2012 Sight & Sound lists of greatest films according to critics and directors

Sight & Sound released the results of their latest poll which is taken every ten years to determine the "greatest" films as chosen by critics and directors. The critic's poll was decided by 846 critics, programmers, academics and distributors. The directors' poll was taken from the responses of 358 directors.

Orson Welles' classic Citizen Kane is no longer the reigning champion. Although it was not among the top ten of the first critics' list in 1952, it assumed the number one spot in 1962 and then remained there for the next five lists up to 2002. It was chosen number one on the first directors' list in 1992 and was also number one for the directors' 2002 list.

But it has now been replaced on both lists. For the director's list, the number one film is now Ozu's Tokyo Story while on the critics' list the top film is now Hitchcock's Vertigo. Citizen Kane is number two on the critics' list and tied for second with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey on the directors' list.

Completing the director's top ten are Fellini's 8 ½, Scorsese's Taxi Driver, Coppola's Apocalypse Now and The Godfather, Vertigo, Tarkovsky's Mirror and De Sica's Bicycle Thieves. The critics' top ten continue with Tokyo Story, La Règle du jeu, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Searchers, Man with a Movie Camera, The Passion of Joan of Arc, 8½. Both are excellent lists.

The films that made the top ten for both lists are Tokyo Story, Vertigo. Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey and 8½.

The only films on the lists made in the new millenium are Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love (though technically still the last millenium) and David Lynch's Mulholland Dr.

Like Roger Ebert, I'm not a fan of lists of any sort. I think they are subjective and arbitrary, and it's a fool's game to compare great works of art. When it comes to masterpieces, most people can agree that certain works stand at the top of their categories. But can one really say that this or that painting by Rembrandt is better than another by a completely different painter such as da Vinci, Van Gogh, or Picasso? Can one prove that one great poem by Milton is definitely greater than a great poem by Goethe or Dante? Is there such a thing as a "greatest" film that is indisputably better than all others?

No.

So it makes no sense to me that one can really think that one film can be better than another just because it is higher on one or both lists. All one can say is that this year, more people polled preferred this film over that film.

Nonetheless, the list is a useful place to start one's film education. There are no dogs on either list (though I think Psycho is over-rated and not one of Hitchcock's best) and all are well-respected films that deserve to be seen if one hasn't already. As they were created by polling a number of respondents, they aren't as purely subjective as most personal lists and they aren't as disposable and uninformed as lists from public websites such as IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes.


2012 Sight & Sound Critics’ Poll: Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time

1. Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
2. Citizen Kane – Orson Welles, 1941
3. Tokyo Story – Ozu Yasujirō, 1953
4. La Règle du jeu – Jean Renoir, 1939
5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans – FW Murnau, 1927
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Stanley Kubrick, 1968
7. The Searchers – John Ford, 1956
8. Man with a Movie Camera – Dziga Vertov, 1939
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc – Carl Dreyer, 1927
10. 8½ – Federico Fellini, 1963
11. Battleship Potemkin – Sergei Eisenstein, 1925
12. L’Atalante – Jean Vigo, 1934
13. Breathless – Jean-Luc Godard, 1960
14. Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola, 1979
15. Late Spring – Ozu Yasujirō, 1949
16. Au hasard Balthazar – Robert Bresson, 1966
17= Seven Samurai – Kurosawa Akira, 1954
17= Persona – Ingmar Bergman, 1966
19. Mirror – Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974
20. Singin’ in the Rain – Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1951
21= L’avventura – Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960
21= Le Mépris – Jean-Luc Godard, 1963
21= The Godfather – Francis Ford Coppola, 1972
24= Ordet – Carl Dreyer, 1955
24= In the Mood for Love – Wong Kar-Wai, 2000
26= Rashomon – Kurosawa Akira, 1950
26= Andrei Rublev – Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966
28. Mulholland Dr. – David Lynch, 2001
29= Stalker – Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979
29= Shoah – Claude Lanzmann, 1985
31= The Godfather Part II – Francis Ford Coppola, 1974
31= Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese, 1976
33. Bicycle Thieves – Vittoria De Sica, 1948
34. The General – Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926
35= Metropolis – Fritz Lang, 1927
35= Psycho – Alfred Hitchcock, 1960
35= Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles – Chantal Akerman, 1975
35= Sátántangó – Béla Tarr, 1994
39= The 400 Blows – François Truffaut, 1959
39= La dolce vita – Federico Fellini, 1960
41. Journey to Italy – Roberto Rossellini, 1954
42= Pather Panchali – Satyajit Ray, 1955
42= Some Like It Hot – Billy Wilder, 1959
42= Gertrud – Carl Dreyer, 1964
42= Pierrot le fou – Jean-Luc Godard, 1965
42= Play Time – Jacques Tati, 1967
42= Close-Up – Abbas Kiarostami, 1990
48= The Battle of Algiers – Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966
48= Histoire(s) du cinéma – Jean-Luc Godard, 1998
50= City Lights – Charlie Chaplin, 1931
50= Ugetsu monogatari – Mizoguchi Kenji, 1953
50= La Jetée – Chris Marker, 1962

2012 Sight & Sound Directors’ Poll: Top 10 Greatest Films of All Time
1. Tokyo Story – Ozu Yasujirō, 1953
2= 2001: A Space Odyssey – Stanley Kubrick, 1968
2= Citizen Kane – Orson Welles, 1941
4. 8 ½ – Federico Fellini, 1963
5. Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese, 1980
6. Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola, 1979
7= The Godfather – Francis Ford Coppola, 1972
7= Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
9. Mirror – Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974
10. Bicycle Thieves – Vittorio De Sica, 1948