Pretend you have a ballot for the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's top 10 movies of all time list

maybe they need a different 3 lists:

to 1939
1939-75
1976-2022

I didn't mean the gap. I meant if you averaged out the years represented I think you'd get literally the earliest year for this poll since 1952.

I guess my second category should read 1940-75.

Is the concept that classics in an artform need the 'test of time' all that surprising? Even if everyone voted for, say, a '90s film, they'd be all over the place.

I know you meant the average, but I find the gap interesting too--consciously or not, it's an indicator of where voters cumulatively set the bar at what's an acceptable passage of time before deifying something, almost like the mandatory waiting period for entrance into a hall of fame.

Fingers still crossed that maybe Mulholland Dr. found its way into the top 25-ish.

@HellOnFriscoBay

New to the #sightandsoundpoll critics' Top 20 this year: Man With A Movie Camera (#8) Apocalypse Now (#14) Late Spring (#15) Mirror (#19)

Pretty astonished at Late Spring @ #15.

La Jetee makes #50! (Too low, but I'll take it!)

Can you post a link where you're getting these, Eric?

surprised that Mirror is the Tarkovsky pick.

Hah, I'm getting it from Twitter, but S&S did tweet out this link (they appear to be getting slammed by traffic from 850 critics ATM):

http://bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time

Presumably a few people managed to see the page before it went down.

@nathansbeard

Ecstatically pleased with the high ranking of In The Mood For Love as the most recent film at #24 on the #sightsoundpoll

So glad to see Mulholland Dr represented at #28, Persona at #17, and Apocalypse Now at #14 #sightsoundpoll

@HellOnFriscoBay

L'avventura falls out of the #sightsoundpoll top 20 (to #21) for the first time since it was made, in 1960. It nabbed the #2 slot in 1962.

Thanks--the page won't load for me.

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)

except for the different rankings the top twenty isn't much different from earlier editions

satantango #35. that has to be a new entry right?

Damn, Godfather not even the top-ranked Coppola movie anymore.

Thanks, AJ. The Godfather really tumbled, I guess having to do with splitting up the first two this time.

42= Gertrud
Carl Dreyer, 1964 (31 votes)

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

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

http://janetnewenham.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/beer.jpg

would pay to see all-day marathon of the films tied at 42nd.

I'd skip Pather Panchali, but yeah.

Histoire(s) surprising

where?

ok, see it. have reserved at library.

I missed Godfather II...81 votes combined, so it would have stayed in the Top 10, but by the looks of it closer to the bottom.

A little sad to see Barry Lyndon slip after a strong '02 showing.

xpost lol keep dreaming

I'm not looking to argue that yet again, Eric--it was just a numerical observation.

Gertrud -- feh

over Day of Wrath?

I tell you what wild conjecture I would be willing to entertain, tho: the possibility that some voters switched FFC allegiance over to Apocalypse Now rather than try to guess which Godfather movie they should throw their support behind. (I'm sure there are a couple ballots in there with both Godfathers, tho.)

Day of Wrath is way fustier than Gertrud.

yes but people are burned alive

Our difference of opinion here, tho, is the difference in our sex lives described in a nutshell.

as opposed to bored to death

One person is burned alive, iirc. And then the rest of the film involves hotsy-totsy working on a loom and making sexy cat eyes at the prude man.

Biggest fall = Touch of Evil? It was 15th last time.

Every time I think some big names are completely missing from the Top 50, I look closer and catch them--who's the most prominent director not there? (Didn't Rio Bravo do pretty well in this at one point?)

Hawks.

http://janetnewenham.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/beer.jpg

And then the rest of the film involves hotsy-totsy working on a loom and making sexy cat eyes at the prude man

I think you're confusing the film with the gay thread

(Oh, I see you already figured that one sorta.)

LOL, the gay thread is the MOST Gertrud.

Chaplin only just BARELY made the top 50.

Late Spring and Au hasard Balthazar helped by Criterion releases.

the possibility that some voters switched FFC allegiance over to Apocalypse Now rather than try to guess which Godfather movie they should throw their support behind

film critics now suck as much as US politics.

when you've made as many GREAT films in DIFFERENT genres as Hawks has, critics are at a loss.

Isn't that a big jump for Psycho? I don't remember it ever getting especially strong support.