@MiyamotoMusashi:
It may be a bit more sophisticated and valid than choices only based on personal criteria
Not really, at least a personal criteria's not fucking creepy most of the time.
Like I can kind of understand "feature length" and I can KIIIND of understand "American films only" considering it's AFI, but everything else is BS.
3: Critical recognition: Formal commendation in print.
Maybe this would be okay if "print" were defined as "everything ever put down in type or on paper". Otherwise, let's look at who in the world has control over this specific criterion, oh look it's "everyone with the socioeconomic position to 'formally commend' this film in print major publications". That's what we call selection bias back at the ranch, folks. Without even looking into the systemic reasons why certain films are considered worthy of "formal commendation'' by this specific group of people, while many others are not.
4: Major award winner: Recognition from competitive events including awards from organizations in the film community and major film festivals
Like do I even need to explain this one. I feel like they basically come out as evil here. You have the terms "competitive" and "film community" right in there. The word "major" is in there twice. What if "major" actually referred to the opinion of the MAJORITY of people in the world, or would that be too weird? Not that I feel like it's always a good idea to go with the majority rule (that should go without saying), but in this case we'd see a vastly different metric from what is commonly accepted as the prevailing one.
5: Popularity over time: Including figures for box office adjusted for inflation, television broadcasts and syndication, and home video sales and rentals.
More blatant evil. Here we use the film's ability to succeed within our economic system as a metric for measuring its value.
Though I shouldn't be too surprised, seeing as that's how the worth of every human being is measured within our society. :)
6: Historical significance: A film's mark on the history of the moving image through technical innovation, visionary narrative devices or other groundbreaking achievements.
7: Cultural impact: A film's mark on American society in terms of style and substance.
I like how neither of these ones specify whether the mark on history and American society necessarily has to be GOOD. Though I guess it doesn't matter, because the subjective measure of "good" is decided for us, by the same people who decide what qualifies as "historically significant", "stylish", or "substantial".