Sight and Sound's film poll, held every ten years, has a new winner, Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Critics Top Ten:

Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
La Règle du jeu [The Rules of the Game] (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Sunrise: a Song for Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1927)
8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)


Directors Top Ten:

Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968) - (tied #2)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) - (tied #2)
8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) - (tied #7)
Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958) - (tied #7)
Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)

It's been ten years already??

I know, huh? Big surprises for me are the three silents on the critics poll and the ranking of Taxi Driver on the directors poll.

I still don't see how The Searchers is always so high. I mean, it's good...but come on.

ive seen only taxi driver, bits of citizen kane and the godfather :<

any advice dominic on what of these movies i should see first? I really like your taste and everytime you do a post about a movie i immediatly watch it ! (not porn tho)

I see that Sight & Sound surveys "academic" critics, which explains a lot, as absurd plot-lines and characters with implausible or incomprehensible motivations set a nice template for some vague Lacanian interpretation.

vertigo isn't even the best Hitchcock film...

You can't go wrong with any of them, although of the silent films, I've only seen Sunrise. But I highlighted the ones that might be more accessible to the general public:

Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
La Règle du jeu [The Rules of the Game] (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Sunrise: a Song for Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1927)
8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)


Directors Top Ten:

Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968) - (tied #2)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) - (tied #2)
8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) - (tied #7)
Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958) - (tied #7)
Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)

And I know you said no porn, but any best of film list that doesn't include New Wave Hookers, is bogus.

netflix updated

pretty much this.



oh and apparently every director forgot about Kurosawa in the last 10 years (rashomon and seven samurai were both on the 2002 and 1992 directors list)

Hardly the case with most of the films on the list. Vertigo qualifies, sure, and Lacan could have a grand time with The Searchers, but none of the silents do, and both Rules of the Game and Tokyo Story are humanist classics.

I think it might be so high because of its influence. The Searchers = Taxi Driver.

I think it's the best, but it's not my favorite.

But Vertigo doesn't mean fear of heights. How come the film isn't called Acrophobia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrophobia

I'm surprised at The Godfather (I & II) dropping out of the top ten in the critics' poll!

Vertigo was #2 ten years ago, and seven of the ten are the still there, so I attribute it more to shuffling by wannabe iconoclast critics. (Give it twenty, thirty years and Pulp Fiction and Fargo will be in the Top 5...)

Oh yeah, almost forgot: Man With a Movie Camera?!? Man with a $%@*&@ Movie Camera?!? Avant-garde propaganda ripoff of Ruttmann...

(I'm going to my cave and I'm going to find my power animal.)