Sight & Sound's Critics and Directors Top Ten polls combined

Every ten years Sight & Sound magazine do a poll for the top ten films of all time. For their last poll in 2002, they did a critics poll and a directors poll (the latter has been added to the MoFo lists). As it's been nearly ten years, I'm guessing some of you would have already seen the combined list. But here it is for those who haven't...

TOP TEN (Total votes) = (critics) + (directors)

Citizen Kane (1941 Orson Welles) 88 = 46 + 42
Vertigo (1958 Alfred Hitchcock) 54 = 41 + 13
La Règle du Jeu (1939 Jean Renoir) 42 = 30 + 12
8 1/2 (1963 Federico Fellini) 37 = 18 + 19
The Godfather (1972 Francis Ford Coppola) 36 = 17 + 19
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968 Stanley Kurbrick) 32 = 21 + 11
Tokyo Story (1953 Yasujiro Ozu) 31 = 22 + 9
The Godfather Part II (1974 Francis Ford Coppola) 31 = 15 + 16
Seven Samurai (1954 Akira Kurosawa) 27 = 15 + 12
Rashomon (1950 Akira Kurosawa) 26 = 14 + 12

NEXT FIVE
Battleship Potemkin (1925 Sergei Eisenstein) 25 = 19 + 6
Singin' in the Rain (1952 Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly) 25 = 17 + 8
Sunrise (1927 F.W. Murnau) 24 = 19 + 5
The Searchers (1956 John Ford) 22 = 15 + 7
Lawrence of Arabia (1962 David Lean) 21 = 5 + 16

18 VOTES
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928 Carl Dreyer) 12 + 6
Bicycle Thieves (1948 Vittorio DeSica) 5 + 13
La Dolce Vita (1960 Federico Fellini) 8 + 10

17 VOTES
Touch of Evil (1958 Orson Welles) 11 + 6
L'Avventura (1960 Michelangelo Antonioni) 10 + 7
À Bout de Souffle (1960 Jean-Luc Godard) 11 + 6

16 VOTES
Jules et Jim (1961 Francois Truffaut) 10 + 6
Dr. Strangelove (1964 Stanley Kurbrick) 2 + 14
Raging Bull (1980 Martin Scorsese) 3 + 13

15 VOTES
L'Atalante (1933 Jean Vigo) 11 + 4
Sunset Boulevard (1950 Billy Wilder) 4 + 11
Psycho (1960 Alfred Hitchcock) 6 + 9

14 VOTES
The General (1926 Buster Keaton) 11 + 3
Pather Panchali (1955 Satyajit Ray) 9 + 5
Some Like It Hot (1959 Billy Wilder) 7 + 7
Mirror (1975 Andrei Tarkovsky) 5 + 9
Fanny and Alexander (1982 Ingmar Bergman) 6 + 8

13 VOTES
City Lights (1931 Charles Chaplin) 5 + 8
La Grande Illusion (1937 Jean Renoir) 6 + 7
Les Enfants du Paradis (1945 Marcel Carné) 7 + 6
Andrei Roublev (1966 Andrei Tarkovsky) 6 + 7

12 VOTES
The Seventh Seal (1957 Ingmar Bergman) 6 + 6
The Apartment (1960 Billy Wilder) 2 + 10
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966 Robert Bresson) 10 + 2
Taxi Driver (1976 Martin Scorsese) 6 + 6
Apocalypse Now (1979 Francis Ford Coppola) 4 + 8

11 VOTES
Casablanca (1942 Michael Curtiz) 3 + 8
The Third Man (1949 Carol Reed) 6 + 5
Ugetsu Monogatari (1953 Kenji Mizoguchi) 7 + 4
Le Mépris (1963 Jean-Luc Godard) 9 + 2
Chinatown (1974 Roman Polanski) 4 + 7

10 VOTES
Metropolis (1927 Fritz Lang) 7 + 3
Ivan the Terrible (1945 Sergei Eisenstein) 7 + 3

9 VOTES
Intolerance (1916 D.W. Griffith) 5 + 4
M (1931 Fritz Lang) 8 + 1
Ordet (1955 Carl Dreyer) 5 + 4
Wild Strawberries (1957 Ingmar Bergman) 7 + 2
The 400 Blows (1959 Francois Truffaut) 6 + 3


That's the top 53, for the rest of the combined list click HERE. For the seperate polls and for all the information on who voted and what other films were voted for, click HERE.


Some interesting differences between critic and director votes, don't you think? I was suprised that Dr. Strangelove only had two votes from critics but had 14 votes from directors.

What do you guys make of the list and how the two different occupations voted?

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Interesting list.

As for what I think? Well, I find a small comfort in the fact that most of the films I like on the list are prefered by directors more than critics.

I've yet to see what's just so brilliant about Vertigo (41 + 13) and, having recently seen La Règle du Jeu (30 + 12) I can say I liked it, but have no idea why it's so highly thought of.

There are more examples, in both directions (Casablanca for one), but at first look, two things strike me. Firstly, there are sacred cows that, I think, a critic feels he/she must include and rank at around a certain level. Secondly, I suspect that directors haven't seen as many classic/highly rated, films as the critics have.

Hmmmm Citizen Kane.... Added to netflix.

Both good points. I think they both apply when you look at the four films in the list made in the twenties...

Battleship Potemkin (1925 Sergei Eisenstein) 25 = 19 + 6
Sunrise (1927 F.W. Murnau) 24 = 19 + 5
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928 Carl Dreyer) 12 + 6
The General (1926 Buster Keaton) 11 + 3

I wonder how many directors have seen these. And I wonder how many of the critics who voted for them truly consider these amoung the best films of all time.

Does anyone who's seen them agree with their ranking? I've only seen The General, I'd give it .

The Passion of Joan of Arc and The General are in my top 10 films of all time. I love them both, they each do some things better than any film before or since.

I really like Battleship Potemkin too. I know that, unlike the first two, it is seen as more of a museum piece but I think it's still kinetic and thrilling and sometime quite funny as well as groundbreaking and admirable.

I don't much care for Sunrise though. I think Murnau made several better films.

I've not seen The Passion Of Joan Of Arc, but of the rest, I like Sunrise the most. I've never gotten on with Potemkin as a piece of entertainment (probably because wasn't its purpose) and, while I don't care for silent/slapstick comedy, I thought The General was ok for about 40 minutes or so, but I lost interest somewhere around that mark.

All four of those films are actually on YouTube. I'll try and check them out soon. Got a copy of Tokyo Story too, so can finally see what the fuss is all about.

And as well as Dr. Strangelove, I was suprised to see Lawrence of Arabia (5+16), Raging Bull (3+13) and The Apartment (2+10) with so few critic votes. And Casablanca (4+8) with not so many votes from both.

As for other great films outside the top 50, BladeRunner and Once Upon a Time in the West only had 7 votes each, and Jaws had a total of just 3 votes from directors only.

3 votes for Jaws makes you wonder if anyone knows anything at all.

Of the silents i'll rank them as:

1. Sunrise
2. The Passion of Joan of arc
3. Metropolis
4. The General
5. Battleship Potemkin

As amazing as all of those movies really are I get annoyed at the lack of balls that critics have because noone dares mention that any film made after 2000 is a classic. I've seen plenty of movies since 2000 that would easily go toe-to-toe with those films. I'm just waiting for a critic who's brave enough to admit it.

Well critics today can only say what they're taught to say because they have no soul.

That said, this isn't a bad list

I thought the lack of films from the 2000s was because the list was compiled in 2002.

Well, that and the fact that the last 10 years have been a dreadful decade for film.

Depends where you look

I don't think the 2000s was a 'dreadful' decade for film. Many critics are beginning to rank Mulholland Drive as the best of the decade, or even among the best of all time.
In fact, the past decade has seen emerging foreign cinemas from Romania, China, Iran etc and that's a good thing.
Just wait for another 10 years and films like There Will Be Blood, Yi Yi, Goodbye Dragon Inn, Talk To Her, Flight of the red balloon, The Pianist, Dancer in the dark and Werckmeister Harmonies will attain cult status.

Well, if There Will Be Blood is a classic, that tells me all I need to know about the last decade.

Uhh...

I agree with the idea behind this post, even if I don't accept some of the specifics. For example, Flight of the Red Balloon is already a cult film and hopefully that cult will remain small since it's one of the most-pathetic, boring and annoying films EVER made.

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New list next year. Think any films from the 90s or 00s will make the cut?

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^ Maybe Pulp Fiction from the 90s. But some critics just have their heads too far up their arses to nominate a film from the 00s. I bet these films will appear (again) in the top 10:

The Godfather
2001
Citizen Kane
8 1/2