AFI Top 50 Screen Legends

Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and Grace Kelly just 3 of the AFI Top 50 Screen Legends

Sometime in 2011 we decided it would be fun to do a Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) movie page on the AFI Top 50 Screen Legends.  The AFI list of the top 50 greatest screen legends in American film history, included 25 male and 25 female stars. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 15, 1999.  The American Film Institute defined an “American screen legend” as an actor or a team of actors during the classic film era with a significant screen presence in American feature-length films whose screen debut occurred in or before 1950, or whose screen debut occurred after 1950 but whose death has marked a completed body of work.

When we started doing these pages 6 of the 50 Screen Legends were still alive.  Sadly Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple and Lauren Bacall passed away before we could finish our quest.  Kirk Douglas, Sidney Poitier and Sophia Loren are still alive and well.  Douglas will be 100 later this year…and just last week we received an autograph from that screen legend…but that is another story.  After spending the last 5 years looking at the AFI list…we can say we like the list…BUT….there is one massive injustice.  How Olivia de Havilland did not make the list makes no sense to us….ok done ranting.

The first AFI screen legend we researched and wrote about was Clark Gable….the last AFI screen legend we did was Mary Pickford.  Between the Gable and Pickford pages….5 years passed, we changed our website home 2 times, we took a statistical look at 2,267 movies and we saw our classic movie pages become the most popular on our website….easily kicking our current movie star pages to the curb.  So we decided to put all 50 of our AFI Screen Legends on one page.  Each link below will take you to that star’s UMR page….where you will find box office grosses, reviews and awards for every single movie that star made during their career.  John Wayne and Robert Mitchum are tied with the most movies (83) while James Dean has the least (3 movies).

afi top 25 actors

AFI’s Top 25 Screen Legend Actors….with links to our movie pages on the Screen Legend

1.   Humphrey Bogart  58 Movies Ranked….from Casablanca (1942) to Swing Your Lady (1938)
2.   Cary Grant 58 Movies Ranked… from North by Northwest (1959) to Born To Be Bad (1934)
3.   James Stewart 73 Movies Ranked Mr. Smith Goes to Washington(1939) to Big Sleep(1978)
4.   Marlon Brando 37 Movies Ranked….from The Godfather (1972) to Christopher Columbus (1992)
5.   Fred Astaire 39 Movies Ranked The Towering Inferno (1974) to The Amazing Dobermans (1976)
6.   Henry Fonda 81 Movies Ranked… On Golden Pond (1981) to City on Fire (1979)
7.   Clark Gable 63 Movies Ranked….from Gone With The Wind (1939) to Parnell (1937)
8.   James Cagney 61 Movies Ranked….from Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) to Boy Meets Girl (1938)
9.   Spencer Tracy 53 Movies Ranked….from Boy’s Town (1938) to Up the River (1930)
10. Charles Chaplin 12 Movies Ranked….from The Kid (1921) to A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)
11. Gary Cooper 67 Movies Ranked….from Sergeant York (1941) to Fighting Caravans (1931)
12. Gregory Peck 53 Movies Ranked To Kill a Mockingbird(1962) to Amazing Grace & Chuck(1987)
13. John Wayne 83 Movies Ranked….from True Grit (1969) to Brannigan (1975)
14. Laurence Olivier 48 Movies Ranked….from Rebecca (1940) to Inchon (1982)
15. Gene Kelly 40 Movies Ranked….from Anchors Aweigh (1945) to Viva Knievel! (1977)
16. Orson Welles 75 Movies Ranked….from Citizen Kane (1941) to Treasure Island (1972)
17. Kirk Douglas 71 Movies Ranked….from Spartacus (1960) to Diamonds (1999)
18. James Dean 3 Movies Ranked….from East of Eden (1955) to Giant (1956)
19. Burt Lancaster 67 Movies Ranked From Here to Eternity (1953) to Executive Action (1973)
20. Marx Brothers 18 Movies Ranked….from Horse Feathers (1932) to The Story of Mankind (1957)
21. Buster Keaton 28 Movies Ranked….from The Cameraman (1928) to The Intruder (1936)
22. Sidney Poitier 46 Movies Ranked….from In the Heat of the Night (1967) to Fast Forward (1985)
23. Robert Mitchum 83 Movies Ranked….from The Longest Day (1962) to Matilda (1978)
24. Edward G. Robinson 67 Movies Ranked 10 Commandments(1956) to BiggestBundleofAll(1968)
25. William Holden 66 Movies Ranked….from The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) to Ashanti (1979)

afi

America Film Institutes’ Top 25 Screen Legend Actress and UMR’s Links That Rank All Of Their Movies.

1.  Katharine Hepburn  43 Movies Ranked..On Golden Pond (1981) to Grace Quigley (1985)
2.  Bette Davis 79 Movies Ranked…from All About Eve (1950) to Wicked Stepmother (1989)
3.  Audrey Hepburn 24 Movies Ranked…from My Fair Lady (1964) to The All Laughed (1981)
4.  Ingrid Bergman  32 Movies Ranked..Gaslight(1944) to Files of Mrs. Basil E.Frankweiler(1973)
5.  Greta Garbo 24 Movies Ranked.. from Ninotchka (1939) to Torrent (1928)
6.  Marilyn Monroe 23 Movies Ranked…from Some Like It Hot (1959) to Ladies of the Chorus (1948)
7.  Elizabeth Taylor 47 Movies Ranked..Who’s Afraid of Va.Woolf?(1966) to A Little Night Music(1977)
8.  Judy Garland 31 Movies Ranked…from A Star Is Born (1954) to I Could Go On Singing (1963)
9.  Marlene Dietrich 30 Movies Ranked…from Shanghai Express (1932) to Just A Gigolo (1978)
10. Joan Crawford 72 Movies Ranked…from Mildred Pierce (1945) to The Law of the Range (1928)
11. Barbara Stanwyck 72 Movies Ranked.. Double Indemnity (1944) to The Bride Walks Out (1936)
12. Claudette Colbert 48 Movies Ranked..It Happened One Night(1934) to Royal Affairs(1954)
13. Grace Kelly 11 Movies Ranked.. from The Country Girl (1954) to Green Fire (1954)
14. Ginger Rogers 54 Movies Ranked.. from Kitty Foyle (1940) to The Groom Wore Spurs (1951)
15. Mae West 12 Movies Ranked.. from She Done Him Wrong (1933) to Sextette (1978)
16. Vivien Leigh 15 Movies Ranked.. from Gone With The Wind (1939) to Dark Journey (1937)
17. Lillian Gish 31 Movies Ranked.. from Intolerance (1916) to Hambone and Hillie (1983)
18. Shirley Temple 37 Movies Ranked.. from Since You Went Away (1944) to Honeymoon (1947)
19. Rita Hayworth 35 Movies Ranked.. from Gilda (1946) to The Naked Zoo (1970)
20. Lauren Bacall 36 Movies Ranked.. from To Have and Have Not (1944) to Diamonds (1999)
21. Sophia Loren 29 Movies Ranked.. from El Cid (1961) to Firepower (1979)
22. Jean Harlow 22 Movies Ranked.. from The Public Enemy (1931) to Riffraff (1936)
23. Carole Lombard 39 Movies Ranked from My Man Godfrey (1936) to It Pays To Advertise(1931)
24. Mary Pickford 31 Movies Ranked.. from The Little Princess (1917) to Rosita (1923)
25. Ava Gardner 40 Movies Ranked.. from The Killers (1946) to City on Fire (1979)
The amount of hours that went into this quest is mind boggling....but now that it is over....gotta admit...damn glad I did it. Of course that brings out the question...What Now?
The amount of hours that went into this quest is mind boggling….but now that it is over….gotta admit…damn glad we did it. Of course that brings out the question…What Now?
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177 thoughts on “AFI Top 50 Screen Legends”

  2. Hello Bob,
    For me first i put Chaplin for Zeus but in the mean time i think to myself what about Gable the king so i write Gable but and for me again Chaplin is one of the great personnalités of the movie story and for ever;;;
    Hé was producer , he was director and actor and one of the four foundater of the United Artist so if i can write something for my comparaison with Olympics Gods he is like
    Chronos The master of time
    And for Rhea there is for me only one actress
    Miss Lilian Gish
    Sorry about Dean but for me he is the rebel and with his very short carrier and his death so young Hades is the good choice
    Merci pour ta réponse
    Pierre

    Reply

    1. HI PIERRE

      Thanks for the explanations. As I’ve said previously I regularly flip-flop in my own mind regarding who should be in the AFI lists and in what order.

      Reply

  3. HI PIERRE

    1 Your Top 6 are near enough my own except for your exclusion of Chaplin in favour of Dean. and I have always had strong reservations about James’ inclusion in even a Top 25.

    2 However as he is on not only on the AFI list but is included in most other legends lists your preference for him is clearly not an “outlier” and is to be very much respected.

    3 Also you are the first person in the current round of exchanges to deal with both genders so well done. Your choice of Esther Williams is also not unreasonable because although these days she is rarely mentioned she was very popular at one time and stands alone as a star who built a career around swimming.

    Reply

  5. Hello everybody,
    Very good comment but for me there is two levels, the Gods and the Stars,
    And i am very classic because in Olympus there were twelve gods and really i dont care about rank, and of course for the stars classical too;
    Gods
    Zeus : Clark Gable
    Hadès : James Dean
    Poseidon: Humphrey Bogart
    Apollon : Gary Cooper
    Hermes : Cary Grant
    Arès : John Wayne
    Hera ; Greta Garbo
    Athena : Marlene Dietrich
    Aphrodite : Marylin Monroe
    Artemis : Katherine Hepburn
    Demeter : Bette Davis
    Hestia ; Mary Pickford
    And classical stars all the others
    Best wishes for this week
    Pierre

    Reply

    1. Hi Pierre,
      Very good, and also very funny….but you forgot about one important God: The Godfather (Marlon Brando) 🙂
      I also agree that Chaplin should have been in there, and personally, I would replace Dietrich with Crawford. My impression is that Dietrich was perhaps not quite as big in North America as in Europe.
      Aside from these points, I think it’s a great list!
      Phil

      Reply

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