Inside Pulse | Sight And Sound Poll The Top 50 Films Of All Time, Citizen Kane No Longer #1

Sight And Sound Poll The Top 50 Films Of All Time, Citizen Kane No Longer #1

by Travis Leamons on August 1, 2012

Can you guess the film that knocked Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane from the top spot?

Film Magazine Sight and Sound has posted the results of its latest Top 50 Films of All Time poll, voted on by more global film critics than ever before. “846 critics, programmers, academics and distributors have voted – and the 50-year reign of Kane is over. Our critics’ poll has a new number one.” Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo finally supplanted Orson Welles’ top-ranked Citizen Kane, which moved to number 2.

Critics added two new silent films to the Top Ten list – Man With a Movie Camera (dir., Dziga Vertov) at no. 8 and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, in 9th. The youngest film to appear in the Top Ten is Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was released in 1968.

The Sight & Sound poll is conducted every ten years and for the last five decades Citizen Kane has remained on top. But Alfred Hitchcock’s 45th film, Vertigo, has been steadily picking up momentum when it made its first appearance on the list in 1982. Over the last thirty years, Vertigo has jumped from 7th to fourth in 1992, second in 2002 and now first, to dethrone Welles’ directorial debut.

This year’s poll marked the first-time votes were done electronically over the Internet. A full essay on changing fashions of the new poll will be published in the September 2012 issue of Sight & Sound, available from August 3rd on UK newsstands and as a digital edition from August 7th.

The full, interactive poll of 846 critics’ top-ten lists will be available online from August 15th, and the Directors’ poll (of 358 entries) a week later.

THE TOP 50 List is below.

1. Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock, 1958 (191 votes)

2. Citizen Kane
Orson Welles, 1941 (157 votes)

3. Tokyo Story
Ozu Yasujiro, 1953 (107 votes)

4. La Règle du jeu
Jean Renoir, 1939 (100 votes)

5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
FW Murnau, 1927 (93 votes)

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick, 1968 (90 votes)

7. The Searchers
John Ford, 1956 (78 votes)

8. Man with a Movie Camera
Dziga Vertov, 1939 (68 votes)

9. The Passion of Joan of Arc
Carl Dreyer, 1927 (65 votes)

10. 8½
Federico Fellini, 1963 (64 votes)

11. Battleship Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein, 1925 (63 votes)

12. L’Atalante
Jean Vigo, 1934 (58 votes)

13. Breathless
Jean-Luc Godard, 1960 (57 votes)

14. Apocalypse Now
Francis Ford Coppola, 1979 (53 votes)

15. Late Spring
Ozu Yasujiro, 1949 (50 votes)

16. Au hasard Balthazar
Robert Bresson, 1966 (49 votes)

17= Seven Samurai
Kurosawa Akira, 1954 (48 votes)

17= Persona
Ingmar Bergman, 1966 (48 votes)

19. Mirror
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974 (47 votes)

20. Singin’ in the Rain
Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1951 (46 votes)

21= L’avventura
Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960 (43 votes)

21= Le Mépris
Jean-Luc Godard, 1963 (43 votes)

21= The Godfather
Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 (43 votes)

24= Ordet
Carl Dreyer, 1955 (42 votes)

24= In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar-Wai, 2000 (42 votes)

26= Rashomon
Kurosawa Akira, 1950 (41 votes)

26= Andrei Rublev
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966 (41 votes)

28. Mulholland Dr.
David Lynch, 2001 (40 votes)

29= Stalker
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979 (39 votes)

29= Shoah
Claude Lanzmann, 1985 (39 votes)

31= The Godfather Part II
Francis Ford Coppola, 1974 (38 votes)

31= Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese, 1976 (38 votes)

33. Bicycle Thieves
Vittoria De Sica, 1948 (37 votes)

34. The General
Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926 (35 votes)

35= Metropolis
Fritz Lang, 1927 (34 votes)

35= Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock, 1960 (34 votes)

35= Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles
Chantal Akerman, 1975 (34 votes)

35= Sátántangó
Béla Tarr, 1994 (34 votes)

39= The 400 Blows
François Truffaut, 1959 (33 votes)

39= La dolce vita
Federico Fellini, 1960 (33 votes)

41. Journey to Italy
Roberto Rossellini, 1954 (32 votes)

42= Pather Panchali
Satyajit Ray, 1955 (31 votes)

42= Some Like It Hot
Billy Wilder, 1959 (31 votes)

42= Gertrud
Carl Dreyer, 1964 (31 votes)

42= Pierrot le fou
Jean-Luc Godard, 1965 (31 votes)

42= Play Time
Jacques Tati, 1967 (31 votes)

42= Close-Up
Abbas Kiarostami, 1990 (31 votes)

48= The Battle of Algiers
Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966 (30 votes)

48= Histoire(s) du cinéma
Jean-Luc Godard, 1998 (30 votes)

50= City Lights
Charlie Chaplin, 1931 (29 votes)

50= Ugetsu monogatari
Mizoguchi Kenji, 1953 (29 votes)

50= La Jetée
Chris Marker, 1962 (29 votes)

Tags: Citizen Kane, Sight & Sound, Vertigo

Travis Leamons

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Travis Leamons is one of the Inside Pulse Originals and currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Inside Pulse Movies. He's told that the position is his until he's dead or if "The Boss" can find somebody better. I expect the best and I give the best. Here's the beer. Here's the entertainment. Now have fun. That's an order!

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http://profile.yahoo.com/EKILQPK6DSXQYHW5ANWR4FV2FU HopeyChangey

That list is a joke. Please wake me when the last of political correctness has bit the dust.
- http://www.facebook.com/jon.dibenedetto.1 Jon DiBenedetto
  
  How is this list “politically correct”? These are all accepted classics. I really don’t understand your comment.
- Mzombie33
  
  I believe that what Hopey is trying to say is that this list is a little bit pretentious. It’s okay to admit that there have been a number of classic films that have been made in the past 25 years. Movies such as Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, Saving Private Ryan, Goodfellas, City of God, Memento, Alien, and Inception are all modern classics of cinema, and deserve a mention. Yet sadly not a single one of these films are mentioned. While many of the films on this list are obviously very influential and brilliant films, there is no doubt a common theme to this list, rejecting the idea of modern classics.
  - Admiral Snackbar
    
    I think you’re reading too much into Hopey’s comments. He said nothing about pretentiousness. Political correctness is a far different thing. You’re just pushing his comment towards your own complaints. Complains which would have been far more valid had you chosen a better, more interesting list of films. Most of those films are beloved by nerds, hipsters, and *shudder* internet critics, but there’s not one film on that list that I would consider legitimately great. Even Alien is a lesser film than its sequel. The point is, there’s a major gulf between these “classics” you’re talking about, and the actual, legitimate innovation and excellence of the ones on the Sight & Sound list.
    
    Also, you mentioned Goodfellas, when Taxi Driver is right there on the list. It’s possible they just like the one better than the other.
    
    And the film DOES have selections from the past 25 years. In the Mood for Love, for instance, which is leagues ahead of every single film you mentioned, and definitely one of my top films of the past few decades.
    
    I’m not saying that the list isn’t heavily geared towards a specific era and style of film. That much is obvious. It’s very heavily weighted towards European films from the 60s, with a big subset of silent era stuff. That says a lot about the age and inclination of the critics polled (and Sight & Sound is a British magazine, if I recall). Most of these films are heavy on visual or editorial experimentation, and many are largely concerned with the form, which critics are going to lean towards. But there’s no pretension there. These critics are probably just picking the films that moved them at the ages when they were first really discovering and understanding film, which is the same thing you’re doing and I’m doing. It’s just that they’re picking better ones than you are.
Admiral Snackbar

Wait, what? I don’t necessarily agree with all the films there, but that’s a list of acknowledged classics. What exactly would you put there instead?
- Brad Olson
  
  Maybe he wishes Zucker’s ‘An American Carol’ was on there
Gratefultiger

i’ve every one of these in my collection,so the critics are on the ball,Rules Of The Game my fave,
would have liked to see The Colour Of Pomegranates & The Wild Bunch there plus a few others but all
in all a great list!
Admiral Snackbar

Still waiting on Hopey’s list of great, somehow non-politically correct films.

As for me, I’m not really a fan of Kubrick, Hitchcock, or Lynch, so that probably puts me in the minority of film fans. I’d sub out Psycho for Carpenter’s Halloween, and Mulholland Drive (that one surprised me – of all the Lynch?) for Eraserhead. I’d also switch out Apocalypse Now for The Conversation, and Taxi Driver for Rolling Thunder, which feels like a stronger, more cohesive work to me.

Late Spring would be my #1, although since Tokyo Story’s already #3, I’d be perfectly happy with that hitting the top slot. Glad to see In the Mood for Love on there! If any film from the 2000s is going to be on the list, that’s quite possibly the best choice.

Feels like it’s light on classic Hollywood, especially the comedies. I’d love to see some Preston Sturges (Sullivan’s Travels or The Lady Eve) or Leo McCarey (The Awful Truth or Make Way for Tomorrow). Also, I’d love to see Kurosawa’s non-period stuff get more attention. Ikiru and High & Low are phenomenal.

The more I look at this list, the more I see stuff that I’m kind of sick of. Way too much focus on the Italian and French New Wave – we’re not over those yet? The French gangster stuff from the 50s is more interesting, and the Japanese New Wave was wilder and more bracing. Truffaut and Fellini and Goddard are just fine, but I’d take Seijun Suzuki or Shohei Imamura over any of ‘em. Let alone King Apathy, Antonioni.
- http://www.facebook.com/jon.dibenedetto.1 Jon DiBenedetto
  
  Never been a fan of the so called Japanese New Wave but YES! to classic Hollywood. Sturges, McCarey & LaCava deserve a place. I think those who voted ignored comedies. Just Keaton (I would replace it with The Navigator) & Tati (no haha funny). What about It Happened One Night~for me the one perfect American screen comedy.
  - Admiral Snackbar
    
    Oh man, I can’t believe I forgot It Happened One Night. Yeah, that’s like a perfect movie. Definitely should be on there.
    
    I know genre films don’t fare well in these polls, but I wish at least Jaws could’ve made it. Or maybe Bride of Frankenstein, Halloween, or, major long shots, Hausu or Near Dark.
    
    Also, man, did Howard Hawks totally get shut out? That’s a major shame, I love his stuff. I’d much rather have Rio Bravo on there than The Searchers.
    - Son of Griff
      
      HIS GIRL FRIDAY would have been my pick for both Hawks and American romantic comedy
http://twitter.com/outsidedog William Wilson

Re #33:

It’s VittoriO de Sica. VittoriA would be the twin sister he never had.
http://www.facebook.com/damian.wayne.737 Damian Wayne

“Vertigo” is overrated, in my opinion. Some other reactions to the list: http://www.cinemabums.com/?p=427
Brad Olson

i actually have to say I have a problem with La Jetee being on there, even if at 50 – it’s a short, and I feel like the poll should be limited to features; there should absolutely be an additional list of greatest short/non-feature films, that would be very interesting, at least to me
- Admiral Snackbar
  
  I’d really love to see that list of shorts, just because I have so little experience with the form. I’m really only familiar with people like Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage by reputation. If we were making that list, though, I’d like to nominate “When It Rains” by Charles Burnett. And what the hell – “Robin Hood Daffy” and “What’s Opera, Doc?” Chuck Jones deserves it.
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