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 McCa
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.
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.
4.The Shawshank Redemption
(1994)
Director: Frank Darabont
Cast: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman
Domestic lifetime gross (adjusted for inflation, 2014): $53,014,600
Famous quote: "Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." – Andy Dufresne [in letter to Red]
Of all the adaptations of Stephen King stories -- and they are legion because he is the most-adapted living writer -- this is only one of two (along with The Shining) to make the list.
All that Shawshank love apparently came after the film's unexceptional theatrical release, when it began popping up on cable TV nearly as regularly as Geico commercials. In 2013, 151 hours of basic cable time was devoted to airing the 142-minute movie. That's about six days of watching Robbins try to escape from prison.
5.Pulp Fiction
(1994)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames
Domestic lifetime gross (adjusted for inflation, 2014): $202,078,200
Famous quote: "If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions." — Jules
"Quentin has always been a student of film, and after Reservoir Dogs he said to me: 'The second movie from a filmmaker is almost more important than the first. We've got to get it right,'" recalls Lawrence Bender, Tarantino's longtime producing partner. Tarantino got it right, all right. In fact, Miramax's Pulp Fiction might be the most influential movie made during the 1990s, inspiring scads of imitators (nicknamed Tarantinies) and dozens of knockoffs. "We didn't think we were taking a big risk," says Bender. "We just though we were making something really cool."
6.Casablanca
(1942)
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman
Domestic lifetime gross (adjusted for inflation, 2014): $4,452,100
Famous quote: "Here's looking at you, kid." — Rick
Not surprisingly, Rick and Ilsa's war-torn romance was a big favorite among seasoned poll respondents. Among those in their 60s, it was the third-most-popular picture, while among those in their 20s, it was 37th. Also not a big shocker, men and women had different opinions: Casablanca was males' third-favorite film and females' 14th. But then, men always prefer their love stories with Nazis in them.
7.The Godfather: Part II
(1974)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton
Domestic lifetime gross (adjusted for inflation, 2014): $202,374,900
Famous quote: "There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." — Michael Corleone
Arguments over which Godfather is greater, the first or second, began as soon as the sequel was released. The first film has the edge among this poll's respondents, but Part II has die-hard fans as well. "It's one of those movies," says producer Albert Berger, "that has every element of cinema working at the highest level. And it's entertaining, and it says something about our country."
8. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
(1982)
Universal Pictures/Courtesy Neal Peters CollectionDirector: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Dee Wallace
Domestic lifetime gross: (adjusted for inflation, 2014): $989,737,100
Famous quote: “Be good.” — E.T.
It's the first Spielberg film on the list but hardly the last (he has seven). And it totally makes sense that E.T. would be his most popular because it's basically The Wizard of Oz in reverse. Think about it: A 3-foot-tall munchkin lands on Earth, where he's befriended by a trio of locals (and their little dog) who help him phone to no-place-like-home until, at the end, where does E.T. go in his spaceship? That's right -- over the rainbow. "I never thought of that before," said Spielberg a few years ago when the theory was presented to him. "Do you mind if I steal that?"
9.2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester
Domestic lifetime gross (adjusted for inflation, 2014): $344,621,600
Famous quote: “Well, I don’t think there is any question about it. It can only be attributable to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error.” — Hal
It was the first outer-space movie to take outer space -- and special effects -- seriously (so seriously Kubrick had the sets destroyed after production to make sure they didn't turn up in subsequent inferior sci-fi films). Sure, it creaks beside its successors, including Close Encounters and Star Wars, but 2001 does have one of the most famous match-cuts in movie history (the bone turning into a spaceship). And even though the smooth-talking computer in the film has an operating system that's 46 years old, people still want to own it: The HAL 9000 app on iTunes has been downloaded an estimated quarter-million times.
10.Schindler's List
(1993)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley
Domestic lifetime gross (adjusted for inflation, 2014): $183,022,100
Famous quote: “Stern, if this factory ever produces a shell that can actually be fired, I'll be very unhappy.” — Oskar Schindler
The most shocking thing about this emotionally wrenching black-and-white drama isn't that it's about an act of heartbreaking kindness during the Holocaust; it's that Spielberg released it only months after his other big hit of 1993, the one with the dinosaurs. Unlike Jurassic Park, this film took home seven Oscars, including best director and best picture (the first black-and-white movie to win that statuette since 1960's The Apartment
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