The American Film Institute defined an “American screen legend” as an actor or a team of actors with a significant screen presence in American feature-length (40 min) 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.
| 1. | Humphrey Bogart | 1. | Katharine Hepburn |
| 2. | Cary Grant | 2. | Bette Davis |
| 3. | James Stewart | 3. | Audrey Hepburn |
| 4. | Marlon Brando | 4. | Ingrid Bergman |
| 5. | Fred Astaire | 5. | Greta Garbo |
| 6. | Henry Fonda | 6. | Marilyn Monroe |
| 7. | Clark Gable | 7. | Elizabeth Taylor |
| 8. | James Cagney | 8. | Judy Garland |
| 9. | Spencer Tracy | 9. | Marlene Dietrich |
| 10. | Charles Chaplin | 10. | Joan Crawford |
| 11. | Gary Cooper | 11. | Barbara Stanwyck |
| 12. | Gregory Peck | 12. | Claudette Colbert |
| 13. | John Wayne | 13. | Grace Kelly |
| 14. | Laurence Olivier | 14. | Ginger Rogers |
| 15. | Gene Kelly | 15. | Mae West |
| 16. | Orson Welles | 16. | Vivien Leigh |
| 17. | Kirk Douglas | 17. | Lillian Gish |
| 18. | James Dean | 18. | Shirley Temple |
| 19. | Burt Lancaster | 19. | Rita Hayworth |
| 20. | The Marx Brothers | 20. | Lauren Bacall |
| 21. | Buster Keaton | 21. | Sophia Loren |
| 22. | Sidney Poitier | 22. | Jean Harlow |
| 23. | Robert Mitchum | 23. | Carole Lombard |
| 24. | Edward G. Robinson | 24. | Mary Pickford |
| 25. | William Holden | 25. | Ava Gardner |
