Which would you say are the 5 most iconic movies in American movie history?

With only 5 films from which to choose I left out a few genres including comedy and suspense/terror, Psycho and Vertigo are great choices.

Godfather

Casablanca

Annie Hall

Raging Bull

2001

Saving Private Ryan

Taxi Driver

The Godfather

Gone with the Wind.

Street car named Desire.

Casablanca

The Godfather (I and II)

The Manchurian Candidate

Gone with the Wind

Schindler’s List

Goodfellas

Training Day

Good bad the ugly

Shrek

Pirates of caribbeann

Raiders of the Lost Ark deserves to be on this list because it changed action movies forever. Prior to Raiders... action movies were a lot of talking with maybe a shoot-out or an epic car chase, like in Steve McQueen's Bullet. In Raider of the Lost Ark, the action was almost nonstop. That had never been done before.

One movie that hasn't been mentioned yet is The Magnificent Seven. I'd rate it higher than The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, but they are both iconic Westerns.

I'd also go with The Lion King. Any animated movie with a theme that has been turned into a wedding song has a pretty big impact on culture.

There are a lot of other movies that deserve consideration... The first Star Wars movie was epic. I saw it in a seated outdoor theatre in Greece and watching the battleship appear out of the night sky onto the movie scene was magical. Alien was the first movie with a strong female lead in an action role. Rocky is the iconic American story of a guy making it big through his own determination and guts. Young Frankenstein was a comedic masterpiece, but it probably doesn't rise to the level of iconic.

Anything with Rudolf Valentino in it. Women committed suicide when he died.

The first "talky". ("Garbo speaks!")

"Gone With the Wind". The first epic.

"Casablanca". ("Here's looking at you, kid".) America is the good guy in a war it has yet to enter.

"On The Waterfront". Elia Kazan and gritty realism.

"Giant". "Rebel Without a Cause". Brando, James Dean and disillusioned youth.

"Shane". The mythology of the West at its height, with a bad guy - a gunfighter - who is a good guy.

"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". "Once Upon a Time in the West". Spaghetti westerns, Clint Eastwood and the rise of the antihero.

"Dirt Harry". The right strikes back. Libs are "owned".

"Star Wars". Comics as block busters. Forty years on and still going.

"Rambo". The right re-writes the debacle of Vietnam.

"Pulp Fiction". The mark of Tarantino. Psychopaths, mobsters, and violence made fun. Everything that is wrong with America today.

Everything since has been a rehashing of formulas with more special effects.

Hard to argue with this, although I'd swap out Wizard Of Oz for Fantasia.

This Is Spinal Tap deserves to be in the discussion as well.

I think these films had the greatest impact on shaping the movie industry

Citizen Kane

Casablanca

Gone with the Wind

The Godfather

2001 Space Odyssey

D.Katz wrote:

I think these films had the greatest impact on shaping the movie industry

Citizen Kane

Casablanca

Gone with the Wind

The Godfather

2001 Space Odyssey

Should 2001 be considered an American film?

Star Wars

Casablanca

Citizen Kane

The Godfather

Shawshank Redemption

coach wrote:

D.Katz wrote:

I think these films had the greatest impact on shaping the movie industry

Citizen Kane

Casablanca

Gone with the Wind

The Godfather

2001 Space Odyssey

Should 2001 be considered an American film?

It's a gray area.

Kubrick was American and the dollars came from America.

But most everything else, including some UK tax breaks, was not American.

"2001: A Space Odyssey was financed and distributed by the American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,[11][12] but was filmed and edited almost entirely in southern England, where Kubrick lived, using the facilities of MGM-British Studios and Shepperton Studios. MGM had subcontracted the production of the film to Kubrick's production company in order to qualify for the Eady Levy, a UK tax on box-office receipts used at the time to fund the production of films in Britain"

Street fighter needs to be on any top 5 list.

I’m excluding anything pre-1970. Maybe not the most iconic, but had the biggest personal impact.

Star Wars

Pulp Fiction

Back to the Future

Shawshank Redemption

The Goonies

agip wrote:

coach wrote:

Should 2001 be considered an American film?

It's a gray area.

Kubrick was American and the dollars came from America.

But most everything else, including some UK tax breaks, was not American.

"2001: A Space Odyssey was financed and distributed by the American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,[11][12] but was filmed and edited almost entirely in southern England, where Kubrick lived, using the facilities of MGM-British Studios and Shepperton Studios. MGM had subcontracted the production of the film to Kubrick's production company in order to qualify for the Eady Levy, a UK tax on box-office receipts used at the time to fund the production of films in Britain"

Then a Kubrick film should be on the list. 2001 influenced Spielberg and many others.

ET

Jaws

Superman (1978)

The Shining

The Matrix

coach wrote:

agip wrote:

It's a gray area.

Kubrick was American and the dollars came from America.

But most everything else, including some UK tax breaks, was not American.

"2001: A Space Odyssey was financed and distributed by the American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,[11][12] but was filmed and edited almost entirely in southern England, where Kubrick lived, using the facilities of MGM-British Studios and Shepperton Studios. MGM had subcontracted the production of the film to Kubrick's production company in order to qualify for the Eady Levy, a UK tax on box-office receipts used at the time to fund the production of films in Britain"

Then a Kubrick film should be on the list. 2001 influenced Spielberg and many others.

This doesn't really sound any different than the criteria for Titanic (Canadian director / producer, filmed in Canada and Mexico). But both headed by an American studio.

1) This is Spinal Tap

2) Good Will Hunting

3) Napoleon Dynamite

4) Monty Python and the Holy Grail

5) Trading Places

It probably depends on what you mean by "iconic American," or whatever the phrasing was. Forrest Gump is probably the best regarding the American experience, if that is what you mean. For example, Star Wars has nothing to do with America and makes not mention of it that I recall.

Stand By Me, A Time to Kill, Dances With Wolves....these are the movies I would suggest a foreigner watch to understand the history, experiences, and social fabric of the country.