AMC is an American cable television channel that, since 2002, mainly airs a mix of original AMC shows, mostly dramas and documentaries, as well as acquired TV programs, and theatrically released films. Launched in late 1984 as American Movie Classics, the flagship property of AMC Networks, the channel aired classic films (from before 1970), similar to Turner Classic Movies, the channel's former rival. In 2002, AMC retired the American Movie Classics name, resulting from the major shift in its programming.

As of December 2024, AMC was available in approximately 60 million U.S. pay-TV households. This marks a decline from 65.1 million households in December 2023 and 94.8 million in July 2015, reflecting the broader trend of cord-cutting and the shift toward streaming platforms.

American Movie Classics, as AMC was originally known, debuted on October 1, 1984, as a premium channel by Rainbow Programming Services (The predecessor to current-day AMC Networks owned by Cablevision). Its original format focused on classic movies – largely those made prior to the 1970s – that aired during the afternoon and early evening hours in a commercial-free, generally unedited, uncut, uninterrupted and uncolorized format. The new network replaced Montage, a channel with a similar format that was being offered to Cablevision subscribers in the New York area.

In 1985, Rainbow became involved in a dispute with Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System over broadcast rights to the MGM/UA film library. On July 30 of that year, Rainbow had paid $45 million to license up to 800 pre-1950 films from the library. Weeks later, Turner announced an agreement to purchase the film studio with the intention of airing the films on his Superstation WTBS. Rainbow claimed it had exclusive basic cable rights to the films for the next five years. Despite its widespread cable carriage, Turner claimed that because WTBS was a broadcast station, the restriction did not apply. This led to both companies filing lawsuits against each other in September, and MGM/UA terminating the agreement with Rainbow after alleging that Rainbow had breached it by announcing its intention to offer a premium tier to the AMC cable service. By October, the lawsuit was settled. Rainbow received $50 million and agreed to terminate the licensing deal on December 31, 1985, before which time AMC would not be allowed to convert to a basic service. Turner completed the acquisition of MGM in early 1986, but his ownership was short-lived and he sold it back to the previous owner months later. However, he retained the film library and executed his original plan to air the movies on WTBS and later on his new networks Turner Network Television and Turner Classic Movies, a direct competitor to AMC.

The new movie network struggled to gain carriage. By March 1986, it had only 300,000 subscribers. To solve this problem, Cablevision and CBS (which became half owner of Rainbow about a year earlier) worked out a deal with the nation's largest cable television provider, Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI). TCI gained a one-third interest in AMC (but not Bravo, Rainbow's other network) and in exchange made AMC available as an offering for most of its 3.9 million subscribers. (TCI's Liberty Media division eventually would create another premium service—Encore, which also originally focused on older films, mainly from the 1960s to the 1980s – five years later in April 1991). During its early years, it was not uncommon for AMC to host a marathon of Marx Brothers films, or show classics such as the original 1925 release of The Phantom of the Opera. In 1987, the channel began to be carried on the basic cable tiers of many cable providers. In July 1988, AMC added its first original programming: Classic Stories From Classic Stars (featuring interviews), followed later that year by Star Facts (biographies) and a mini-documentary series Making of a Classic. By 1989, AMC was available to 39 million subscribers in the U.S.

On December 1, 1990, AMC began operating on a 24-hour-a-day schedule.

Beginning in 1993, AMC presented an annual Film Preservation Festival to raise awareness of and funding for film preservation. Coordinated with The Film Foundation, an industry group that was founded by acclaimed director Martin Scorsese, the festival was originally conceived as a multi-day marathon presenting rare and previously lost films, many airing for the first time on television, along with behind-the-scenes reports on the technical and monetary issues faced by those engaged in archival restoration. Portions of the festival were often dedicated to all-day marathons focusing on a single performer. During its fifth anniversary year in 1998, Scorsese credited the Festival for creating "not only a greater awareness, but [...] more of an expectation now to see restored films." In 1996, curator of the Museum of Modern Art Mary Lee Bandy called the Festival "the most important public event in support of film preservation." By its tenth anniversary in 2003, the Festival had raised $2 million from the general public, which The Film Foundation divided among its five-member archives.

In 1993, Cablevision's Rainbow Media division became the majority owner of the channel, when it bought out Liberty Media's 50% stake in AMC; incidentally in August of that year, Liberty announced its intent to purchase the 25% stake in the channel that Cablevision held at the time, with the Turner Broadcasting System helping to finance the buyout that included an option for TBS to eventually acquire AMC outright. The following year, Time Warner (which later purchased rival Turner Classic Movies following the company's 1996 acquisition of the Turner Broadcasting System) also attempted to acquire at least part of Liberty Media's stake in AMC.