Every 10 years, Sight and Sound Magazine polls respected critics and directors about what they feel are the top 10 movies of all time. This year, they invited more than 1,000 critics to partake in the poll and recieved 846 responses with 2,045 films listed. Coming out on top of the critics list by 32 votes was Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, besting Citizen Kane, a movie that had held the title since 1962. Included on the list are 3 silent films, a documentary (for the first time) and no movie after 1968. On the director’s side, Tokyo Story topped the poll, with Citizen Kane and 2001: A Space Odyssey tying for 2nd and Vertigo tying The Godfather for 7th place. Take a gander at the critics and directors list!
The Critics’ Top 10 Greatest Films of All Time
1. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
2. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
3. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
4. La Règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939)
5. Sunrise: a Song for Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)
6 .2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
7. The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
8. Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1927)
10. 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
The Directors’ Top 10 Greatest Films of All Time
1. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
2. tie, 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968), Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
4. 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
5. Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1980)
6. Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
7. tie, The Godfather (Coppola, 1972), Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
9. Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1974)
10. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)
Mark Johnson
August 1, 2012 at 2:57 pm
No Casablanca and No Godfather? Gross.
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Terence Johnson
August 1, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Godfather was apparently #21 on the cirtics list
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Joseph Braverman
August 1, 2012 at 3:17 pm
The entire list itself kind of has me puzzled, but the critics’ #1 choice is obviously a pick I’m both shocked and extremely proud to see as a top choice. Vertigo is my #2 fave film of all time, and was the only Hitchcock film in our Greatest Films of All Time Series that found its way on a staff list twice (besides me, Robert had it on his). I’ve never been the hugest Citizen Kane fan, simply because it doesn’t have the timelessness about it that other classic films have, in my opinion. I would like to see more later-decade films, but alas it is what it is.
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Joey Magidson
August 1, 2012 at 3:43 pm
I hardly mind The Godfather missing, but overall it’s just more of the same.
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Mark Johnson
August 1, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Vertigo is one of my favorites of all time as well. But it sounds weird being called the best film ever. Best score ever has a nice ring to it though.
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UBourgeois
August 1, 2012 at 4:58 pm
I’m always a little disappointed when a “best of all time” list ends up having such a narrow spread. A century of narrative cinema, and all the best movies came out within 40 or so years of each other?
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jmlatinsir
August 1, 2012 at 6:04 pm
Though Vertigo is one of my 3 top hitchock films (Psycho being the top one), it’s nice to see it #1 on this list, a list I respect very much. Their top did get a shake up this decade with Mirror and Man With a Movie Camera. The others have usually been there at one point or another. I’m happy to see Sunrise getting up there. It is one of my favorite silents of all time. The Searchers hangs on and so does Rules of The Game and Tokyo Story. Though 8 1/2 seems to be slipping a bit. My only regret is not seeing Rashomon in the top ten. Great list.
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jmlatinsir
August 1, 2012 at 6:20 pm
oops Misread about Mirror.
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Terence Johnson
August 1, 2012 at 6:47 pm
@UBourgeois I completely agree. It also pains me to see that not a single film made after 1970 seems to ever crack the top 10.
On the other hand, every time I complain about this list I look and see 8 1/2 and get happy again lol
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Gianni
August 2, 2012 at 12:24 am
@ Marc Johnson
The absence of Casablanca and The Godfather are fittingly appropriate, as this is a list of ten all time great films. I wonder, if you are so quick to complain, if you have actually seen all ten films on the list?
The three new films on this list (The Man with a Movie Camera, The Searchers, and The Passion of Joan of Arc) are all films that I love, and I prefer Vertigo to Citizen Kane, so I prefer this shake-up of the canon to the 2002 list. But, what excites me the most is the #1 placement of Tokyo Story on the directors’ list!
The only entry that I don’t love, and has me banging my head, is 2001, ugh.
For anyone complaining about the lack of post 60′s films, what do you think are alternatives that are actually good enough to be cited?
Gianni(Quote) (Reply)
John H. Foote
August 2, 2012 at 7:49 am
Nothing since 1968????? – That is ridiculous and rather sad — no The Godfather (1972) or The Godfather Part II (1974), nor Raging Bull (1980), nor Annie Hall (1977), A Clockwork Orange (1971), There Will Be Blood (2007), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), or Schindler’s List (1993)???? Tight ass academics writing these lists I promise you — nice to see something other than Kane (1941) top the list, I concede that — the directors seem to get more right.
Gianni, good films from the sixties?? Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Hustler (1961), Dr. Strangelove (1964), MIdnight Cowboy (1969), Z (1969)…….
P.S. – I have seen all the films…..and disagree strongly….
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Terence Johnson
August 2, 2012 at 8:53 am
@Gianni If I only had to pic “best”, as in highly regarded films, I think that films like The Godfather 1 or 2, Raging Bull, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Amadeus, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Schindler’s List, The Exorcist, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Chinatown, Cabaret, etc. could have made the list. I’m not super familiar with world cinema pre-90 (with the exception of Fellini) but what about works from Forman, De Sica, Truffant, and Bergman?
It’s also worth noting that there are no comedies, musicals, horror, sports themed films on either list and NONE of the critics top 10 won a best picture Oscar.
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jmlatinsir
August 2, 2012 at 10:38 am
I don’t have a problem with no post 1968 films on the list. The films listed have literally stood the test of time. And these are not just academics, they were voted by critics, directors and scholars of films, people who I believe know what they’re talking about. Vertigo is 1957 (I believe). The post 68 films will have their time on the list soon enough. Look at In The Mood for Love, a very recent film cracking the top 50. That’s a major breakthrough and though I loved it, I think other post 68 films should have made the list before it.
got to sightandsound website for the top 50 list and you can also track the evolution of this list from 1962 to the present.
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jmlatinsir
August 2, 2012 at 12:13 pm
I also like to point out that Rules of the Game is more of a comedy than a drama and Vertigo is creepy and suspenseful enough to be a thriller, not a horror film per se, But there are few horror films that have ever made it to the top of any lists (though Chaney’s Phamton of the Opera, Nosferatu and The Exorcist have landed in the latter part of some top 100 lists.
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Gianni
August 3, 2012 at 1:58 pm
John, I think that it is abrasive for you to call these critics a bunch of tight ass acedemics. I think they deserve a little more respect, because they have watched more films than you or I. Maybe you would care to expound upon why you strongly disagree with this list so much? Is it because it isn’t a list of American films and Best Picture winners? I am curious to hear which films on this list were so offensive for you to see cited as the greatest of all time.
The Searchers is one of the great humanist achievements in cinema. It speaks to the human need for re-invention and redemption, and to basic needs, like having a home, finding one’s place, finding a reason to live.
The Passion of Joan of Arc is one of the most spiritually profound and affecting films ever, and features maybe the greatest performance committed to film.
Man with a Movie Camera is one of the most innovative achievements in film, and to me, is the single greatest achievement in editing.
Tokyo Story is perhaps Japan’s greatest contribution to the cinema, from perhaps its greatest master. It beautifully and gently explores time, family dynamics, loss, aging, and societal change: maybe the best ever evocation of these themes.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans tenderly shows a couple re-discovering their love for one another, and boldly depicts the sorrows of temptation, lust, toxic passions, and human flaw.
There’s nothing left to say about Vertigo, but it is one of the greatest explorations of identity, fear and obsession.
All of these six films I would consider for my top 25 of all time.
I was bored to tears by The Rules of the Game, I think that 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the most insufferably indulgent and self-satisfied films I have ever seen. 8½ is a film that I get, but only on a cerebral level: I can’t love it, because I think that it is too cold and detached, and for me to truly love something, it needs to empassion me, and force me to develop a strong emotional connection to it. When it comes to films about ennui and frustration, I definitely prefer Antonioni, and I wish that L’avventura had taken 8½’s place. I have not seen Citizen Kane in over a decade, and my memories are so hazy, so I can’t really comment on this. A rewatch is definitely overdue.
The more that I think about this, the more I think that this is the best consensus top ten that I have ever seen.
Terrence, the films that you have listed post-seventies are great films. I just don’t think that any of them come close to the ten greatest of all time, and I would pick just about anything already cited in the S&S top ten to these alternatives. I hope that you were not hoping to see them, though: these kind of films are not anything that appeal to the auteurist-leaning Sight and Sound – they are more more AFI in flavour. De Sica’s post seventies films are nothing special, and I don’t think that Forman’s films are significant or popular enough to ever have a chance, here. I think that Truffaut did turn out some work that could be considered, and as for Bergman, Cries and Whispers is in my top ten of all time, and he has some other really great post-seventies films in Face to Face, Autumn Sonata, and Fanny and Alexander, so I think that these directors would not be bad alternatives. But, to me, the most conspicuously absent director is Tarkovsky, and in my opinion, he is the most important post-seventies filmmaker. I’m so sad that The Mirror fell short of making the top ten, but I’m happy that Stalker finished well in this top fifty, as it is also a film in my personal top ten.
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