AFI's 100 Most Inspiring Films of All Time
June 14, 2006
AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers is a list of the 100 most inspiring films of all time.
These 100 movies inspire us, encourage us to make a difference and send us from the theatre with a greater sense of possibility and hope for the future. A jury of 1,500 film artists, critics and historians selected the classic IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, starring James Stewart, as the most inspiring movie of all time.
SELECTION CRITERIA
Feature-Length Fiction Film: Narrative format, typically over 60 minutes in length.
American Film: English language film with significant creative and/or production elements from the United States.
Cheers: Movies that inspire with characters of vision and conviction who face adversity and often make a personal sacrifice for the greater good. Whether these movies end happily or not, they are ultimately triumphant — both filling audiences with hope and empowering them with the spirit of human potential.
Legacy: Films whose "cheers" continue to echo across a century of American cinema.
AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers is a list of the 100 most inspiring films of all time.
These 100 movies inspire us, encourage us to make a difference and send us from the theatre with a greater sense of possibility and hope for the future. A jury of 1,500 film artists, critics and historians selected the classic IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, starring James Stewart, as the most inspiring movie of all time.
SELECTION CRITERIA
Feature-Length Fiction Film: Narrative format, typically over 60 minutes in length.
American Film: English language film with significant creative and/or production elements from the United States.
Cheers: Movies that inspire with characters of vision and conviction who face adversity and often make a personal sacrifice for the greater good. Whether these movies end happily or not, they are ultimately triumphant — both filling audiences with hope and empowering them with the spirit of human potential.
Legacy: Films whose "cheers" continue to echo across a century of American cinema.
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100 titles
- DirectorFrank CapraStarsJames StewartDonna ReedLionel BarrymoreAn angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed.
- DirectorRobert MulliganStarsGregory PeckJohn MegnaFrank OvertonAtticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsLiam NeesonRalph FiennesBen KingsleyIn German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.
- DirectorJohn G. AvildsenStarsSylvester StalloneTalia ShireBurt YoungA small-time Philadelphia boxer gets a supremely rare chance to fight the world heavyweight champion in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect.
- DirectorFrank CapraStarsJames StewartJean ArthurClaude RainsA naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsHenry ThomasDrew BarrymorePeter CoyoteA troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape from Earth and return to his home planet.
- DirectorJohn FordStarsHenry FondaJane DarwellJohn CarradineAn Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
- DirectorPeter YatesStarsDennis ChristopherDennis QuaidDaniel SternA working-class Indiana teen obsessed with the Italian cycling team vies for the affections of a college girl while searching for life goals with his friends.
- DirectorGeorge SeatonStarsEdmund GwennMaureen O'HaraJohn PayneAfter a divorced New York mother hires a nice old man to play Santa Claus at Macy's, she is startled by his claim to be the genuine article. When his sanity is questioned, a lawyer defends him in court by arguing that he's not mistaken.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsTom HanksMatt DamonTom SizemoreFollowing the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.
- DirectorWilliam WylerStarsMyrna LoyDana AndrewsFredric MarchThree World War II veterans, two of them traumatized or disabled, return home to the American midwest to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed.
- DirectorRon HowardStarsTom HanksBill PaxtonKevin BaconNASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.
- DirectorDavid AnspaughStarsGene HackmanBarbara HersheyDennis HopperA coach with a checkered past and a local drunk train a small-town high school basketball team to become a top contender for the state championship in 1950s Indiana.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsWilliam HoldenAlec GuinnessJack HawkinsBritish POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.
- DirectorArthur PennStarsAnne BancroftPatty DukeVictor JoryThe story of Anne Sullivan's struggle to teach the blind and deaf Helen Keller how to communicate.
- DirectorMartin RittStarsSally FieldBeau BridgesRon LeibmanA young single mother and textile worker agrees to help unionize her mill despite the problems and dangers involved.
- DirectorMilos FormanStarsJack NicholsonLouise FletcherMichael BerrymanIn the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse.
- DirectorGeorge StevensStarsMillie PerkinsShelley WintersJoseph SchildkrautDuring World War II, a teenage Jewish girl named Anne Frank and her family are forced into hiding in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
- DirectorPhilip KaufmanStarsSam ShepardScott GlennEd HarrisThe U.S. space program's development from the breaking of the sound barrier to selection of the Mercury 7 astronauts, from a group of test pilots with a more seat-of-the-pants approach than the program's more cautious engineers preferred.
- DirectorJonathan DemmeStarsTom HanksDenzel WashingtonRoberta MaxwellWhen a man with HIV is fired by his law firm because of his condition, he hires a homophobic-small time lawyer as the only willing advocate for a wrongful dismissal suit.
- DirectorNorman JewisonStarsSidney PoitierRod SteigerWarren OatesA black Philadelphia police detective is mistakenly suspected of a local murder while passing through a racially hostile Mississippi town, and after being cleared is reluctantly asked by the police chief to investigate the case.
- DirectorSam WoodStarsGary CooperTeresa WrightBabe RuthThe story of the life and career of famed baseball player Lou Gehrig.
- DirectorFrank DarabontStarsTim RobbinsMorgan FreemanBob GuntonA Maine banker convicted of the murder of his wife and her lover in 1947 gradually forms a friendship over a quarter century with a hardened convict, while maintaining his innocence and trying to remain hopeful through simple compassion.
- DirectorClarence BrownStarsMickey RooneyElizabeth TaylorDonald CrispA jaded former jockey helps a young girl prepare a wild but gifted horse for England's Grand National Sweepstakes.
- DirectorPreston SturgesStarsJoel McCreaVeronica LakeRobert WarwickHollywood director John L. Sullivan sets out to experience life as a homeless person in order to gain relevant life experience for his next movie.
