Guinness' Top 100 Films by Genre

The Top 100 Films
by Genre Type

(Top 5 Films Per Genre)

by Guinness

Top 100 Films by Genre Type: The Guinness Book of Film, subtitled The Ultimate Guide to the Best Films Ever, was an essential hard-cover movie guide published in 1999. It reviewed the top 1000 movies of the 20th Century.

See also Filmsite's Top 100 Films by Genre Type.

Facts and Commentary About the Top 100 Films by Genre Type:

The ultimate selection of films was based upon a few criteria:
- sound films that were easily available in video format (with a few exceptions)
- "the movies that have given the most pleasure to the most people"
From the 1000 films, the guide also selected a Top 100 Films, "essential recommendations" categorized into a Top 5 for each of twenty different genres (action, biopic, animated, comedy, cult, disaster, drama, fantasy, gangster, horror, musical, period, romance, science-fiction, silent, spy, swashbuckler, thriller, war, western), each represented below by icons.
The links from the genre categories are to Filmsite's essays on Film Genres.

Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star

are the
films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the "100 Greatest Films"

The Top 100 Films by Genre

by Guinness Book of Film

Action

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Aliens (1986)
Die Hard (1988)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Con Air (1997)

Musicals

Top Hat (1935)
On the Town (1949)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Grease (1978)
Evita (1996)

Biopic

The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
Lust for Life (1956)
Reds (1981)
Malcolm X (1992)
Shine (1996)

Period

Pride and Prejudice (1940)
Tom Jones (1963)
A Room With a View (1985)
Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Sense and Sensibility (1995)

Cartoon (Animated)

Pinocchio (1940)
Bambi (1942)
The Jungle Book (1967)
Yellow Submarine (1968)
Toy Story (1995)

Romance

Casablanca (1942)
Now, Voyager (1942)
Love Story (1970)
Ghost (1990)
The English Patient (1996)

Comedy

Monkey Business (1931)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
The Pink Panther (1963)
Airplane! (1980)
The Full Monty (1997)

Science Fiction

Forbidden Planet (1956)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Star Wars (1977)
Blade Runner (1982)
E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Cult

Barbarella (1968)
Easy Rider (1969)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Badlands (1973)
Pulp Fiction (1994)

Silent

Napoleon (1927, Fr.)
The Wind (1928)
Pandora's Box (1929, Germ.)
The Cameraman (1929)
Modern Times (1936)

Disaster

Airport (1970)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
The Towering Inferno (1974)
Twister (1996)
Armageddon (1998)

Spy

Dr. No (1962)
Goldfinger (1964)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Mission: Impossible (1996)

Drama

Gone With The Wind (1939)
Citizen Kane (1941)
On The Waterfront (1954)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Titanic (1997)

Swashbuckler

Captain Blood (1935)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
The Princess Bride (1987)
The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

Fantasy

King Kong (1933)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Superman (1978)
Batman (1989)

Thriller

The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935)
Vertigo (1958)
Touch Of Evil (1958)
The French Connection (1971)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Gangster

Scarface (1932)
Bonnie And Clyde (1967)
The Godfather (1972)
The Untouchables (1987)
GoodFellas (1990)

War

The Guns of Navarone (1961)
The Great Escape (1963)
Where Eagles Dare (1969)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Horror

The Exorcist (1973)
Carrie (1976)
Halloween (1978)
The Shining (1980)
Poltergeist (1982)

Westerns

Stagecoach (1939)
High Noon (1952)
Rio Bravo (1959)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Unforgiven (1992)