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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178 thoughts on “AFI Top 50 Screen Legends

  1. Hello Phil,
    Thank you for your return and i am sorry for Marlon Brando because I completely forget him, anyway as you write it’ he is the Godfather and stay unique.
    I like all the lists but my favorite is by Steve because Alphabethic order and that is
    Good;
    In fact, i like mythics couple, like Astaire and Rogers, Grant and Hepburn, Gable and Harlow, Dietrich and Cooper, Gable and Crawford, Davis and Flynn, Dietrich and Wayne….
    When they are together on the silver screen it is simply shining in french (Brillant) and high class performance;
    Bonne soirée
    Pierre

      1. Thanks Pierre, going alphabetical might seem like a cop out but how can you accurately rank these actresses? it gets a bit silly, okay pick the top two or three but after that can you really say Joan Crawford is more legendary than Dorothy Lamour? I mean they are totally different, can Crawford shake a sarong as well as Lamour can? I dunno, better ask Bob. 🙂

  2. To all…..seeing all of these list has us thinking of doing a page that shows all of the rankings…interesting stuff….so interesting that it deserves a better place to be viewed. Good input from everybody…even Bob…lol.

  3. BOB COX POSTS COPIED FROM SITE INDEX PAGE
    bob cox
    April 17, 2018 at 11:34 am
    great discussion all. Oscar’s list:
    criteria number best actor wins first, secondary is number of best actor nominations, tertiary consideration supporting wins and nom. strengths: industry insiders, saw all the movies, only annual best. weakness: political, sentimental, annual competitors unequal/unfair.
    spencer tracy 2 wins/9 nominations
    marlon brando 2/8
    gary cooper 2/5
    Fredrick march 2/5
    Laurence Olivier 1/9
    paul muni 1/6 includes finished second one year without a formal nomination( write in)
    james stewart 1/5
    Gregory peck 1/5
    burt Lancaster 1/4
    Charles laughton 1/3
    clark gable 1/3
    Humphrey bogart 1/3
    james cagney1/3
    ron colman 1/3
    bing Crosby 1/3
    William holden 1/3
    alec guiness 1/2 , supporting 0/2
    john wayne 1/2
    jose ferrer 1/2
    Sidney Portier 1/2
    Robert donat 1/2
    Wallace beery 1/2
    peter finch 1/2
    rex Harrison 1/2
    henry fonda 1/2
    burt Lancaster 1/4

    not on list due to criteria
    richard burton 0/7
    Charles boyer 0/4
    Montgomery cliff 0/3
    kirk douglas 0/3
    William powell 0/3
    Anthony Quinn 0/2 supporting 2/2
    Charlton Heston 1/1

    my criteria:
    1)do I consider their acting great
    2) can they make me laugh, comedic ability is essential
    3) variety and difficulty of roles
    4) top 10 movies
    5) top 20 movies
    my movie rating system a ten is great(5 stars), a nine is very good( 4 1/2 stars, an eight is recommended to watch(4 stars),a seven is a good way to kill afternoon if no 10,9,8s to see
    james stewart
    cary grant
    marlon brando
    Laurence Olivier
    Frederick march
    Humphrey bogart
    clark gable
    Gregory peck
    Richard burton
    john wayne
    gary cooper
    William powell
    William holden
    henry fonda
    buster Keaton
    bing Crosby
    Charlton Heston
    burt Lancaster
    erroll Flynn
    fred Astaire
    edgar g robinson
    james cagney
    lionell Barrymore
    rex Harrison
    jerry lewis
    my apologies to paul muni, I have not seen enough of his work to rate him

    Reply

  4. 1 HI FLORA. Probably the one surprise in your list of male legends is Fred being placed above Wayne. However Fred is possibly one of those actors whose already originally fine reputation has grown even further over the years.

    2 Certainly when I watch TV programmes that host dancing competitions over here Astaire’s name is always on everybody’s lips, he is generally regarded nowadays as THE greatest dancer in movies, and AFI’s rating is pretty close to your own so we all should respect your decision, especially as you have clearly gone to great lengths to be as impartial as you can.

    3 Naturally I’m delighted at your inclusion of “our” Richard and it’s good to see Sinatra being given his due in your list. Spencer Tracy in 1961 said that at that point in Hollywood history Frankie had more power in Tinseltown than many of the old Hollywood mega moguls.

    4 I support your exclusion of Welles and Dean for the reasons that you state and of course The Marx Bros barely made my own list. and as always you separate well the facts from your own opinions so that one can clearly see where you’re coming from.

  5. Okay, here is my attempt to do a top 25 Legendary Actors List. I had to keep in mind that I must focus on actors who are legends rather than on whether or not I am fan of them myself. I agree with most of the names on both lists and for the Actors, a lot of the same rankings.

    There are two actors on the AFI list of whom I am definitely not a fan of them, but leaving them off the list would be ludicrous. Bruce and Steve are likely the only people on this site who know who they are: John Wayne and Marlon Brando. I have seen a lot of Wayne movies for his costars. I certainly have seen more of his films than any ordinary non-fan would. I think I have seen 30 Wayne films. I have seen 18 Brando movies, most of them only once as they are famous. I double checked these totals on their UMR pages.

    I did remove three people on this list. Orson Welles was a legendary director/screenwriter more than a legendary actor. I am a fan of his, by the way. I removed James Dean, because he only made three movies. Finally, I removed the Marx Brothers for similar reasons to Steve’s excluding them.

    Here is my list with a lot of the same ranking in the top range:

    1. Humphrey Bogart
    2. Cary Grant
    3. James Stewart
    4. Fred Astaire
    5. John Wayne
    6. Marlon Brando
    7. Henry Fonda
    8. Frank Sinatra
    9. Clark Gable
    10.Spencer Tracy
    11.Gregory Peck
    12.James Cagney
    13.Sidney Poitier
    14.Kirk Douglas
    15.Gene Kelly
    16.Burt Lancaster
    17.Gary Cooper
    18.Errol Flynn
    19.Robert Mitchum
    20.Buster Keaton
    21.Laurence Olivier
    22.Charles Chaplin
    23.William Holden
    24.Richard Widmark
    25.Edward G. Robinson

    You will no doubt see that I did not include Glenn Ford, who is my third favourite actor behind Gregory Peck and Richard Widmark. It was a tough decision. In the end, I did not find him more legendary than the other actors on the AFI list.

    1. Hi Flora, thanks, I think your list seems closer to mine than Bob’s and Steve’s, so it must be good 🙂 Interesting though that Cooper and Chaplin have moved towards the end of the list. Is that becaue you’re not a fan, or you think their influence is somewhat exaggerated? On Widmark, it’s interesting to see that he has such a committed fan base on this site!

      1. 1 PHIL Reading your 4 latest posts on the Legends issue I see that you have given much thought to the comparisons and contrasts among the lists produced by us gang. It is true that in their heyday Lana probably was a bigger star than Hedy though don’t underestimate how important the latter was too. However nowadays film historians seem to dwell more on Hedy than Lana.

        2 That seems to be mainly because in the 1933 Ecstasy she swam nude and ran through the countryside naked in the days when as one historian put it “Women on the screen wore more clothes in bed than many do walking about in real life today!”

        3 Her autobiography in later years also caused a lot of controversy with her description for example of how on one occasion when her marriage was going through a rocky patch she took refuge from her husband in a Red Light district for a while and felt obliged to work for her keep there!

        4 I know that in selecting Hedy I have probably marginally strayed outside my rule of basing my rankings on work within the Classic Era rather than the ultimate Legend that stars acquired. However if you turn to Victor Mature’s Cogerson page and look at the existing entry 3 you will see that for Cecil B DeMille’s Sam and Angela Bruce has denied Hedy the glory of her Delilah portrayal so I thought I should maybe compensate Miss Lamarr a little.

        5 Finally I don’t know what your occupation is but unless you are a talent scout you have missed your calling as evidenced by your spotting the potential of Jocelyn Brando to be the No 1 actress. Even Bruce and Joel Hirschhorn missed that probability, and don’t heed Lensman’s rantings on the subject – as the saying goes “None so blind as those who WILL not see.” Ah well, as fate prevented Jocelyn’s full blossoming we’ve had to make do at least on this site with a Queen Myrna but we are where we are!

        6 Anyway I always have food for thought when I’m fortunate enough to exchange posts with the likes of you, Steve, Flora and Pierre and I thank you for your own part in the current exchanges

      2. Hi, Phil. I don’t feel their influence was exaggerated. I don not think anyone I put on my list had an exaggerated influence. I am actually a fan of Cooper and Chaplin. But I moved up some people like Sidney Poitier because I thought their influence was more in my opinion. It was a difficult exercise but I enjoyed it. And yes, Widmark does indeed have a dedicated fan base on UMR. 🙂

    2. Nice list Flora, our lists match on 20 of those. Surprised you didn’t give dear old Eddie G the boot and slipped Glenn Ford in instead. You can do it at night when no one is looking. I won’t tell. 😉

      I thought you were more of a Crosby rather than Sinatra fan, I thought wrong.

      Bogie at no.1, no argument there. The most iconic actor of them all, with Monroe the most iconic actress. Those are the top 2 movie legends people still buy posters of for their living room walls. I can’t imagine anyone buying posters of Shirley Temple or Paul Muni, but maybe they do. 🙂

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