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.
If I do end up getting a ballot this year, I would have to assume that “The Godfather,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Vertigo,” “The Rules of the Game,” “The Searchers,” “Sunrise,” “L’Avventura,” “Mulholland Drive,” and “Bicycle Thieves” would all figure prominently on my final list.