The Twenty Greatest American Films of All Time

In most of these lists Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) is named the best film of all time, not just the best American film, but the best film ever made. The American Film Institute and Sight and Sound Magazine have consistently named the name the best, as have many academic critics around the globe. Though I admire Citizen Kane a great deal, I do not believe it is the finest film ever made. It is among them, certainly, but better films have since been made. I do concede that it is very likely the single most important film ever made by virtue of the innovations within the picture that forever changed the landscape of American film.
This list is entirely mine, I do not make any grand statements that it is anything else. These are the films I believe to be the finest pieces of American film ever made.

For no other reason than this is my site and I can do it, here are the 20 films I consider to be the greatest American films ever made.

1. The Godfather Part II (1974; Francis Ford Coppola)
2. The Godfather (1972; Francis Ford Coppola)
3. Schindler's List (1993; Steven Spielberg)
4. Lawrence of Arabia (1962; David Lean)
5. The Wizard of Oz (1939; Victor Fleming)
6. The Searchers (1956; John Ford)
7. Raging Bull (1980; Martin Scorsese)
8. On the Waterfront (1954; Elia Kazan)
9. The Lord of the Rings (2001-2002-2003; Peter Jackson)
10. Citizen Kane (1941; Orson Welles)
11. E.T.: The Extraterrestrial (1982; Steven Spielberg)
12. Apocalypse Now (1979; Francis Ford Coppola)
13. A Clockwork Orange (1971; Stanley Kubrick)
14. Tootsie (1982; Sydney Pollack)
15. Taxi Driver (1976; Martin Scorsese)
16. Pulp Fiction (1994; Quentin Tarantino)
17. City Lights (1931; Charles Chaplin)
18. Cabaret (1972; Bob Fosse)
19. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948; John Huston)
20. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)