The 500 greatest films

The 500 greatest films, each placed in the metro where it is set or filmed.

Canon capitals · where the 500 greatest films are set

New York 70Los Angeles 50Paris 31London 24San Francisco-San Jose 14Chicago 14Rome 12Washington-Baltimore 9Berlin 9Tokyo 9Stockholm 5Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe 4

All 498 films

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The Godfather

Year1972DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaSet inNew YorkTMDb8.7Hit✓

Citizen Kane

Year1941DirectorOrson WellesSet inNew YorkTMDb8

2001: A Space Odyssey

Year1968DirectorStanley KubrickSet in—TMDb8Hit✓

Seven Samurai

Year1954DirectorAkira KurosawaSet in—TMDb8.4

Psycho

Year1960DirectorAlfred HitchcockSet inPhoenixTMDb8.4Hit✓

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

Year1977DirectorGeorge LucasSet in—TMDb8.2Hit✓

Battleship Potemkin

Year1925DirectorSergei M. EisensteinSet inOdessaTMDb7.6

The Wizard of Oz

Year1939DirectorVictor FlemingSet in—TMDb7.6Hit✓

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Year1937DirectorDavid Hand et al.Set in—TMDb7.1Hit✓

The Birth of a Nation

Year1915DirectorD. W. GriffithSet inWashington-BaltimoreTMDb5.9

Casablanca

Year1942DirectorMichael CurtizSet inCasablancaTMDb8.1Hit✓

Vertigo

Year1958DirectorAlfred HitchcockSet inSan Francisco-San JoseTMDb8.1


1	The Godfather	1972	Francis Ford Coppola	New York	8.7	✓
2	Citizen Kane	1941	Orson Welles	New York	8
3	2001: A Space Odyssey	1968	Stanley Kubrick	—	8	✓
4	Seven Samurai	1954	Akira Kurosawa	—	8.4
5	Psycho	1960	Alfred Hitchcock	Phoenix	8.4	✓
6	Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope	1977	George Lucas	—	8.2	✓
7	Battleship Potemkin	1925	Sergei M. Eisenstein	Odessa	7.6
8	The Wizard of Oz	1939	Victor Fleming	—	7.6	✓
9	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	1937	David Hand et al.	—	7.1	✓
10	The Birth of a Nation	1915	D. W. Griffith	Washington-Baltimore	5.9
11	Casablanca	1942	Michael Curtiz	Casablanca	8.1	✓
12	Vertigo	1958	Alfred Hitchcock	San Francisco-San Jose	8.1
13	Gone with the Wind	1939	Victor Fleming	Atlanta	7.9	✓
14	Jaws	1975	Steven Spielberg	Boston	7.7	✓
15	A Trip to the Moon	1902	Georges Méliès	—	7.9
16	Singin' in the Rain	1952	Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly	Los Angeles	8.1
17	Apocalypse Now	1979	Francis Ford Coppola	Ho Chi Minh City	8.3	✓
18	Lawrence of Arabia	1962	David Lean	Cairo	8	✓
19	Pulp Fiction	1994	Quentin Tarantino	Los Angeles	8.5
20	The Godfather Part II	1974	Francis Ford Coppola	New York	8.6	✓
21	Metropolis	1927	Fritz Lang	Berlin (filmed)	8.1
22	City Lights	1931	Charles Chaplin	Los Angeles	8.2	✓
23	Breathless	1960	Jean-Luc Godard	Paris	7.5
24	Bicycle Thieves	1948	Vittorio De Sica	Rome	8.2
25	Taxi Driver	1976	Martin Scorsese	New York	8.1
26	M	1931	Fritz Lang	Berlin	8.1
27	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans	1927	F. W. Murnau	—	7.8	✓
28	Rear Window	1954	Alfred Hitchcock	New York	8.3	✓
29	Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb	1964	Stanley Kubrick	Washington-Baltimore	8.1
30	Rashômon	1950	Akira Kurosawa	Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe	8
31	Raiders of the Lost Ark	1981	Steven Spielberg	Cairo	7.9	✓
32	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly	1966	Sergio Leone	Albuquerque	8.5
33	Modern Times	1936	Charles Chaplin	Los Angeles (filmed)	8.3	✓
34	The Passion of Joan of Arc	1928	Carl Theodor Dreyer	Rouen	8
35	The Searchers	1956	John Ford	—	7.7
36	8½	1963	Federico Fellini	Rome	8.1
37	12 Angry Men	1957	Sidney Lumet	New York	8.6
38	It's a Wonderful Life	1946	Frank Capra	Syracuse	8.3
39	Stagecoach	1939	John Ford	—	7.6
40	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back	1980	Irvin Kershner	—	8.4	✓
41	Some Like It Hot	1959	Billy Wilder	Chicago	8.1	✓
42	North by Northwest	1959	Alfred Hitchcock	New York	8	✓
43	Toy Story	1995	John Lasseter	—	8	✓
44	The Exorcist	1973	William Friedkin	Washington-Baltimore	7.7	✓
45	Schindler's List	1993	Steven Spielberg	Krakow	8.6	✓
46	Alien	1979	Ridley Scott	—	8.2	✓
47	The Gold Rush	1925	Charles Chaplin	Anchorage	8	✓
48	Intolerance	1916	D. W. Griffith	New York	7.1
49	E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial	1982	Steven Spielberg	Los Angeles	7.5	✓
50	The Graduate	1967	Mike Nichols	San Francisco-San Jose	7.6	✓
51	The 400 Blows	1959	François Truffaut	Paris	8
52	Tokyo Story	1953	Yasujirô Ozu	Tokyo	8.2
53	Bonnie and Clyde	1967	Arthur Penn	Dallas	7.5	✓
54	The Rules of the Game	1939	Jean Renoir	Paris	7.5
55	The Terminator	1984	James Cameron	Los Angeles	7.7
56	GoodFellas	1990	Martin Scorsese	New York	8.5
57	Sunset Boulevard	1950	Billy Wilder	Los Angeles	8.3
58	Blade Runner	1982	Ridley Scott	Los Angeles	7.9
59	Raging Bull	1980	Martin Scorsese	New York	7.9
60	A Clockwork Orange	1971	Stanley Kubrick	London	8.2	✓
61	Goldfinger	1964	Guy Hamilton	Washington-Baltimore	7.4	✓
62	The Third Man	1949	Carol Reed	Vienna	7.9
63	One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest	1975	Milos Forman	Portland	8.4	✓
64	The Kid	1921	Charles Chaplin	Los Angeles (filmed)	8.1	✓
65	Pather Panchali	1955	Satyajit Ray	Calcutta	7.8
66	Do the Right Thing	1989	Spike Lee	New York	7.8
67	Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	2003	Peter Jackson	—	8.5	✓
68	Spirited Away	2001	Hayao Miyazaki	—	8.5
69	Double Indemnity	1944	Billy Wilder	Los Angeles	8.1
70	Once Upon a Time in the West	1968	Sergio Leone	—	8.3
71	King Kong	1933	Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack	New York	7.6
72	Persona	1966	Ingmar Bergman	Stockholm	8.1
73	La dolce vita	1960	Federico Fellini	Rome	8	✓
74	Rome, Open City	1945	Roberto Rossellini	Rome	8
75	The Matrix	1999	Lana, Lilly Wachowski	Sydney	8.3	✓
76	On the Waterfront	1954	Elia Kazan	New York	7.9
77	Chinatown	1974	Roman Polanski	Los Angeles	7.9
78	The Silence of the Lambs	1991	Jonathan Demme	Washington-Baltimore	8.3	✓
79	The Deer Hunter	1978	Michael Cimino	Pittsburgh (filmed)	8	✓
80	The Great Dictator	1940	Charles Chaplin	—	8.3	✓
81	It Happened One Night	1934	Frank Capra	New York	7.8	✓
82	Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings	2001	Peter Jackson	—	8.4	✓
83	Back to the Future	1985	Robert Zemeckis	Los Angeles (filmed)	8.3	✓
84	Night of the Living Dead	1968	George A. Romero	Pittsburgh (filmed)	7.6
85	The Bridge on the River Kwai	1957	David Lean	—	7.8	✓
86	The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari	1920	Robert Wiene	—	7.9
87	The Maltese Falcon	1941	John Huston	San Francisco-San Jose	7.7
88	Fantasia	1940	Ben Sharpsteen et al.	—	7.3
89	Midnight Cowboy	1969	John Schlesinger	New York	7.5	✓
90	Ben-Hur	1959	William Wyler	Jerusalem	7.9	✓
91	The Seventh Seal	1957	Ingmar Bergman	—	8.1
92	Man with a Movie Camera	1929	Dziga Vertov	Kyiv	7.8
93	The Dark Knight	2008	Christopher Nolan	Chicago	8.5	✓
94	Rocky	1976	John G. Avildsen	Philadelphia (filmed)	7.8	✓
95	Halloween	1978	John Carpenter	Chicago	7.6	✓
96	To Kill a Mockingbird	1962	Robert Mulligan	Mobile	8	✓
97	Annie Hall	1977	Woody Allen	New York	7.7	✓
98	The Apartment	1960	Billy Wilder	New York	8.2	✓
99	The Shawshank Redemption	1994	Frank Darabont	Columbus	8.7
100	Forrest Gump	1994	Robert Zemeckis	Savannah	8.5	✓

Ratings: This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

How this is measured

The critical canon, placed on the map: 498 films, 430 located in a real metro (394 by where they are set, the rest by where they were filmed, marked). The unlocated remainder live in fictional or unplaceable worlds.

Only 161 of the 500 were also top-ten grossers of their year: the canon and the box office are different worlds.

List: Digital Dream Door's 500 Greatest Movies, used with attribution, the film analogue of the RS 500 in Sound.