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. It’s the most prestigious thing of its kind. Their 2012 poll is definitely a blueprint that every young cinephile should start with.
I’ve already tackled, countless times, the backlash that greeted ‘Jeanne Dielman’ topping Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All-Time poll, published in 2022. Armond White said “Nobody really believes ‘Jeanne Dielman’ is the greatest film of all-time,” Paul Schrader called the poll “rigged.” Quentin Tarantino admitted to having never seen the film. I also chimed in with my own thoughts.
Here’s filmmaker Terry Gilliam (“Brazil”), interviewed by Phil Stubbs, echoing Tarantino’s bewilderment. He’s also never seen ‘Jeanne Dielman’ and goes as far as to question the purpose of claiming it to be the “greatest” film ever made.
Ms Akerman’s film? No, I’ve never seen it either. It’s the first time I’ve heard about it now that I’ve got my new Sight & Sound. I’m trying to find a way to see it, to see this great movie… but it’s a shock that it seems to have come out of nowhere. What is going on? It may be a great film but you don’t just suddenly come out of nowhere. Boom! Ends up at number one like that… unless everybody has gone doolally, reappraising every film they’ve seen that they looked at in a wrong way, that we’ve looked at from a male perspective. I’m keen to see it because I’m curious. It’s got Delphine Seyrig in the lead part, and I could watch any film with her in. But in the top 100, there are no Buñuel films at all […] When the critics say the greatest 100 films ever made and they leave Luis Buñuel out, I don’t know how that’s possible.
Gilliam makes a good point there. Where the hell was Buñuel? One of the greatest and most influential filmmakers that ever lived. No film of his was featured in the top 100. It’s madness to even think of “The Exterminating Angel,” “Los Olvidados,” “Viridiana,” “Un Chien D’andalou,” and “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise” being set aside for film twitter darlings “Get Out,” and “Moonlight.”
Over the years, I’ve met many people who’ve namechecked “Citizen Kane,” “Vertigo,” “The Godfather,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “The Searchers,” “8 1/2” and “Tokyo Story,” among others, as the greatest film ever made. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who believes ‘Jeanne Dielman’ to be cinema’s crowning achievement. They must be out there, right? After all, that’s what the Sight & Sound poll implied, that a vast scholarly consensus agrees it to be the best film ever made.
Where are you ‘Jeanne Dielman’ absolutists? Chime in. I want to find, at least, one person in the comments section who actually believes it to be the greatest film ever made.
It should be mentioned that I actually really like ‘Jeanne Dielman.’ It’s played an immense role in establishing the “slow cinema” movement of the ‘70s. I find there are many revealing and, at times, curiously transfixing moments in Akerman’s 3-hour film. That’s not the point. The issue here is that it came out of nowhere and crashed the poll, throwing away the consensus narrative of 100+ years of cinema.
You want the truth? I’ve already tackled this, but, in a nutshell, a big chunk of those polled by Sight & Sound created their lists with the intention of adhering to a quota by including at least one female filmmaker within their list of ten, and the popular choice was Akerman's film. It won by default.