudden fortune won from a lottery fans such destructive greed that it ruins the lives of the three people involved.
The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
The American Civil War divides friends and destroys families, but that's nothing compared to the anarchy in the black-ruled South after the war.