Thursday, August 2, 2012

'Vertigo' Tops New Sight and Sound Top 50 List


Today Sight and Sound has posted the results of its latest 'Top 50 Films of All Time' poll. 846 critics, programmers, academics and distributors have voted in the poll conducted every 10 years. Orson Welles' Citizen Kane has been atop the poll for the last 50 years but this year Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo has eclipsed Kane and been voted as the Greatest Film of All Time. Kane finished at #2 with Ozu Yasujiro's Tokyo Story finishing at #3.

Interesting to note: In the Mood for Love (#24) and Mulholland Drive (#28) are the only two films from the 00's selected.

What are your thoughts on the list? (Below). I have highlighted the 34 films I have seen so far.

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 Regle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939) - 100 votes

5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W 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 Theodor Dreyer, 1927) - 65 votes

10. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963) - 64 votes

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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 Theodor 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 Theodor 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 cinema (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

Vertigo (#1), Citizen Kane (#2), The Man With A Movie Camera (#8), The Passion of Joan of Arc (#9), Apocalypse Now (#14), The Seven Samurai (#17), The Godfather (#21), The Godfather Part II (#31), Taxi Driver (#31) and Bicycle Thieves (#33) are all currently listed amongst my personal 'Top 100 Films' while Mulholland Drive (#28), Stalker (#29) and The 400 Blows (#39) have all been included in the past.

13 comments:

  1. Vertigo is a complete surprise on this one. True that Sight and Sound had built it up over the past year or so that Citizen Kane wasn't going to be on top, but, personally, there is no way Vertigo should be number 1.

    Nice to see some Lynch in there, though, and generally, there are some quality films - and some favourites of mine in there - but Vertigo, oh man, oh man, so many films on this list are better than that film. Yeah, it did have an impact on film in some way I guess, but best film of all time? Certainly not in my books...

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    1. Would have picked Ugetsu has my number one out of the films on the list! Though I prefer Tokyo Story, Ugetsu is in a different league of it's on out of the films I've seen on the list.

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    2. I really like Vertigo. In fact it is my favourite Hitchcock film. But I'm not convinced it should be #1 either. I have no idea what to claim as the Greatest Film Ever Made but there are some noticeable absences. No Casablanca or Chinatown? No Bergman and The Seventh Seal?

      I have never seen Ugetsu. Or Tokyo Story. How bad is that? It is an interesting list. I like the inclusion of multiple Tarkovsky films. Stalker and Andrei Rublev are especially amazing.

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  2. I wish I could find it, but somewhere six or seven years back, Roger Ebert predicted VERTIGO knocking KANE out of top spot.

    It will be decried for the next few months I'm sure, but I can live with it taking the slot. It really is a master work, and plays even more so if you're lucky enough to see it on a big screen.

    As for the rest of the list, I guess I have a bit of homework to do!

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    1. Ahh I have seen it listed at #2, and in the Top 10 of other lists from prominent publications. It doesn't surprise me. It is a masterwork. 34 is quite a solid total, but this list has introduced me to some new films to keep an eye out for.

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  3. Awesome to see Mulholland Dr on the list. Vertigo is good but I think placing it on number 1 is exaggeration.

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    1. Yeah I was pleasantly surprised to see Mulholland Drive listed. In the Mood for Love too. What a film. I have been meaning to watch it again.

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  4. There will definitely be some fuss about this. :-) Citizen Kane is such a sacred cow.

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  5. I don't mind Vertigo knocking off Citizen Kane, but why must City Lights be so low on the list?

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    1. It is a beautiful film. Great to see both Chaplin and Keaton (The General, incredible) represented. Quite a few silent films actually. I applaud the selections of #8 and #9.

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  6. This list has the usual suspects on it, so it isn't that big a surprise. The order of some is. I don't agree Vertigo is the best film of all time, but it has been a trendy pick for a decade or more, so it's not exactly a surprise to me.

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    1. Yeah I agree. Not surprised by Vertigo eclipsing Kane, but the order is somewhat peculiar.

      I haven't seen Playtime (I really should) but I always thought that Mon Oncle was Tati's most well-regarded film. Strange that Mirror ranks highest of Tarkovsky's three.

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