This is a good time to ask the readers for their all-time greatest films list. If you had your say in the matter, what would make the BFI top 10 ? Please post your list in the comments section.
The prestigious BFI/Sight and Sound poll, which has run once a decade for the past 70 years, will have close to 1600 voters this year. We already mentioned that the results will be available in Sight and Sound’s December issue, available in newsstands the 5th day of that month.
We have now learned that the results will first be revealed on BFI’s website the afternoon of December 1st and the results and commentary of both the critics’ and directors’ polls will be published in full in a special 164-page Winter double issue of Sight and Sound, with subscribers receiving a copy on 2nd December.
Since 1952 Sight and Sound has conducted this poll of the world’s most respected critics, programmers, academics and curators, asking them each for their top ten films of all time. This year’s poll is the biggest yet with over 1600 critics (almost double the size of 2012’s).
Late great critic Roger Ebert once described the Poll as “by far the most respected of the countless polls of great movies – the only one most serious movie people take seriously.”
My 10 Greatest films of all-time: “The Godfather,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Vertigo,” “The Rules of the Game,” “The Searchers,” “Sunrise,” “L’Avventura,” “Mulholland Drive,” “Tree of Life” and “Bicycle Thieves,” all would all figure prominently on my final list.
BFI Sight and Sound’s 2012 poll: 1. Vertigo · 2. Citizen Kane · 3. Tokyo Story · 4. La Règle du jeu · 5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans · 6. 2001: A Space Odyssey · 7. The Searchers 8. Man With a Movie Camera 9. The Passion of Joan of Ark 10. 8 1/2
Some changes are to be expected, especially with BFI now DOUBLING the amount of voters, good lord. We need to hang on tight and expect some surprises here.
I wrote on 06.15.22:
Every 10 years, starting in 1952, Sight & Sound has reached out to filmmakers, academics, and critics all over the world to try to determine the current consensus on the greatest films ever made. Their 2012 poll is most definitely a blueprint that every cinephile should start with.
A popular question of late has been: "When are the 2022 results going to get published?" It turns out that the poll’s results will be unveiled in print and online this coming November. Ballots haven’t even been sent out yet.
The last S&S poll was also the first time Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” failed to take the number one spot on either the Critics or Director’s lists. Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” dethroned ‘Kane,’ a film that held the top spot for almost three decades. “Vertigo” beat ‘Kane’ 191 to 157 votes.
Will there be a new number 1? At this point, I don’t think ‘Kane’ will gain back the top spot. Instead, based on the film's steady rise over the last decade, I'm almost inclined to believe that Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” could be our new #1, solely based on its sheer growing influence alone; Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” both owe a major debt of gratitude to Kubrick’s magnum opus.
Speaking of “There Will Be Blood” and “The Tree of Life,” will this be the year both of these modern-day masterpieces crack the top 100? One film that is definitely bound to skyrocket is Spike Lee's “Do the Right Thing,” which has managed to gain significant relevance in the era of “Black Lives Matter,” not to mention it was named Best Film of the 1980s in a recent poll of ours.
The ‘Smile’ franchise has a new director. David Bruckner, who made “The Night House” and the 2022 “Hellraiser” reboot, has been hired to direct “Smile 3” for Paramount.