What are the greatest  American movies ever made?  I woke up one evening (while in a theater where the latest car-chaser had failed to keep me conscious) wondering if there's an authoritative listing.  Turns out there is.

It was issued by the American Film Institute.
[http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0760906.html]

Later that evening, fully refreshed by that  two-hour nap, I sat down at Starbucks and emailed the Academy.  The answer came back, but during a thunderstorm. With every lightning strike, my iPhone shuddered.  And yet the list got through--though garbled.  Clark Garble would be horrified.

Here they are, the 50 best movie titles, as they appear on my screen:

1. Citizen Schindler

2. Psycho Godfather

3. The Grapes of Casablanca

4. Lawrence of Chinatown

5. Ben-Spartacus

6. Annie Kong

7. Yankee Doodle Platoon

8.  The French Night At the Opera

10. M*A*S*H Tootsie

11. Saving Private Shane

12. The Shawshank Jaws

13. Raging Annie Hall

14. Singin' In the Vertigo

15. It's a Wonderful Apocalypse

16. 2001: On the Waterfront

17. Some Like It Titanic

18. Dr, Strangelove  : The Extra-Terrestrial

19.  Taxi Window

20. West Side Intolerance

21. The Lord of the Duck Soup

22.  North By Network

23.  Sunset Searchers

24. Star Graduate

25. High Lights

26. One Flew Over the Lost Ark

27. Snow White and Midnight Cowboy

28.  Who's Afraid of Nashville?

29.  The Gold Cabaret

29.  The Wizard of the Apartment

30.  Mr. Smith Goes to the Sierra Madre

31.  The Best Years of the River Kwai

32. The Sound of Clockwork Orange

33. Bonnie and Desire

34. Sullivan's African Queen

35. American Mockingbird

36. Bringing Up Goodfellas

37. Swing Fiction

38. Easy Runner

39. Unforgiven Times

40. Toy Bunch

41  Sophie's Sixth Sense

42.  12 Angry Lambs

42   In the Heat of the Sunrise

43. Forest and the Sundance Kid

44. Do the Right Falcon

45  The Chinatown Story

46. The Philadelphian

50. Gone With the Picture Show