100 Years, 100 American Movies

Thanks to a very generous gift, the library has been able to purchase on video all the films included in the American Film Institute’s 100 Years, 100 American Movies lists. 

The American Film Institute is a non-profit organization founded in 1967 dedicated to celebrating excellence in the art of film and to educating film-makers and the public about “the power of visual storytelling to share diverse perspectives, inspire empathy and drive culture forward.” In 1997, AFI released a list of the 100 Greatest American Movies, chosen via a poll of artists and leaders in the film industry from a selection of 400 nominated films, all feature-length, English-language movies of historical and cultural significance. On the tenth anniversary of that list, an updated grouping of 100 films was issued (some new films had been added, while others were dropped) – and for this reason, there are actually more than 100 selected films in our collection, ranging from works by Charlie Chaplin to John Ford to Alfred Hitchcock to Martin Scorsese. 

The donor specified that the new acquisitions all be in the Blu-Ray format. The Blu-Rays in the 100 Years, 100 American Movies collection are shelved alphabetically by title in the Blu-Ray section, right after the regular feature-film DVDs, and are denoted by a bright orange sticker on the spine. Extra funds for the purchase of additional Blu-Ray players for the library’s Thingdom collection were also supplied by the donor, in order to make these wonderful films more readily available to all library patrons. 

This is a great opportunity to see again – or for the first time – movies that entertain, move and inspire us. One patron mentioned that he is taking advantage of the chance to see all of the films in that collection that he hadn’t seen before. We encourage everyone to enjoy this collection, and express our gratitude to the donor who made it possible.