American Movies Worth Seeing
by Birgitta Welzel

Most of my friends and relatives agree that you can’t discuss movies with me because I am so picky and my taste is kind of high-brow. My favorite film directors are Krzysztof Kieslowski and Peter Greenaway. When I first moved to the U. S. I was thunderstruck how difficult it is in this country to get access to foreign movies. In Germany (and probably in most european countries), you can watch movies from all around the world every day on TV, and as soon as foreign directors like Claude Chabrol, Aki Kaurismäki or Martin Scorsese produce a new film, you can be sure to find it in the programs of the movie theaters. When you check American TV schedules or movie theater programs on the other hand you could easily get the idea that most people in the U. S. are not aware that there are other places in the world - apart from Hollywood - where films are produced. Only later I figured out that foreign movies are not quite as inaccessible as I was thinking in the first place; public libraries and online distributers are good addresses. When I first moved to the U. S., my knowledge of american film history was rather sketchy, but I have always loved the films of Orson Welles. Beginning there, I was determined to figure out what else is worth seeing. In this search, the "100 Greatest American Movies" list of the American Film Institute (AFI) was not very helpful, because it is focussed on audience favorites and classics and doesn’t consider more recent films. According to the AFI list, film history ends in 1996. The IMDB users’ poll faced me with additional problems, because some movies obviously are cult and owe their high rating to a fan audience while other audiences don't even bother to rate these films. Audience polls make it difficult to tell cult movies apart from high quality films. While industry awards like the Academy Award (“Oscar”) should not be taken too seriously, critics awards give the best hints of what is worth seeing. Critics awards have been mushrooming in the U. S. since the 90ies, and in my opinion they are responsible for an increasing number of interesting and artistic films. It is quite obvious that in the last 10 years more very good films have been made than for instance in the whole period from 1965 to 1985.
The following is my personal list of what I consider the best american movies (international coproductions with american participation included).

I am continually working on this list, so there are more titles to come.

Main Section
Family & Kids Movies

Main Section

  Works of Art Other notable movies Interesting Teenage Movies
1910s    
1920s  
1930s  
1940s  
1950s  
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s

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Family & Kids Movies

  Toddler-proof 4+ 6+ 8+
1920s      
1930s    
1940s
  • Bambi (David Hand, 1942)
  
1950s    
1960s    
1970s    
1980s      
1990s  
2000s
  • Cars (John Lasseter, 2006)
  • Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, 2003)
  • Robots (Chris Wedge, 2005)
  • Shrek (Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson, 2001)
  • Shrek 2 (Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, 2004)

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