🏆 The Exemplary Films Rankings

#1

⭐ 18.5

The Godfather

1972 • Francis Ford Coppola

📊 9.2/10 ⏱️ 175 min 📝 8 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, Academy Award Best Picture, National Film Registry, NY Times Best 1000, Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

The Godfather "Don" Vito Corleone is the head of the Corleone mafia family in New York. He is at the...

#2

⭐ 13.0

Schindler's List

1993 • Steven Spielberg

📊 9.0/10 ⏱️ 195 min 📝 6 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, Academy Award Best Picture, National Society Film Critics, NY Times Best 1000, Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250

Oskar Schindler is a vain and greedy German businessman who becomes an unlikely humanitarian amid th...

#3

⭐ 12.7

Citizen Kane

1941 • Orson Welles

📊 8.2/10 ⏱️ 119 min 📝 5 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

A group of reporters are trying to decipher the last word ever spoken by Charles Foster Kane, the mi...

#4

⭐ 11.4

Casablanca

1942 • Michael Curtiz

📊 8.5/10 ⏱️ 102 min 📝 6 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, National Film Registry, NY Times Best 1000, Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

The story of Rick Blaine, a cynical world-weary ex-patriate who runs a nightclub in Casablanca, Moro...

#5

⭐ 11.0

The Godfather Part II

1974 • Francis Ford Coppola

📊 0.0/10 ⏱️ 202 min 📝 6 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, Academy Award Best Picture, National Film Registry, NY Times Best 1000, Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250

The continuing saga of the Corleone crime family tells the story of a young Vito Corleone growing up...

#6

⭐ 10.9

Apocalypse Now

1979 • Francis Ford Coppola

📊 0.0/10 ⏱️ 147 min 📝 6 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, Cannes Palme d'Or Winners, NY Times Best 1000, Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250

It is the height of the war in Vietnam, and U.S. Army Captain Willard is sent by Colonel Lucas and a...

#7

⭐ 10.3

Singin' in the Rain

1952 • Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

📊 8.3/10 ⏱️ 103 min 📝 5 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

1927 Hollywood. Monumental Pictures' biggest stars, glamorous on-screen couple Lina Lamont and Don L...

#8

⭐ 9.5

Psycho

1960 • Alfred Hitchcock

📊 8.5/10 ⏱️ 109 min 📝 6 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

Phoenix office worker Marion Crane is fed up with the way life has treated her. She has to meet her ...

#9

⭐ 8.3

2001: A Space Odyssey

1968 • Stanley Kubrick

📊 8.3/10 ⏱️ 149 min 📝 4 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, IMDB Top 250

"2001" is a story of evolution. Sometime in the distant past, someone or something nudged evolution ...

#10

⭐ 8.1

Gone with the Wind

1939 • Victor Fleming

📊 8.2/10 ⏱️ 238 min 📝 4 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, National Film Registry, NY Times Best 1000, Box Office All Time

Scarlett is a woman who can deal with a nation at war, Atlanta burning, the Union Army carrying off ...

#11

⭐ 7.9

Vertigo

1958 • Alfred Hitchcock

📊 8.2/10 ⏱️ 128 min 📝 4 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, IMDB Top 250

Following his early retirement as a detective from the San Francisco Police Department, John Ferguso...

#12

⭐ 7.8

Sunset Boulevard

1950 • Billy Wilder

📊 8.4/10 ⏱️ 110 min 📝 5 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

Desperate for cash, screenwriter Joe Gillis has a chance meeting with a faded silent film star. Norm...

#13

⭐ 7.4

Star Wars

1977 • George Lucas

📊 8.6/10 ⏱️ 121 min 📝 4 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, National Film Registry, NY Times Best 1000, Box Office All Time

The Imperial Forces, under orders from cruel Darth Vader, hold Princess Leia hostage in their effort...

#14

⭐ 7.2

Forrest Gump

1994 • Robert Zemeckis

📊 0.0/10 ⏱️ 142 min 📝 5 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, Academy Award Best Picture, National Film Registry, Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250

Forrest Gump is a simple man with a low I.Q. but good intentions. He is running through childhood wi...

#15

⭐ 7.2

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

1975 • Miloš Forman

📊 0.0/10 ⏱️ 133 min 📝 4 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, Academy Award Best Picture, Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250

McMurphy has a criminal past and has once again gotten himself into trouble and is sentenced by the ...

#16

⭐ 7.0

Lawrence of Arabia

1962 • David Lean

📊 8.3/10 ⏱️ 227 min 📝 5 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

Due to his knowledge of the native Bedouin tribes, British Lieutenant T.E. Lawrence is sent to Arabi...

#17

⭐ 6.7

Some Like It Hot

1959 • Billy Wilder

📊 8.2/10 ⏱️ 121 min 📝 5 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

After two Chicago musicians, Joe and Jerry, witness the the St. Valentine's Day massacre, they want ...

#18

⭐ 6.4

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

1982 • Steven Spielberg

📊 0.0/10 ⏱️ 115 min 📝 4 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, National Film Registry, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

After a gentle alien becomes stranded on Earth, the being is discovered and befriended by a young bo...

#19

⭐ 6.2

Pulp Fiction

1994 • Quentin Tarantino

📊 8.8/10 ⏱️ 154 min 📝 5 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, National Society Film Critics, Cannes Palme d'Or Winners, Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250

Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) are two hitmen who are out to r...

#20

⭐ 6.1

On the Waterfront

1954 • Elia Kazan

📊 8.1/10 ⏱️ 108 min 📝 4 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

Terry Malloy dreams about being a prize fighter, while tending his pigeons and running errands at th...

#21

⭐ 6.1

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

2003 • Peter Jackson

📊 0.0/10 ⏱️ 201 min 📝 5 lists

Appears on: Academy Award Best Picture, National Film Registry, Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

The final confrontation between the forces of good and evil fighting for control of the future of Mi...

#22

⭐ 6.0

All About Eve

1950 • Joseph L. Mankiewicz

📊 8.2/10 ⏱️ 138 min 📝 4 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, Cannes Palme d'Or Winners, NY Times Best 1000, Box Office All Time

Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) is waiting backstage to meet her idol, talented but aging Broadway star...

#23

⭐ 5.4

The Best Years of Our Lives

1946 • William Wyler

📊 8.1/10 ⏱️ 170 min 📝 4 lists

Appears on: AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, IMDB Top 250, Box Office All Time

The story concentrates on the social re-adjustment of three World War II servicemen, each from a dif...

#24

⭐ 5.3

The Searchers

1956 • John Ford

📊 7.8/10 ⏱️ 119 min 📝 4 lists

Appears on: Sight & Sound Critics Poll, AFI Top 100, NY Times Best 1000, Box Office All Time

After a long three-year absence, the battle-scarred Confederate veteran of the American Civil War, E...