Sight and Sound magazine's 2022 critics' poll of the 100 greatest films of all time.

Victoria Silverwolf

Victoria Silverwolf

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Here's the article:

The Greatest Films of All Time

In 1952, the Sight and Sound team had the novel idea of asking critics to name the greatest films of all time. The tradition became decennial, increasing in size and prestige as the decades passed. The Sight and Sound poll is now a major bellwether of critical opinion on cinema and this...
www.bfi.org.uk

That's a very long list, so let's just look at the Top Twenty, in order from Number One.

  • Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
  • Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
  • Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
  • Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
  • In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2001)
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
  • Beau travail (Claire Denis, 1998)
  • Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
  • Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov,1929)
  • Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1951)
  • Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
  • The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
  • La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939)
  • Cléo from 5 to 7 (Agnès Varda, 1962)
  • The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
  • Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, 1943)
  • Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1989)
  • Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
  • Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
  • Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
I have to admit I have never even heard of the big winner, a sign of my ignorance of foreign language cinema. In fact, I've only seen seven of the films listed above (in bold.)

All worthy films, although Man with a Movie Camera is more of a novelty, interesting for pioneering use of cinematic techniques and its portrait of the early Soviet Union, and Singin' in the Rain is excellently made frothy entertainment rather than serious cinema.
 
I've seen 9 and also never heard of the so-called greatest film of all time

It sounds dreadful, there are no spaceships or sword wielding barbarians :(
www.imdb.com

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) - IMDb

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles: Directed by Chantal Akerman. With Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte, Henri Storck, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze. A lonely widowed housewife does her daily chores, takes care of her apartment where she lives with her teenage son, and turns the...
www.imdb.com www.imdb.com

Read the plot here if you don't mind spoilers
en.wikipedia.org

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

I won't be rushing out to buy it
 
I've never heard of the No.1 movie either. Apparently it is "a magnificent epic of experimental cinema offering a feminist perspective on recurrent events of everyday life." Also, it is a movie that "....at just under three and a half hours, demands dedicated viewing." And it "....rigorously records her [the main character's] domestic routine in extended time and from a fixed camera position."

Sounds like a blast!
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
I have to admit I have never even heard of the big winner, a sign of my ignorance of foreign language cinema. In fact, I've only seen seven of the films listed above (in bold.)
Click to expand...

It's not necessarily ignorance on y/our part.

I abhor these lists, irrespective if they've come from the late Robert Ebert, or some angry fanboy on socal media. They're entirely subjective and also IMO masturbatory. As if the writer/company is asserting pre-eminent knowledge, or has earnt some kind of stripes that the hoi poloi like us can't earn or understand. The fact that no one's heard of the number 1 entry is testament enough.

These rankings just put me in mind of the myriad posts on Twitter where people list the best horror/SFmovies, and end up having something like Stephen Spielberg's War of the World's on there, but not, say, Romero's Night of the Living Dead or The Shawshank Redemption.

We can all do with expanding our tastes or what we're exposed to, but these lists... sheesh.
 
I think I'm right in saying they have opened up the voting to a wider electorate than previously - but I will admit to being totally baffled how some things get on the list. I've seen 43 of the top 100. (There are a few serious obvious omissions in what I have seen - for example I have never watched Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Goodfellas or The Shining.) How the tedious clumsy bore that is Céline and Julie Go Boating gets to be considered a masterpiece astonishes me.

Nice to see Mulholland Drive getting more liked as the years go by.
 
Phyrebrat said:
These rankings just put me in mind of the myriad posts on Twitter where people list the best horror/SFmovies, and end up having something like Stephen Spielberg's War of the World's on there, but not, say, Romero's Night of the Living Dead or The Shawshank Redemption.

We can all do with expanding our tastes or what we're exposed to, but these lists... sheesh.
Click to expand...

I quite like lists like this when they are put together by people who know what they are talking about and have a considered approach. They are a tool to find new stuff I would never have thought of watching. I'll occasionally watch something that's in the 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die book purely just because it's in the 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die book. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised to discover delights like Les Parapluies de Cherbourg other times I'm just baffled (Céline and Julie Go Boating), other times I violently dislike the things - Buffalo 66 being a real example. Gods I hated that film. Made me see a friend in a whole new light when she said it was one of her favourites. Point is I don't think I would have watched any of them with out the prompt the book gave me.

The ones I can't stand are the ones that title themselves The Top Ten Greatest [Genre] Film You Have Never Heard Of! And the first eight are in your all time top 50 and the other two you though were sh*te (usually because they are Star Trek films).
 
This isn't a list of the most enjoyable films. These are the films that accomplish something interesting/new/provacative using the tools of the artform. I agree that Meshes of the Afternoon is great filmmaking, but I wouldn't recommend it to a friend.

Happy to see 2001 near the top. Confused by two Coppola films also near the top.

What gets me is that there is nothing like Orlando on the list.
 
Swank said:
This isn't a list of the most enjoyable films. These are the films that accomplish something interesting/new/provacative using the tools of the artform. I agree that Meshes of the Afternoon is great filmmaking, but I wouldn't recommend it to a friend.

Happy to see 2001 near the top. Confused by two Coppola films also near the top.

What gets me is that there is nothing like Orlando on the list.
Click to expand...

Orlando is a wonderful film and sadly not even on the Directors' 100 which has some marked differences with the full list. For starters 2001 is at the top! and it includes things like La Strada, Don't Look Now, Dr Strangelove, and Ereaserhead.
 
JunkMonkey said:
Orlando is a wonderful film and sadly not even on the Directors' 100 which has some marked differences with the full list. For starters 2001 is at the top! and it includes things like La Strada, Don't Look Now, Dr Strangelove, and Ereaserhead.
Click to expand...
The inclusion of Internal Sunshine is along the right lines, but modern weirdo films like Momento, Orlando, Fight Club, Delicatessen, I Am Love, Cashback, History of Violence, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Dead Man, Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Big Blue, There Will Be Blood, The Future, Moonrise Kingdom and Isle of Dogs seem to have almost no representation. Directors seriously don't care for the Cohen brothers? Their shizzle is brilliant.
 
I own quite a few of the top hundred on DVD but wouldn’t expect to see some of them in the list. The Bicycle Thieves is a good and significant example of Italian Realism but I wouldn’t say it is the best. In fact, if a film is being chosen because of its impact on cinema as a whole, where is Caligari or Nosferatu? The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari more or less kick started the German Expressionist movement and Nosferatu’s startling visuals, Gothic imagery and eerie make up helped mould the horror movement into what we know today. And yet, there are films like The Searchers - a decent movie I’ll admit, but I don’t see how it as a trailblazer. If we’re talking Westerns, I’d rate The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre above The Searchers.

I have Man With A Movie Camera and it’s certainly innovative but it’s not a film I’m likely to rewatch on a regular basis. It’s a curiosity as far as I’m concerned.

I’m a big fan of Wong Kar Wai’s In The Mood For Love but I’m surprised to see it given such a high position. It’s not particularly ground breaking so I’m finding it difficult to work out the logic of some of the choices.
 
Valtharius said:
I noticed Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece, The Room, was nowhere on this list, so I decided to immediately disregard all these critics' opinions.
Click to expand...
Hey, we all have our favorites. The absence of Speed 2: Cruise Control brings a sharp sense of loss. But this list isn't about us.
 
Was Upstream Colour or Primer on there? I expect those to be the kind of ‘intellectual’ fayre being peddled. (I think they’re amazing but I’d be wary of putting them on a best-films list because they’re so inscrutable).

Also what about David Lynch? I love his stuff but it’s not for everyone.
 
That's a fine list. There are more here:

en.wikipedia.org

List of films considered the best - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Some of my favorites are

The Human Condition trilogy

Tokyo Story

The Apu Trilogy

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Oro, Plata, Mata

Dr. Zhivago

400 Blows

8 1/2

Bicycle Thieves

Raise the Red Lantern

Haxan

War and Peace (dir. Bondarchuk)
 
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