Sight and Sound Poll 2012

[Jay Stewart]

Vertigo takes over the top spot (and there's no Altman in there which is disappointing):

 

1. Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock, 1958 (191 votes)

 

2. Citizen Kane

Orson Welles, 1941 (157 votes)

 

3. Tokyo Story

Ozu Yasujiro, 1953 (107 votes)

 

4. La Règle du jeu

Jean Renoir, 1939 (100 votes)

 

5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

FW Murnau, 1927 (93 votes)

 

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick, 1968 (90 votes)

 

7. The Searchers

John Ford, 1956 (78 votes)

 

8. Man with a Movie Camera

Dziga Vertov, 1939 (68 votes)

 

9. The Passion of Joan of Arc

Carl Dreyer, 1927 (65 votes)

 

10. 8½

Federico Fellini, 1963 (64 votes)

 

11. Battleship Potemkin

Sergei Eisenstein, 1925 (63 votes)

 

12. L’Atalante

Jean Vigo, 1934 (58 votes)

 

13. Breathless

Jean-Luc Godard, 1960 (57 votes)

 

14. Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola, 1979 (53 votes)

 

15. Late Spring

Ozu Yasujiro, 1949 (50 votes)

 

16. Au hasard Balthazar

Robert Bresson, 1966 (49 votes)

 

17= Seven Samurai

Kurosawa Akira, 1954 (48 votes)

 

17= Persona

Ingmar Bergman, 1966 (48 votes)

 

19. Mirror

Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974 (47 votes)

 

20. Singin’ in the Rain

Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1951 (46 votes)

 

21= L’avventura

Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960 (43 votes)

 

21= Le Mépris

Jean-Luc Godard, 1963 (43 votes)

 

21= The Godfather

Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 (43 votes)

 

24= Ordet

Carl Dreyer, 1955 (42 votes)

 

24= In the Mood for Love

Wong Kar-Wai, 2000 (42 votes)

 

26= Rashomon

Kurosawa Akira, 1950 (41 votes)

 

26= Andrei Rublev

Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966 (41 votes)

 

28. Mulholland Dr.

David Lynch, 2001 (40 votes)

 

29= Stalker

Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979 (39 votes)

 

29= Shoah

Claude Lanzmann, 1985 (39 votes)

 

31= The Godfather Part II

Francis Ford Coppola, 1974 (38 votes)

 

31= Taxi Driver

Martin Scorsese, 1976 (38 votes)

 

33. Bicycle Thieves

Vittoria De Sica, 1948 (37 votes)

 

34. The General

Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926 (35 votes)

 

35= Metropolis

Fritz Lang, 1927 (34 votes)

 

35= Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock, 1960 (34 votes)

 

35= Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles

Chantal Akerman, 1975 (34 votes)

 

35= Sátántangó

Béla Tarr, 1994 (34 votes)

 

39= The 400 Blows

François Truffaut, 1959 (33 votes)

 

39= La dolce vita

Federico Fellini, 1960 (33 votes)

 

41. Journey to Italy

Roberto Rossellini, 1954 (32 votes)

 

42= Pather Panchali

Satyajit Ray, 1955 (31 votes)

 

42= Some Like It Hot

Billy Wilder, 1959 (31 votes)

 

42= Gertrud

Carl Dreyer, 1964 (31 votes)

 

42= Pierrot le fou

Jean-Luc Godard, 1965 (31 votes)

 

42= Play Time

Jacques Tati, 1967 (31 votes)

 

42= Close-Up

Abbas Kiarostami, 1990 (31 votes)

 

48= The Battle of Algiers

Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966 (30 votes)

 

48= Histoire(s) du cinéma

Jean-Luc Godard, 1998 (30 votes)

 

50= City Lights

Charlie Chaplin, 1931 (29 votes)

 

50= Ugetsu monogatari

Mizoguchi Kenji, 1953 (29 votes)

 

50= La Jetée

Chris Marker, 1962 (29 votes)

[KH Martin]

VERTIGO has no business being at the top of the list and I'm not just citing William Goldman (no movie with Kim Novak could be the greatest movie of all time) when I say that. Oddly enough, VERTIGO came in the mail today from netflix, because we haven't seen it in a couple of years, but the idea that it is anything remotely as innovative as KANE is hard for me to see.

 

Love that TARKOVSKY got STALKER on the list (almost makes up for Richard Brooks or Frankenheimer not having one of his real good ones on there), and that 2001 is still up high on it. Not enough political paranoia movies for my taste, though I ain't really holding my breath for TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING or THE PARALLAX VIEW to leapfrog up anytime soon.