Critics, Directors, Name Top 10 Films Of All Time
August 11th, 2002
An international poll of 144 film critics and directors conducted by the British Film Institute and published in its Sight and Sound magazine has selected Orson Welles' Citizen Kane as the greatest film ever made. Nick James, editor of the magazine, said that the film had been similarly honored five previous times. The poll is conducted every 10 years since 1952.
The Critics Top Ten with Commentary (courtesy BFI Sight & Sound)
(Chris' comments: After looking over this list, I feel it's safe to say that silent films have been overlooked for the most part. What happen to Chaplin and Buster Keaton? There are some modern films that could be on the list, "The Shawshank Redemption" and perhaps even "Memento" might have been solid selections.)
DIRECTORS' CUT
The top 10 films and directors, as selected by 108 directors:
DIRECTORS' TOP 10 FILMS
1. "Citizen Kane" (Welles) 42 votes
2. "The Godfather" and "The Godfather part II" (Coppola) 27 votes
3. "81/2" (Fellini) 19 votes
4. "Lawrence of Arabia" (Lean) 15 votes
5. "Dr. Strangelove" (Kubrick) 14 votes
6. (tie) "Bicycle Thief" (De Sica) 13 votes
6. "Raging Bull" (Scorsese) 13 votes
6. "Vertigo" (Hitchcock) 13 votes
9. (tie) "Rashomon" (Kurosawa) 12 votes
9. "La Regle du jeu" (Renoir) 12 votes
9. "Seven Samurai" (Kurosawa) 12 votes
DIRECTORS' TOP 10 DIRECTORS
1. Orson Welles
2. Federico Fellini
3. Akira Kurosawa
4. Francis Ford Coppola
5. Alfred Hitchcock
6. Stanley Kubrick
7. Billy Wilder
8. Ingmar Bergman
9. (tie) Martin Scorsese
9. David Lean
9. Jean Renoir
CRITICS' CUT
The top 10 films and directors, selected by 145 critics, in the 2002 Sight & Sound poll:
CRITICS' TOP 10 FILMS
1. "Citizen Kane" (Welles) 46 votes
2. "Vertigo" (Hitchcock) 41 votes
3. "La Regle du jeu" (Renoir) 30 votes
4. "The Godfather" and "The Godfather part II" (Coppola) 23 votes
5. "Tokyo Story" (Ozu) 22 votes
6. "2001: A Space Odyssey" (Kubrick) 21 votes
7. (tie) "Battleship Potemkin" (Eisenstein) 19 votes
7. "Sunrise" (Murnau) 19 votes
9. "81/2" (Fellini) 18 votes
10. "Singin' In the Rain" (Kelly, Donen) 17 votes
CRITICS' TOP 10 DIRECTORS
1. Orson Welles
2. Alfred Hitchcock
3. Jean-Luc Godard
4. Jean Renoir
5. Stanley Kubrick
6. Akira Kurosawa
7. Federico Fellini
8. John Ford
9. Sergei Eisenstein
10. (tie) Francis Ford Coppola
10. Yasujiro Ozu
A sampling of 10 critics' selections for the 2002 Sight & Sound poll:
David Ansen of Newsweek: Chimes at Midnight (Welles); The Conformist (Bertolucci); Hope and Glory (Boorman); Jules et Jim (Truffaut); McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Altman); La notte di San Lorenzo (Tavianis); La Regle du jeu (Renoir); Sherlock Jr. (Keaton); The Third Man (Reed); Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch)
Michel Ciment, editor of Positif, France: Barry Lyndon (Kubrick); L'Atalante (Vigo); La Regle du jeu (Renoir); Madame de . . . (Ophuls); Sunrise (Murnau); The General (Keaton); The Travelling Players (Angelopoulos); Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi); White Heat (Walsh); Salvatore Giuliano (Rosi).
David Denby of the New Yorker: L'avventura (Antonioni); Citizen Kane (Welles); Dekalog (Kieslowski); The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (Coppola); Seven Samurai (Kurosawa); Sunrise (Murnau); La Regle du jeu (Renoir); The Third Man (Reed); Weekend (Godard); Vertigo (Hitchcock).
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times: Aguirre, Wrath of God (Herzog); Apocalypse Now (Coppola); Citizen Kane (Welles); Dekalog (Kieslowski); La Dolce Vita (Fellini); The General (Keaton); Raging Bull (Scorsese); 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick); Tokyo Story (Ozu); Vertigo (Hitchcock).
Gilles Jacob, director of the Cannes Film Festival: L'Atalante (Vigo); Earth (Dovzhenko); The Empress Yang Kwei-Fei (Mizoguchi); Fanny and Alexander (Bergman); Ikiru (Kurosawa); The Last Laugh (Murnau); The Music Room (S. Ray); My Apprenticeship (Donskoi); Nanook of the North (Flaherty); Our Daily Bread (Vidor).
Nick James, editor of Sight & Sound: Andrei Roublev (Tarkovsky); L'Argent (L'Herbier); Barry Lyndon (Kubrick); Black Narcissus (Powell, Pressburger); The Conformist (Bertolucci); Hotel Terminus: Klaus Barbie, His Life and Times (Ophuels); A One and a Two . . . (Yang); Out of the Past (Tourneur); Singin' in the Rain (Kelly, Donen); Taxi Driver (Scorsese).
Li Cheuk-To, chairman of the Hong Kong Critics Guild: Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson); Floating Clouds (Naruse); The General (Keaton); Mirror (Tarkovsky); Pather Panchali (S. Ray); The Puppetmaster (Hou); Spring in a Small Town (Fei); Tabu (Murnau); Two or Three Things I Know about Her (Godard); Vertigo (Hitchcock).
Todd McCarthy of Variety: Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch); The Scarlet Empress (von Sternberg); Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (Renoir); To Have and Have Not (Hawks); Notorious (Hitchcock); Shoot the Piano Player (Truffaut); Lawrence of Arabia (Lean); Le Mepris (Godard); Chimes at Midnight (Welles); The Godfather Part II (Coppola).
Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader: Les Vampires (Feuillade); M (Lang); The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi); Ivan the Terrible (Eisenstein); Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks); Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais); The House Is Black (Farokhzad); Gertrud (Dreyer); Playtime (Tati); When It Rains (Burnett).
David Thomson of the London Independent: Blue Velvet (Lynch); Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette); Citizen Kane (Welles); The Conformist (Bertolucci); His Girl Friday (Hawks); A Man Escaped (Bresson); Pierrot le fou (Godard); La Regle du jeu (Renoir); That Obscure Object of Desire (Bunuel); Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi).
A sampling of 10 directors' selections for the 2002 Sight & Sound poll:
Bernardo Bertolucci (Italy): La Regle du jeu (Renoir); Sansho Dayu (Mizoguchi); Germany Year Zero (Rossellini); A bout de souffle (Godard); Stagecoach (Ford); Blue Velvet (Lynch); City Lights (Chaplin); Marnie (Hitchcock); Accattone (Pasolini); Touch of Evil (Welles).
Roger Corman (U.S.): Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein); Citizen Kane (Welles); The Seventh Seal (Bergman); Lawrence of Arabia (Lean); The Godfather (Coppola); The Grapes of Wrath (Ford); Shane (Stevens); On the Waterfront (Kazan); Star Wars (Lucas); The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene).
Cameron Crowe (U.S.): The Apartment (Wilder); La Regle du jeu (Renoir); La dolce vita (Fellini); Manhattan (Allen); The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler); To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan); Harold and Maude (Ashby); Pulp Fiction (Tarantino); Quadrophenia (Roddam); Ninotchka (Lubitsch).
Milos Forman (U.S.): Amarcord (Fellini); American Graffiti (Lucas); Citizen Kane (Welles); City Lights (Chaplin); The Deer Hunter (Cimino); Les Enfants du paradis (Carne); Giant (Stevens); The Godfather (Coppola); Miracle in Milan (De Sica); Raging Bull (Scorsese).
Jim Jarmusch (U.S.): L'Atalante (Vigo); Tokyo Story (Ozu); They Live by Night (N. Ray); Bob le flambeur (Melville); Sunrise (Murnau); The Cameraman (Sedgwick); Mouchette (Bresson); Seven Samurai (Kurosawa); Broken Blossoms (Griffith); Rome, Open City (Rossellini).
Norman Jewison (Canada): The Bicycle Thief (De Sica); The Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean); Casablanca (Curtiz); Citizen Kane (Welles); City Lights (Chaplin); 81/2 (Fellini); The 400 Blows (Truffaut); Gunga Din (Stevens); Rashomon (Kurosawa); The Wizard of Oz (Fleming).
Mira Nair (India): An Angel at My Table (Campion); The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo); Dekalog (Kieslowski); The Double Life of Veronique (Kieslowski); 81/2 (Fellini); The Godfather (Coppola); In the Mood for Love (Wong); La Jetee (Marker); The Music Room (S. Ray); Pyaasa (Dutt); Raging Bull (Scorsese); Time of the Gypsies (Kusturica).
Quentin Tarantino (U.S.): The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone); Rio Bravo (Hawks); Taxi Driver (Scorsese); His Girl Friday (Hawks); Rolling Thunder (Flynn); They All Laughed (Bogdanovich); The Great Escape (J. Sturges); Carrie (De Palma); Coffy (Hill); Dazed and Confused (Linklater); Five Fingers of Death (Chang); Hi Diddle Diddle (Stone).
Sidney Lumet (U.S.): Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler); Fanny and Alexander (Bergman); The Godfather (Coppola); The Grapes of Wrath (Ford); Intolerance (Griffith); The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer); Ran (Kurosawa); Roma (Fellini); Singin' in the Rain (Kelly, Donen); 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick).
John Waters (U.S.): All That Heaven Allows (Sirk); Baby Doll (Kazan); Boom! (Losey); Brink of Life (Bergman); The Chelsea Girls (Warhol); 81/2 (Fellini); Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Meyer); La Maman et la putain (Eustache); The Tingler (W. Castle); The Wizard of Oz (Fleming).
The Critics Top Ten with Commentary (courtesy BFI Sight & Sound)
(Chris' comments: After looking over this list, I feel it's safe to say that silent films have been overlooked for the most part. What happen to Chaplin and Buster Keaton? There are some modern films that could be on the list, "The Shawshank Redemption" and perhaps even "Memento" might have been solid selections.)
DIRECTORS' CUT
The top 10 films and directors, as selected by 108 directors:
DIRECTORS' TOP 10 FILMS
1. "Citizen Kane" (Welles) 42 votes
2. "The Godfather" and "The Godfather part II" (Coppola) 27 votes
3. "81/2" (Fellini) 19 votes
4. "Lawrence of Arabia" (Lean) 15 votes
5. "Dr. Strangelove" (Kubrick) 14 votes
6. (tie) "Bicycle Thief" (De Sica) 13 votes
6. "Raging Bull" (Scorsese) 13 votes
6. "Vertigo" (Hitchcock) 13 votes
9. (tie) "Rashomon" (Kurosawa) 12 votes
9. "La Regle du jeu" (Renoir) 12 votes
9. "Seven Samurai" (Kurosawa) 12 votes
DIRECTORS' TOP 10 DIRECTORS
1. Orson Welles
2. Federico Fellini
3. Akira Kurosawa
4. Francis Ford Coppola
5. Alfred Hitchcock
6. Stanley Kubrick
7. Billy Wilder
8. Ingmar Bergman
9. (tie) Martin Scorsese
9. David Lean
9. Jean Renoir
CRITICS' CUT
The top 10 films and directors, selected by 145 critics, in the 2002 Sight & Sound poll:
CRITICS' TOP 10 FILMS
1. "Citizen Kane" (Welles) 46 votes
2. "Vertigo" (Hitchcock) 41 votes
3. "La Regle du jeu" (Renoir) 30 votes
4. "The Godfather" and "The Godfather part II" (Coppola) 23 votes
5. "Tokyo Story" (Ozu) 22 votes
6. "2001: A Space Odyssey" (Kubrick) 21 votes
7. (tie) "Battleship Potemkin" (Eisenstein) 19 votes
7. "Sunrise" (Murnau) 19 votes
9. "81/2" (Fellini) 18 votes
10. "Singin' In the Rain" (Kelly, Donen) 17 votes
CRITICS' TOP 10 DIRECTORS
1. Orson Welles
2. Alfred Hitchcock
3. Jean-Luc Godard
4. Jean Renoir
5. Stanley Kubrick
6. Akira Kurosawa
7. Federico Fellini
8. John Ford
9. Sergei Eisenstein
10. (tie) Francis Ford Coppola
10. Yasujiro Ozu
A sampling of 10 critics' selections for the 2002 Sight & Sound poll:
David Ansen of Newsweek: Chimes at Midnight (Welles); The Conformist (Bertolucci); Hope and Glory (Boorman); Jules et Jim (Truffaut); McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Altman); La notte di San Lorenzo (Tavianis); La Regle du jeu (Renoir); Sherlock Jr. (Keaton); The Third Man (Reed); Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch)
Michel Ciment, editor of Positif, France: Barry Lyndon (Kubrick); L'Atalante (Vigo); La Regle du jeu (Renoir); Madame de . . . (Ophuls); Sunrise (Murnau); The General (Keaton); The Travelling Players (Angelopoulos); Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi); White Heat (Walsh); Salvatore Giuliano (Rosi).
David Denby of the New Yorker: L'avventura (Antonioni); Citizen Kane (Welles); Dekalog (Kieslowski); The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (Coppola); Seven Samurai (Kurosawa); Sunrise (Murnau); La Regle du jeu (Renoir); The Third Man (Reed); Weekend (Godard); Vertigo (Hitchcock).
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times: Aguirre, Wrath of God (Herzog); Apocalypse Now (Coppola); Citizen Kane (Welles); Dekalog (Kieslowski); La Dolce Vita (Fellini); The General (Keaton); Raging Bull (Scorsese); 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick); Tokyo Story (Ozu); Vertigo (Hitchcock).
Gilles Jacob, director of the Cannes Film Festival: L'Atalante (Vigo); Earth (Dovzhenko); The Empress Yang Kwei-Fei (Mizoguchi); Fanny and Alexander (Bergman); Ikiru (Kurosawa); The Last Laugh (Murnau); The Music Room (S. Ray); My Apprenticeship (Donskoi); Nanook of the North (Flaherty); Our Daily Bread (Vidor).
Nick James, editor of Sight & Sound: Andrei Roublev (Tarkovsky); L'Argent (L'Herbier); Barry Lyndon (Kubrick); Black Narcissus (Powell, Pressburger); The Conformist (Bertolucci); Hotel Terminus: Klaus Barbie, His Life and Times (Ophuels); A One and a Two . . . (Yang); Out of the Past (Tourneur); Singin' in the Rain (Kelly, Donen); Taxi Driver (Scorsese).
Li Cheuk-To, chairman of the Hong Kong Critics Guild: Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson); Floating Clouds (Naruse); The General (Keaton); Mirror (Tarkovsky); Pather Panchali (S. Ray); The Puppetmaster (Hou); Spring in a Small Town (Fei); Tabu (Murnau); Two or Three Things I Know about Her (Godard); Vertigo (Hitchcock).
Todd McCarthy of Variety: Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch); The Scarlet Empress (von Sternberg); Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (Renoir); To Have and Have Not (Hawks); Notorious (Hitchcock); Shoot the Piano Player (Truffaut); Lawrence of Arabia (Lean); Le Mepris (Godard); Chimes at Midnight (Welles); The Godfather Part II (Coppola).
Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader: Les Vampires (Feuillade); M (Lang); The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi); Ivan the Terrible (Eisenstein); Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks); Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais); The House Is Black (Farokhzad); Gertrud (Dreyer); Playtime (Tati); When It Rains (Burnett).
David Thomson of the London Independent: Blue Velvet (Lynch); Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette); Citizen Kane (Welles); The Conformist (Bertolucci); His Girl Friday (Hawks); A Man Escaped (Bresson); Pierrot le fou (Godard); La Regle du jeu (Renoir); That Obscure Object of Desire (Bunuel); Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi).
A sampling of 10 directors' selections for the 2002 Sight & Sound poll:
Bernardo Bertolucci (Italy): La Regle du jeu (Renoir); Sansho Dayu (Mizoguchi); Germany Year Zero (Rossellini); A bout de souffle (Godard); Stagecoach (Ford); Blue Velvet (Lynch); City Lights (Chaplin); Marnie (Hitchcock); Accattone (Pasolini); Touch of Evil (Welles).
Roger Corman (U.S.): Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein); Citizen Kane (Welles); The Seventh Seal (Bergman); Lawrence of Arabia (Lean); The Godfather (Coppola); The Grapes of Wrath (Ford); Shane (Stevens); On the Waterfront (Kazan); Star Wars (Lucas); The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene).
Cameron Crowe (U.S.): The Apartment (Wilder); La Regle du jeu (Renoir); La dolce vita (Fellini); Manhattan (Allen); The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler); To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan); Harold and Maude (Ashby); Pulp Fiction (Tarantino); Quadrophenia (Roddam); Ninotchka (Lubitsch).
Milos Forman (U.S.): Amarcord (Fellini); American Graffiti (Lucas); Citizen Kane (Welles); City Lights (Chaplin); The Deer Hunter (Cimino); Les Enfants du paradis (Carne); Giant (Stevens); The Godfather (Coppola); Miracle in Milan (De Sica); Raging Bull (Scorsese).
Jim Jarmusch (U.S.): L'Atalante (Vigo); Tokyo Story (Ozu); They Live by Night (N. Ray); Bob le flambeur (Melville); Sunrise (Murnau); The Cameraman (Sedgwick); Mouchette (Bresson); Seven Samurai (Kurosawa); Broken Blossoms (Griffith); Rome, Open City (Rossellini).
Norman Jewison (Canada): The Bicycle Thief (De Sica); The Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean); Casablanca (Curtiz); Citizen Kane (Welles); City Lights (Chaplin); 81/2 (Fellini); The 400 Blows (Truffaut); Gunga Din (Stevens); Rashomon (Kurosawa); The Wizard of Oz (Fleming).
Mira Nair (India): An Angel at My Table (Campion); The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo); Dekalog (Kieslowski); The Double Life of Veronique (Kieslowski); 81/2 (Fellini); The Godfather (Coppola); In the Mood for Love (Wong); La Jetee (Marker); The Music Room (S. Ray); Pyaasa (Dutt); Raging Bull (Scorsese); Time of the Gypsies (Kusturica).
Quentin Tarantino (U.S.): The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone); Rio Bravo (Hawks); Taxi Driver (Scorsese); His Girl Friday (Hawks); Rolling Thunder (Flynn); They All Laughed (Bogdanovich); The Great Escape (J. Sturges); Carrie (De Palma); Coffy (Hill); Dazed and Confused (Linklater); Five Fingers of Death (Chang); Hi Diddle Diddle (Stone).
Sidney Lumet (U.S.): Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler); Fanny and Alexander (Bergman); The Godfather (Coppola); The Grapes of Wrath (Ford); Intolerance (Griffith); The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer); Ran (Kurosawa); Roma (Fellini); Singin' in the Rain (Kelly, Donen); 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick).
John Waters (U.S.): All That Heaven Allows (Sirk); Baby Doll (Kazan); Boom! (Losey); Brink of Life (Bergman); The Chelsea Girls (Warhol); 81/2 (Fellini); Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Meyer); La Maman et la putain (Eustache); The Tingler (W. Castle); The Wizard of Oz (Fleming).
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