Spielberg wins vote as best film director
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Your support makes all the difference.STEVEN SPIELBERG has emerged as the most successful film director of all time in a poll of 1,500 movie industry insiders and cinema buffs, including President Bill Clinton.
The poll, organised by the American Film Institute, ended predictably - with Orson Welles's Citizen Kane in the Number One slot - but Spielberg had no fewer than five titles in the top 100.
The director, who has often craved greater critical acclaim, saw his epic Schindler's List make the number nine position on the list while ET - the Extra-Terrestrial was voted 25th, Jaws 48th, Raiders of the Lost Ark 60th and Close Encounters of the Third Kind 64th.
Movie critics hailed Schindler's List's ranking as a considerable achievement for Spielberg given that the other top 10 films had stood the test of time well. As well as Citizen Kan (1941), the other top 10 films were: Casablanca (1942); The Godfather (1972); Gone With the Wind (1939); Lawrence of Arabia (1962); The Wizard of Oz (1939); The Graduate (1967); On the Waterfront (1954); and Singin' in the Rain (1952).
The film institute refused to say exactly who was on the list of 1,500 voters, how many votes each movie polled or what criteria were involved. It did say, however, that voters were asked to choose from 400 films dating back to 1912 - a silent version of Richard III - selected by its own panel of experts.
Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder each had four films in the top 100. Hitchcock's entries were Psycho (18); North by Northwest (40); Rear Window (42) and Vertigo (61). Wilder's were Sunset Boulevard (12); Some Like It Hot (14); Double Indemnity (38) and The Apartment (93).
Most of the movies in the top 100 were dramas. In addition, there were 11 comedies, eight musicals, nine war movies, eight westerns, four science fiction films and four horror movies. Two were animated features, both from Disney, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (49) and Fantasia (58).
Marlon Brando starred in two of the top 10 movies, The Godfather and On the Waterfront, while James Stewart and Robert DeNiro had the most starring roles in the top 100 with five each. The most successful actress was Katharine Hepburn with four films. Natalie Wood, Diane Keaton and Faye Dunaway had three each.
The critics' 100 finest films
1 Citizen Kane 1941
2 Casablanca 1942
3 The Godfather 1972
4 Gone With the Wind 1939
5 Lawrence of Arabia 1962
6 The Wizard of Oz 1939
7 The Graduate 1967
8 On the Waterfront 1954
9 Schindler's List 1993
10 Singin' in the Rain 1952
11 It's a Wonderful Life 1946
12 Sunset Boulevard 1950
13 The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957
14 Some Like It Hot 1959
15 Star Wars 1977
16 All About Eve 1950
17 The African Queen 1951
18 Psycho 1960
19 Chinatown 1974
20 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 1975
21 The Grapes of Wrath 1940
22 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
23 The Maltese Falcon 1941
24 Raging Bull 1980
25 ET, the Extra-Terrestrial 1982
26 Dr Strangelove 1964
27 Bonnie and Clyde 1967
28 Apocalypse Now 1979
29 Mr Smith Goes to Washington 1939
30 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 1948
31 Annie Hall 1977
32 The Godfather Part II 1974
33 High Noon 1952
34 To Kill a Mockingbird 1962
35 It Happened One Night 1934
36 Midnight Cowboy 1969
37 The Best Years of Our Lives 1946
38 Double Indemnity 1944
39 Doctor Zhivago 1965
40 North by Northwest 1959
41. West Side Story 1961
42 Rear Window 1954
43 King Kong 1933
44 The Birth of a Nation 1915
45 A Streetcar Named Desire 1951
46 A Clockwork Orange 1971
47 Taxi Driver 1976
48 Jaws 1975
49 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937
50 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969
51 The Philadelphia Story 1940
52 From Here to Eternity 1953
53 Amadeus 1984
54 All Quiet on the Western Front 1930
55 The Sound of Music 1965
56 M-A-S-H 1970
57 The Third Man 1949
58 Fantasia 1940
59 Rebel Without a Cause 1955
60 Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981
61 Vertigo 1958
62 Tootsie 1982
63 Stagecoach 1939
64 Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977
65 The Silence of the Lambs 1991
66 Network 1976
67 The Manchurian Candidate 1962
68 An American in Paris 1951
69 Shane 1953
70 The French Connection 1971
71 Forrest Gump 1994
72 Ben-Hur 1959
73 Wuthering Heights 1939
74 The Gold Rush 1925
75 Dances With Wolves 1980
76 City Lights 1931
77 American Graffiti, 1973
78 Rocky 1976
79 The Deer Hunter 1978
80 The Wild Bunch 1969
81 Modern Times 1936
82 Giant 1956
83 Platoon 1986
84 Fargo 1996
85 Duck Soup 1933
86 Mutiny on the Bounty 1935
87 Frankenstein 1931
88 Easy Rider 1969
89 Patton 1970
90 The Jazz Singer 1927
91 My Fair Lady 1964
92 A Place in the Sun 1951
93 The Apartment 1960
94 Goodfellas 1990
95 Pulp Fiction 1994
96 The Searchers 1956
97 Bringing Up Baby 1938
98 Unforgiven 1992
99 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 1967
100 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942
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