Pretend you have a ballot for the 2022 edition of Sight & Sound's top 10 movies of all time list

Even those among us who, you know, actually may get one.

Pretend you have a ballot for the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's top 10 movies of all time list
Pick only one Sight and Sound Top Ten Poll.
Which Sight & Sound all-time top 10 list is the best?

Like how conservative or how totally idiosyncratic would you let your list get?

I'd be tempted to only list movies from the last 20 years, just because recent movies have been underrepresented since the 1972 poll.

I continue to wear out my favourite films--last time I watched Nashville, I knew I'd crossed the line (which doesn't mean I think it's any less great, I just lose that feeling of discovery or elation or whatever)--so I'd have to think about this. I know for sure Zodiac would be very high this time.

Based on my two ballots for Film Twitter's annual "SHMIGHT & SHMOUND" polls, I'd likely be culling from this shortlist:

MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (McCarey)
DAISY KENYON (Preminger)
UN CHANT D'AMOUR (Genet)
DUCK AMUCK (Jones)
THE LADIES' MAN (Lewis)
LA JETÉE (Marker)
UNSERE AFRIKAREISE (Kubelka)
FEMALE TROUBLE (Waters)
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (Hooper)
TANGO (Rybczynski)
A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY (Yang)
SHOWGIRLS (Verhoeven)
TASTE OF CHERRY (Kiarostami)
OUTER SPACE (Tscherkassky)
YI YI (Yang)
INLAND EMPIRE (Lynch)

Aside from there being no Sirk or Dreyer there.

THE LAST LAUGH (Murnau)
CITY LIGHTS (Chaplin)
THE MIRROR (Tarkovski)
JEANNE DIELMANN (Akermann)
HISTOIRE(S) DU CINEMA (Godard)
CLOSE UP (Kiarostami)
WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (Tarr)
UNCLE BOONMEE (Weerasethakul)
STRAY DOGS (Tsai)
AMOUR FOU (Haussner)

w/out thinking much, first draft;

SHERLOCK JUNIOR
DUCK SOUP
L'ATALANTE
THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK
FIRES ON THE PLAIN
THE LEOPARD
BLACK GIRL
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
TRISTANA
THE MIRROR
A MOMENT OF INNOCENCE
MULHOLLAND DR.

I'd be tempted to only list movies from the last 20 years

I wouldn't, bcz narrative filmmakers are kinda out of ideas.

A list of non-narrative filmmaking from the last 20 years would be awesome, though

Duck Amuck 💜

This reminds me of some ilx polls with 50 options, of which 32 each receive one vote and the poll winner receives two votes.

FIRES ON THE PLAIN

Good choice, but I was thinking The Burmese Harp would get my Ichikawa spot.

my list would be absolute nonsense

This reminds me of some ilx polls with 50 options, of which 32 each receive one vote and the poll winner receives two votes.

― A is for (Aimless), Monday, February 24, 2020

more like seeing ilxors' individual choices in the year-end polls, which I think is interesting

Duck Amuck 💜

― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Monday, February 24, 2020 2:49 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

The best film mentioned in this thread thus far.

really like Tscherkassky's Outer Space

alternate list bcz really, no Hitchcock on the last one

THE CROWD
LA CHIENNE
MODERN TIMES
LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN
EUROPA '51
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE
POINT BLANK
CHINATOWN
FOX AND HIS FRIENDS
MIKEY AND NICKY
THE KING OF COMEDY

idg Duck Amuck, or why anyone would particularly care about it, fwiw.

Tscherkassky, yes!

/I'd be tempted to only list movies from the last 20 years/

I wouldn't, bcz narrative filmmakers are kinda out of ideas.

Sorry, 18. Point taken.

BAD TIMING
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
NEWS FROM HOME
TASTE OF CHERRY
CALIFORNIA SPLIT
IN A YEAR WITH 13 MOONS
SHADOW OF A DOUBT
LIFE IS SWEET
DISHONORED
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
THE DEER HUNTER
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS (Schrader)
PERSONA (Bergman)
REPULSION (Polanski)
LA JETÉE (Marker)
STALKER (Tarkovsky)
LA RÈGLE DU JEU (Renoir)
MELANCHOLIA (von Trier)
LIQUID SKY (Tsukerman)
UNDER THE SKIN (Glazer)
THE WHITE BALLOON (Panahi)
ORPHÉE (Cocteau)
BLACK NARCISSUS (Powell and Pressburger)

Oh look, we only have three films in common! But one of them is Liquid Sky and that's what counts

2001: A Space Odyssey
Arabian Nights
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Hard To Be A God
Liquid Sky
Penda's Fen
Rear Window
Stalker
That Obscure Object Of Desire
The Rules Of The Game
Toni Erdmann
Watership Down

Penda's Fen! right on

ty ty but as is clear, tt is the film expert in our house

yes Eric, you see more recent greatness than I do*, that's why youre still in the arena

*do you? really? I can't even call Certified Copy great. It's... enough already.

I don't understand why you *wouldn't* make an idiosyncratic list

Mishima is more or less my favourite movie so good work tt

A Brighter Summer Day
Lancelot Du Lac
Kiki's Delivery Service
Johnny Guitar
Le Rayon Vert
Late Autumn
Stray Dogs
Workers, Peasants
Rio Bravo
No Home Movie

prediction for the poll: the searchers falls out of top 10, a brighter summer day enters the top 30

Jeanne Dielmann should be top ten, more Akerman should enter the top 100

Are all your 'ballots' ordered? Mine's alphabetical

Good old Lancelot would be on my longer list, nice choice

Rewatched Andrei Rublev the other night and it's right up there

Andrei Rublev
Mishima
The Assassin
M or Mabuse the Gambler
For a Few Dollars More
Weekend
The Big Sleep
The Gospel According to St Matthew
Vertigo
Kikujiro

I dunno, top of my head, not ordered

Mine was attempted chronological. I only now realized I forgot A Matter of Life and Death. So delete either Boonmee or Amour Fou, I guess. Good thing I still have a couple of years.

Jeanne Dielmann should be top ten, more Akerman should enter the top 100

Les Rendez-vous d'Anna svp

If I'd put any thought in there'd probably be a P&P in there, Black Narcissus or The Red Shoes

News From Home and No Home Movie could as well

Eh, it'll change tomorrow/five minutes from now but fuckit:

Mulholland Drive (Lynch)
Tree of Life (Mallick)
Hausu (Obayashi)
Possession (Zulawski)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Altman)
Phantom of the Paradise (De Palma)
Stop Making Sense (Demme)
Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson)
The Innocents (Clayton)
Robot Monster (Tucker)

mine was unordered

Mine was unordered too, but yeah - Mishima pretty much top of the pack.

Le Rayon Vert v. close to making mine

I've watched Mishima more than any other film and I will never tire of it

Summer Hours
Vagabond
The Turin Horse
The Lady Eve
Los Olvidados
Early Summer
Dead Ringers
Certified Copy
Strangers on a Train
The Merchant of Four Seasons
Pandora's Box

Oh shit I missed out L'Age d'Or and an Ozu to be decided

Late Spring?

Rublev and The Assassin are amazing to me in their ability/attempts to recreate the texture of the past, presentation of other worlds without trying to mediate them for modernity. Really love King Hu's Legend of the Mountain for similar reasons. They are transportive in amazing ways.

oh what the hell

Sunrise
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Grave of the Fireflies
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna
Inland Empire
The Long Goodbye
Stalker
Point Blank
The Thin Blue Line
Audition

this is a ludicrous mind game

New board/life description

Making lists is an art form

That's the basic premise of this thread, yup.

He put his own movie on there?

Tsai ming-liang put Goodbye Dragon Inn on his last sight and sound ballot too

A justifiable move.

2001: A Space Odyssey
Last Year at Marienbad
8 1/2
Apocalypse Now
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
It’s a Wonderful Life
Blade Runner
In the Mood for Love
The Red Shoes
Andrei Rublev

What the hell is "the Kubrick Quartet"? Any block of four seems like a pretty arbitrary categorization.

Was wondering the same. Also, no Altman on PTA's list?

I didn't even notice that. What a dick!

prefers John Krasinski

I'm something like 98% sure this list of movies wasn't generated from the prompt "name your all-time favorite movies, PTA."

Warming considerably to PTA over here.

I googled the phrase and the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque had a program called A Stanley Kubrick Quartet in January. Killer's Kiss, The Killing, Barry Lyndon and Full Metal Jacket.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/paul-thomas-anderson-favorite-films-movies/

Allegedly the quartet is: Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, Full Metal Jacket, The Shining.

Which, madness.

He becomes even less the good Anderson

Regarding the conversation above re: canonization in film vs. music... I think film is inherently more democratic and universal because it has always been a popular art first. the cinema is a territory that a wider group of people share than any record store or venue. dozens upon dozens of sources and scenarios to see bands or hear their music: live concert, record store, friends bedroom, friends car, etc. but everyone m/l goes to the same movie theaters. there isn't as much aversion to "popular movies" as there is/was to "pop music" (and "popular movies" stretches from Star Wars to Schindler's List to They Shoot Horses, Don't They?). correct me if I'm wrong but I doubt many people ever said "I don't see popular movies" vs. "I don't listen to pop music."

So much of a musical education is actively seeking, groping in the dark, and discovering. One doesn't have to try as hard to seek out independent/arty/foreign cinema as say, a specific Wolf Eyes EP released in 2002. who would Bergman's equivalent be in the rockist canon? Lou Reed?
I agree that, at least in my experience, film fans are more open, convivial, and understanding than Fugazi punks or w/e

I'll give this a go, why not

HARD BOILED (Woo)
THE THIRD MAN (Reed)
BEAU TRAVAIL (Denis)
VERTIGO (Hitchcock)
LONDON (Keiller)
FUNNY GAMES (Haneke)
TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA (Friedkin)
TOTAL RECALL (Verhoeven)
AMERICAN PSYCHO (Harron)
THIS IS SPINAL TAP (Reiner)

American Psycho, ok flex on them

when Buttigieg was still in the race, I couldn't stop thinking of Patrick Bateman's "woke speech" early on in the movie & book.

My recollection of House of Games was great script and character actors, let down by the lead and cinematography/production design. I wouldn't mind a remake.

xp: Buttigieg + "Well, we have to end apartheid for one..." found its way onto my feed months ago...

PTA not having a Scorsese or Altman film on there is either comically brazen or comically delusional.

I thought The Master inclusion played the comic role.

Where is that list from, anyway? it's not his S&S ballot

I don't want to sound like I take umbrage or anything; as I said (or tried to say) above, lists are lists, and--to quote someone who's nowhere near my own--everyone has their reasons. I was just thinking of Magnolia in relation to Altman, and Boogie Nights in relation to Scorsese (he does list I Am Cuba, so he's not playing hide-and-seek with his influences).

that list reads like someone asked him what his favorite movies of the moment were. there's so much from the last couple years, anyway where did it come from

PTA not having a Scorsese or Altman film on there is either comically brazen or comically delusional.

― clemenza, Friday, 6 March 2020 23:36 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

qft

Should people like their influences?

He has more movies from 2017 than movies made before 1964

Not from 2017 on just from 2017

I had look up qft--yes, quantum field theory, that's exactly what I had in mind! I would think normally a director or writer or musician would like his or her influences? I mean, it's not a rule or anything, but it doesn't seem like a far-fetched assumption. Anyway, again, it really and truly doesn't bother me at all. Just caught my attention and seemed a little odd. Maybe Altman made his 35th favorite film and Scorsese his 36th. (Loved seeing Jaws there. Maybe he'll resurrect that franchise, with Joaquin Phoenix as Sheriff Brody.)

qft = quoted for truth

the list obviously isn't comprehensive

(Using my own detective skills, I actually thought it meant "quit fucking talking"...)

the list is just culled randomly by indiewire from interviews and comments over the years

https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/paul-thomas-anderson-favorite-films-movies/the-birdcage-1996-3/

a taste of honey (richardson, 1961)
chimes at midnight (welles, 1965)
vagabond (varda, 1985)
modern times (chaplin, 1936)
a girl walks home alone at night (amirpour, 2014)
2001: a space odyssey (kubrick, 1968)
valerie and her week of wonders (jireš, 1970)
daisies (chytilová, 1966)
his girl friday (hawks, 1940)
an angel at my table (campion, 1990)

Girl Walks etc is a powerful pick

i saw it for the first time just a few months ago and was blown away by how much i liked it. virtually a silent film for long stretches, but just incredibly visually powerful and haunting.

PTA establishing himself with films that ripped off Scorsese and Altman was comically brazen

(his recent Kubrick-Hitchcock phase is far more muted)

PTA has remained horny as well

Maybe now IS the time to do this!

yes

Yes. Yes.

I've been idly working on a list in anticipation.

I'm surprised by how much love Jeanne Dielman gets here and elsewhere. I watched in on youtube last week and thought it was 3 hrs 10 minutes of housewifery with a bit of messiness at the end. Anyway, here are mine:

The Wizard of Oz
Murmur of the Heart
Claire's Knee
Taxi Driver
Naked
Mulholland Drive
The Last Picture Show
The White Ribbon
Spirit of the Beehive
The Virgin Spring

Only seen most of those films once, so not too confident in one or two choices down at the bottom.

"3 hrs 10 minutes of housewifery with a bit of messiness at the end"

This should be on the DVD cover

Housewifery

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc
The Shining
Persona
In the Mood for Love
Citizen Kane
Close-up
Days of Heaven
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Rushmore
The Phantom Thread

I like your list cajunsunday. also like many others here

it's hard to choose all-time favorite films. the only thing I'm sure about is that 2001 and Taxi Driver would be at the top of my list

“what's exciting to me about making this list is how it can be used to communicate the crucial bigness of the medium, how many movements, genres, eras it's explored in just 125 or so years” (Eric H)

“I love list-making because doing so is a mix of instinct, posturing, and calculation” (Alfred)

I like these comments