In 2012, Welles' "Citizen Kane" had been dethroned from the Sight & Sound list of the greatest films of all time, and replaced by Hitchcock's "Vertigo." Roger Ebert exclaimed at the time, “The king is dead. Long live the king.”
It wasn’t that shocking of a result at the time. The list first appeared in 1952, and "Vertigo" (1958) made the list for the first time only in 1982. Much like many of the films on the current list, it slowly, but surely climbed up over the decades. It managed to place five votes behind ‘Kane’ in 2002. In 2012, “Vertigo” dethroned ‘Kane,’ a film that held the top spot for almost three decades. “Vertigo” beat ‘Kane’ 191 to 157 votes.
Many regular moviegoers would have probably gone with "Psycho" or "North by Northwest" as Hitch's best, but “Vertigo” is truly his masterpiece, if you give it the time and effort needed to rank high up in your head. It’s one of the very few films I can think of that gets better with every viewing. I’ve seen it 5 times, all in theaters, refusing to watch it at home.
With the upcoming 2022 list, we can maybe expect a generational shift to occur. The amount of voters has nearly doubled, from 846 to nearly 1600. The critics I grew up with have evaporated, either retired or dead, and the young bloods might start pushing forward the likes of Scorsese. Lynch. Wong Kar-Wai. Kubrick.
The most recent film in the 2012 list was Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” released in 1968. Why not more recent directors? That might change in 2022. One might expect Kubrick’s magnum opus to rise up in ranks, maybe even finish as, some are suspecting, the new “Greatest Film of All-Time”. Maybe Coppola’s “The Godfather” will re-emerge.
Why have more modern movies been absent from this list? Are the best movies of today inferior to the best movies of the past? Maybe it’s a question of letting movies stand the test of time and prove they can resonate with later generations.
Has there been a movie since Kubrick’s "2001" and Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” that demands to be on the list? I'd vote for "Raging Bull," "The Tree of Life," “Mulholland Drive,” “Do the Right Thing,” "Pulp Fiction," but probably just one of them would make my personal top ten. No firm consensus has emerged leading us to believe any of these will make the 2022 list.
Ebert had an interesting theory as to how a film could emerge into the top of this list. Quite simply, a director needed to have a well-known masterpiece. Kubrick has “2001.” With Hitchcock it’s “Vertigo.” Renoir released many great films, but none more towering than “The Rules of the Game.” Lynch has “Mulholland Drive.” Coppola, it’s “The Godfather” although there’s definitely a vocal cult out there that believes “Apocalypse Now” is his greatest film.
That’s maybe why Scorsese has had a hard time cracking the top 10, or even the top 20 on the BFI poll. What’s his definitive masterpiece? “Taxi Driver”? “Raging Bull”? “Goodfellas”? Time still hasn’t given us a definite answer and votes mights again be split between the three.
1952
Bicycle Thieves, City Lights, The Gold Rush, Battleship Potemkin , Intolerance, Louisiana Story, Greed
Le Jour se Lève, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Brief Encounter
1962
Citizen Kane, L’Avventura, The Rules of the Game, Greed, Ugetsu, Battleship Potemkin, Bicycle Thieves, Ivan the Terrible, La Terra Trema, L’Atlante
1972
Citizen Kane, Rules of the Game, Battleship Potemkin, 8½, L’Avventura, Persona, The Passion of Joan of Arc
The General, The Magnificent Ambersons, Ugetsu
1982
Citizen Kane, The Rules of the Game, Seven Samurai, Singin’ in the Rain, 8½, Battleship Potemkin, L’Avventura, The Magnificent Ambersons, Vertigo, The General, The Searchers
1992
Citizen Kane, The Rules of the Game, Tokyo Story, Vertigo, The Searchers, L’Atalante, Battleship Potemkin, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Pather Panchali, 2001: A Space Odyssey
2002
Citizen Kane, Vertigo, The Rules of the Game, The Godfather/ The Godfather Part II, Tokyo Story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Battleship Potemkin, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 8½, Singin’ in the Rain
2012
Vertigo, Citizen Kane, Tokyo Story, The Rules of the Game, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Searchers, Man with a Movie Camera , The Passion of Joan of Arc, 8½
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