The American Film Institute’s “10 Top 10” show–a three hour Prime Time special earlier this week–named the top ten films in each of ten genres and will give us good discussion fodder for awhile, especially if you’re a list person, a movie buff, or a heritage person.
The show itself was alright (certainly better than watching my Lakers get blasted) and it was more than inspiring to see a lot of great clips from a lot of great films crammed into three hours that went by too fast. The Oscars should be so entertaining! What I noticed most, though, was that the AFI certainly took its heritage role seriously, naming lots of movies so old that many of us haven’t seen them, resulting in many of my favorites to miss the lists.
Consider the “Romantic Comedies” category:

“Moonstruck” and “Sleepless in Seattle” have been two of the nicest movie dates my wife and I have had, and they made the list at #8 and #10. “When Harry Met Sally” was the only other film from the last 30 years to make it.
What happened to “Pretty Woman,” “Father of the Bride,” and “As Good As It Gets”? How about “Ghost,” or “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” or my long shot hope “While You Were Sleeping”?
Sure, “City Lights” (which won), “It Happened One Night,” and “Roman Holiday” are classics but I haven’t seen ’em. “The Philadelphia Story” and “Adam’s Rib” are probably wonderful as well. “His Girl Friday” was one oldie that didn’t make the list and perhaps should have.
At some point, the AFI is going to have to split their rankings among the decades, perhaps “pre-1960’s” or “Black and White” era. Maybe there should be a “Romance” category that’s different than “Comedy.” And, I will lobby that there be a “Most Inspiring Film” category in the future as well! In the meantime, it will be fun to go find some of these old movies that I’ve never seen and see if they’re as good as the AFI says they are.