Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Introduction from bfi.org:
The new Sight & Sound documentary poll is the result of a ‘why didn’t we think of that before’ moment. In the light of the amazing recent success and cultural impact of several nonfiction films, a group of curators, myself included, were chewing over what the BFI might do specifically for documentary films and television. It soon became obvious that we were not sure exactly what it was that we were trying to discuss.
I’m usually loath to do anything that takes lustre away from Sight & Sound’s ten-year poll of the Greatest Films Ever but a new poll seemed to me the most obvious solution to getting a full view of the documentary canon. Approximately four months later I’m delighted with the quality of what more than 200 critics and curators – including many documentary specialists – and 100 filmmakers (the likes of John Akomfrah, Michael Apted, Clio Barnard, James Benning, Sophie Fiennes, Amos Gitai, Paul Greengrass, Jose Guerin, Isaac Julien, Asif Kapadia, Sergei Loznitsa, Kevin Macdonald, James Marsh, Joshua Oppenheimer, Anand Patwardhan, Pawel Pawlikowski, Nicolas Philibert, Walter Salles and James Toback) have come up with in terms of choices and commentary and I’m very proud of the team of advisors, BFI colleagues and S&S editors who have worked so hard to produce this poll edition.
What’s remarkable about the Top 50 documentaries list is that it feels so fresh. One in five of the films chosen were made since the millennium, and to have a silent film from 1929 at the top of the list is an absolute joy. That allusive essay films feature so strongly throughout demonstrates that nonfiction cinema is not a narrow discipline but a wide open country full of explorers. The current print edition of S&S contains only the highlights of our results; the real explorers among you will want to browse the full results and commentaries which goes live online on 14 August.
I’m usually loath to do anything that takes lustre away from Sight & Sound’s ten-year poll of the Greatest Films Ever but a new poll seemed to me the most obvious solution to getting a full view of the documentary canon. Approximately four months later I’m delighted with the quality of what more than 200 critics and curators – including many documentary specialists – and 100 filmmakers (the likes of John Akomfrah, Michael Apted, Clio Barnard, James Benning, Sophie Fiennes, Amos Gitai, Paul Greengrass, Jose Guerin, Isaac Julien, Asif Kapadia, Sergei Loznitsa, Kevin Macdonald, James Marsh, Joshua Oppenheimer, Anand Patwardhan, Pawel Pawlikowski, Nicolas Philibert, Walter Salles and James Toback) have come up with in terms of choices and commentary and I’m very proud of the team of advisors, BFI colleagues and S&S editors who have worked so hard to produce this poll edition.
What’s remarkable about the Top 50 documentaries list is that it feels so fresh. One in five of the films chosen were made since the millennium, and to have a silent film from 1929 at the top of the list is an absolute joy. That allusive essay films feature so strongly throughout demonstrates that nonfiction cinema is not a narrow discipline but a wide open country full of explorers. The current print edition of S&S contains only the highlights of our results; the real explorers among you will want to browse the full results and commentaries which goes live online on 14 August.
1. "The Man with a Movie Camera" (1929), Dziga Vertov
2. "Shoah" (1985), Claude Lanzmann
3. "Sans soleil" (1983), Chris Marker
4. "Night and Fog" (1955), Alain Resnais
5. "The Thin Blue Line" (1988), Errol Morris
6. "Chronicle of a Summer" (1961), Edgar Morin/Jean Rouch
7. "Nanook of the North" (1922), Robert J. Flaherty
8. "The Gleaners and I" (2000), Agnes Varda
9= "Dont Look Back" (1967), D.A. Pennebaker
9= "Grey Gardens" (1975), Ellen Hovde/Albert Maysles/David Maysles/Muffie Meyer
Full list:
http://thefilmstage.com/news/sight-s...s-of-all-time/
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound-ma.../greatest-docs