Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars is a list of the top 25 male and 25 female greatest screen legends of American film history. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 15, 1999, in a CBS special hosted by Shirley Temple, with 50 current actors making the presentations.

The American Film Institute defined an "American screen legend" as an actor or a team of actors during the Classical Hollywood cinema era with a significant screen presence in American feature-length (40 min or more) films whose screen debut occurred in or before 1950, or whose screen debut occurred after 1950 but whose death has marked a completed body of work, ie., actors recognized for their contributions to classical Hollywood American cinema.

The top stars of their respective gender are Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. They starred together in the classic adventure 1951 film The African Queen, for which Bogart won his only Academy Award. Sidney Poitier and Sophia Loren are the only surviving members mentioned on the list.^[1]

List of 50 greatest screen legends: Top 25 Male and Top 25 Female stars

No	Male legends		Female legends
1	Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957)		Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003)
2	Cary Grant (1904-1986)		Bette Davis (1908-1989)
3	James Stewart (1908-1997)		Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993)
4	Marlon Brando (1924-2004)		Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982)
5	Fred Astaire (1899-1987)		Greta Garbo (1905-1990)
6	Henry Fonda (1905-1982)		Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962)
7	Clark Gable (1901-1960)		Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)
8	James Cagney (1899-1986)		Judy Garland (1922-1969)
9	Spencer Tracy (1900-1967)		Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)
10	Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)		Joan Crawford (1908-1977)
11	Gary Cooper (1901-1961)		Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990)
12	Gregory Peck (1916-2003)		Claudette Colbert (1903-1996)
13	John Wayne (1907-1979)		Grace Kelly (1929-1982)
14	Laurence Olivier (1907-1989)		Ginger Rogers (1911-1995)
15	Gene Kelly (1912-1996)		Mae West (1893-1980)
16	Orson Welles (1915-1985)		Vivien Leigh (1913-1967)
17	Kirk Douglas (1916-2020)		Lillian Gish (1893-1993)
18	James Dean (1931-1955)		Shirley Temple (1928-2014)
19	Burt Lancaster (1913-1994)		Rita Hayworth (1918-1987)
20	Marx Brothers Chico (1887-1961) Harpo (1888-1964) Groucho (1890-1977)		Lauren Bacall (1924-2014)
21	Buster Keaton (1895-1966)		Sophia Loren (born 1934)
22	Sidney Poitier (born 1927)		Jean Harlow (1911-1937)
23	Robert Mitchum (1917-1997)		Carole Lombard (1908-1942)
24	Edward G. Robinson (1893-1973)		Mary Pickford (1892-1979)
25	William Holden (1918-1981)		Ava Gardner (1922-1990)

References

External links

• "AFI Recognizes the 50 Greatest American Screen Legends" (Press release). American Film Institute. June 16, 1999. Archived from the original on January 13, 2013. Retrieved 2013.
• List of the 500 nominated star legends
• List of the 50 winning legends