Snow White, Chaplin’s Tramp, Godfather, among AFI's top-10 winners

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Los Angeles, Jun 18: Snow White, Dorothy Gale, the HAL 9000 computer, Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp and Marlon Brando's Godfather share top billing among the American Film Institute's best genre movies.

Films featuring those characters were among the No. 1 picks on the AFI’s top-10 lists of the finest flicks in 10 genres, including mystery, Westerns, sports tales and courtroom dramas. The winners included Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for animation; The Wizard of Oz, featuring Dorothy and her little dog, for fantasy; 2001: A Space Odyssey, with HAL the demented computer, for science fiction; Chaplin's City Lights for romantic comedy; and Brando's The Godfather for gangster flicks.

The other No. 1 movies are Westerns, The Searchers; sports, Raging Bull; courtroom drama, To Kill a Mockingbird'; epics, Lawrence of Arabia; and mysteries, Vertigo.

Not surprisingly, Alfred Hitchcock dominated the mystery category. Besides Vertigo, he landed three others on that top-10 list: Rear Window at No. 3, North By Northwest at No. 7 and Dial M for Murder at No. 9. Chaplin's City Lights from 1931, one of only two silent films to make the genre lists, was a surprise, beating such popular modern romances as Annie Hall (No. 2), When Harry Met Sally ...' (No. 6) and Sleepless in Seattle (No. 10).

“This is why these shows are so important. They keep these films in the cultural conversation," said Bob Gazzale, AFI president. “When City Lights is honoured as the No. 1 romantic comedy, millions of people will go back and watch it again.”