Which Sight & Sound all-time top 10 list is the best?

oh, I missed SITR.

my days of forcing myself to sit through 4 hour classics of silent cinema are over, but im also liable to enjoy a Tarkovsky or Dreyer film once in a while....for that matter, where's Andrei Rublev or Stalker? wtf Sight and Sound.

82, i guess. film canon lists are pretty dull

my days of forcing myself to sit through 4 hour classics of silent cinema are over

cinephilia is like catholicism; right now I'm lapsed, but I'm never not going to be a cinephile.

yes. I wonder how likely something like Killer of Sheep will be on the 2012 list. I think that and Apocalypse Now are likely to make big showings.

I voted 1982, that list makes me the happiest when I look at it.

is Tokyo Story still seen as the obligatory Ozu?

Poll I probably should've done: best of auteurs' "runner up" films on the latest S&S list, i.e.

Touch of Evil
Psycho
Grand Illusion
Barry Lyndon
Ivan the Terrible
La dolce vita
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Rashomon
Ordet
Contempt
The 400 Blows (!)
Ugetsu (!!)

It seems that Mizoguchi has for some reason been forgotten from the list of great directors, which is a real pity, so I gotta go for the 62 or 72 list for still including Ugetsu.

(x-post)

wasnt Rashomon ahead of Seven Samurai? I think i remember being pissed off by that. (i love SS)

Comparing the best in film across eras doesn't work any better than it does for baseball players.

It's easy to be "forgotten" when there's only room for ten!

I love mizoguchi, but i dont think the future lists will be kind to him, especially as stuff like The Godfather starts appearing.

where will the shawshank redemption place in '12?

It seems that Mizoguchi has for some reason been forgotten from the list of great directors, which is a real pity, so I gotta go for the 62 or 72 list for still including Ugetsu.

Yeah, I almost voted for 1972 for that reason.

Well, yeah, but in general I don't see Mizoguchi getting nearly as many mentions as Kurosawa or Ozu when talking about the greatest directors of all time, and it seems like he was held in higher regard in the 60s and 70s.

(x-post Morbius)

Which placing in the 2012 top twenty will Knocked Up land, Morbs?

"getting nearly as many mentions today"

re: Shawshank ... Only Anurag Mehta knows for sure.

Mizoguchi >>> Kurosawa

Mizoguchi has the same "problem" as Buñuel does in this format: too many masterpieces.

I dont even have much use for Kurosawa or Fellini apart from Seven Samurai and 8 1/2. it's kind of strange really.

lol shit i think a friend of mine works with anurag, or has. terrible list.

Yeah, it's amazing how Buñuel's the only Old Master who didn't once place a film.

I mean, really, is it possible to single one out? If it weren't for Vertigo's gothic gravitas, Hitchcock would almost assuredly be in the same position.

1972, Wild Strawberries

so what you will about boring canons, a lot of these movies are just fucking miracles to me.

wtf Searchers, explain yourself!

-- I know, right?, Wednesday, August 6, 2008 4:58 PM (32 minutes ago)

I think one problem with Mizoguchi is that he isn't nearly as "Western" as Kurosawa; his late career movies especially lack clear-cut moralities and are more ambivalent and open-ended than most Western movies of the era. This isn't to say that Kurosawa is any worse than Mizoguchi, though (I love them both), just that Mizoguchi probably isn't as easy to digest in the West.

David Thomson's beef with Kurosawa rests on this premise.

Anurag's list has a certain integrity until Jerry Maguire shows up!

In retrospect, I should've also included, as a poll option, Paul Schrader, if only as a joke. But that article ended up being the furor that never happened, in the end.

But you look at the lists from "non-Western" critics and you're more likely to see, if anything, an even more pronounced taste for Western movie values.

when will films from Iran/China/HK/Taiwan show up on S&S lists? Never, that's when.

Schrader reminds me: no Bresson on any of these lists.

(the mizoguchi/ozu vs kurosawa thing always struck me as a bit of a western "orientalist" bias)

xps are directed at you btw Soto

C'mon – Kiarostami will show up soon.

(xxpost)

In the category of "small victories," Close-Up managed something like four votes.

I bet something like Flowers of Shanghai will show up next time. maybe not top ten though.

Wong Kar Wai is in the process of dismantling any chance he once had of showing up on these lists isn't he.

Flowers of Shanghai's best chance was surely in '02, right? It had all the "greatest masterwork of the 1990s" hype still running fairly hot at that point. I rarely see much chatter about it these days.

yeah, you're probably right.

I like to check on the Senses of Cinema list once in a while, though I wish they made it longer than 10.

1. Vertigo(Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
2. Citizen Kane(Orson Welles, 1941)
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey(Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
4. 8½(Federico Fellini, 1963)
5. La Règle du jeu(Jean Renoir, 1939)
6. Tokyo Story(Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
7. Sunrise(F. W. Murnau, 1927)
8. Au Hasard, Balthazar(Robert Bresson, 1966)
9. Taxi Driver(Martin Scorsese, 1976)
10. La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc(Carl Dreyer, 1928

i am a bigger french new wave fan than most, but i am totally stunned by the lack of any godard or 400 blows, or resnais.

I am going with 72, for the silents and the inclusion of Persona. (even though i still would rather not have any fellini on a top ten list)

I really have to hope that Bresson will escape the Buñuel/Mizoguchi trap, and that enough consensus will settle on Balthazar, but my guess is not ... too many others will go for Pickpocket or A Man Escaped instead.

The only thing keeping me from wholly endorsing 1962 and that then-two-years-old movie landing at #2 is the presence of two Eisensteins (even if one, Ivan, is by far my favorite of his).

Apparently in 1962 nobody laughed at the movies.

I'm sort of surprised Resnais didn't managed to crack the top 10 in '62, then.

L'avventura seems to be the only movie to crack the top ten relatively soon after it's release.

'92, bcz it has Vigo, Ray & Dreyer on it, and no Coppola, 8-1/2 or Singin'.

otm plus no avventurzzzzzzzzz....

i love L'avventura but i'd rank The Passenger over it.

I think I am voting '92 too for no Felini although I wish Singing in the Rain was.

I'm as upset as anyone that Ugetsu has been phased out of the top 10 out of the past few decades since it is, to my tastes, far greater than anything Kurosawa has done; perhaps my favorite film as of now. Yet aside from that "Western" / non-Western thing, I read an interesting article somewhere describing Mizoguchi's works & aesthetic as being more classically feminine or concerned with the feminine, as opposed to the obsession-with-the-masculine that Kurosawa exhibited, that has resonated with (mostly male) film critics.

I wonder how different these lists would be if you *weren't* able to see your peers' rankings, and all voting would remain unpublished & anonymous....

Here is the "combined list" of the critics AND directors' rankings, the Top 50 - it is really cool to check out the entire shebang here, since I find it to be the most important/comprehensive list of world cinema on the net so far that doesn't seem all arbitrary (like that 1001 Films website thing) - and yes, I'd have to like to join this let's-watch club (but they started it in 2002, and as you can see from the last page of the board, they're still goin' at it!)

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/movies-theatrical/107091-sight-sound-2002-greatest-films-club.html

Rank Title Director Year

1 Citizen Kane Welles 1941
2 Vertigo Hitchcock 1958
3 Rules of the Game Renoir 1939
4 8 ½ Fellini 1963
5 2001: A Space Odyssey Kubrick 1968
6 Tokyo Story Ozu 1953
7 Godfather Part II, The Coppola 1974
8 Seven Samurai Kurosawa 1954
9 Rashomon Kurosawa 1950
10 Battleship Potemkin Eisenstein 1925
10 Singin' in the Rain Donen/Kelly 1952
12 Sunrise Murnau 1927
13 Searchers, The Ford 1956
14 Lawrence of Arabia Lean 1962
15 Godfather, The Coppola 1972
16 Bicycle Thieves, The De Sica 1948
16 Dolce Vita, La Fellini 1960
16 Passion of Joan of Arc, The Dreyer 1928
19 Avventura, L' Antonioni 1960
19 Breathless (A Bout de souffle) Godard 1960
19 Touch of Evil Welles 1958
22 Dr. Strangelove Kubrick 1964
22 Jules and Jim Truffaut 1962
22 Raging Bull Scorsese 1980
25 Atalante, L' Vigo 1934
25 Psycho Hitchcock 1960
25 Sunset Blvd. Wilder 1950
28 Fanny and Alexander Bergman 1982
28 General, The Keaton/Bruckman 1927
28 Godfather & Godfather Part II, The Coppola
1974
28 Mirror, The Tarkovsky 1975
28 Some Like it Hot Wilder 1959
33 Andrei Roublev Tarkovsky 1969
33 City Lights Chaplin 1931
33 Children of Paradise (Enfants du
Paradis) Carne 1945
33 Grand Illusion Renoir 1937
37 Apartment, The Wilder 1960
37 Apocalypse Now Coppola 1979
37 Au hasard Balthazar Bresson 1966
37 Pather Panchali Ray, Satyajit 1955
37 Seventh Seal, The Bergman 1955
37 Taxi Driver Scorsese 1976
43 Casablanca Curtiz 1942
43 Chinatown Polanski 1974
43 Contempt (Le Mepris) Godard 1963
43 Third Man, The Reed 1949
43 Ugetsu Monogatari Mizoguchi 1953
48 Ivan the Terrible Eisenstein 1947
48 Metropolis Lang 1927
50 400 Blows, The Truffaut 1959
50 Intolerance Griffith 1916
50 M Lang 1931
50 Ordet Dreyer 1955
50 Wild Strawberries Bergman 1957

Click on the link for the rest. The rankings all get tied at 226 and go no further, which simply means that a film got at least two mentions on this combined crit/director list. If a film isn't on this, it just isn't regarded yet - since there are many eyebrow raising selections on it

'52, cuz I like le million

I omitted lots of things from that original comment.

I'm very glad that Dutt's "Pyaasa" and "Kaagaz ke Phool" (both at 157) - and in particular Kamal Amrohi's stunning "Pakeezah" at 226 - all got the recognition that they did. There is much more to Indian cinema than the tokenist championing of Ray, Ray, Ray all the time (sigh, I view him as a European director)

It also makes me happy to note that "The Magnificent Ambersons" got so much love in the 70s & 80s despite the ultimate supremacy of Kane. It would be nice to see it regain popularity but like Ugetsu the peak of its attention is probably long gone, never to return again

2001 is a genre movie? Moreso if you slice off the CaveApes and Bowman's Hotel Room, yes? I think it's "top-ten material," but I feel that way about whichever of four Kubricks I've seen most recently.

The oddity about the silent-era tokenism is the way Eisenstein has outlasted Chaplin, who along with Griffith popularized cinema. The Great God Montage.

"Xala" literally put me to sleep, but the ending was memorable in its sickening way. I'd see it again as a curiosity

A few meandering bits, maybe, but what's wrong with "Xala"?! Apart from the points the narrative tries to make its very funny!

I read an interesting article somewhere describing Mizoguchi's works & aesthetic as being more classically feminine or concerned with the feminine, as opposed to the obsession-with-the-masculine that Kurosawa exhibited, that has resonated with (mostly male) film critics.

I'm not sure what a "feminine aesthetic" means, but his films definitely have feminist qualities, insofar as the majority of them have women as protagonists, and he is highly critical of their position in Japanese society. Also, his movies have more rounded, three-dimensional female characters than almost any other director of the era. I really love Ugetsu, but I think it might be telling that his best-known film is also one of his few major works with male protagonists.

i have a bit of a problem with the mizoguchi >>> kurosawa fad, tho the only kurosawa i'm really in love with is seven samurai (haven't seen ikiru yet, shameful i know) -- something about it just reeks of automatic contrarianism to me. the fact that there's more than one great japanese director (imagine that!) seems like poor grounds to denigrate kurosawa.

Most of the reaction against Kurosawa stems from years of overexposure, while Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse's barely got a release in the West. Kurosawa could certainly essay genres that the others couldn't. He failed more massively than the others because he was far more ambitious. He's the Tolstoy of Japanese cinema, I suppose.

kurosawa's liberal-huamanist sensibility and hotcha action also just goes down easier with western audiences i think. not that ozu or mizoguchi lack a liberal humanist sensibility, but it feels a little more specifically japanese where kurosawa felt like he was always going for broad appeal (hence all the western literary adaptations). i love kurosawa and wouldn't denigrate him at all. but i can definitely see a case for the greater rigor and depth of some of his contemporaries.

Kurosawa's films are so manly in comparison

But to be honest, I just love Ugetsu. I didn't care much for either Life of Oharu or The Geisha; still need to see Sansho the Bailiff

"-- something about it just reeks of automatic contrarianism to me. "

I wonder if that might've played a part in why some French New Wavers were so rah-rah-Mizoguchi in such a stentorian manner

Kurosawa and Mizoguchi are both among my favourite directors, I see no reason why you can't love them both. I was only noting the sad fact that Mizoguchi seems to be rather forgotten in the West these days, whereas Kurosawa is still a household name.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

wow so who suddenly decided KANE was great and why wasn't it considered *as* great in the 50s?

No one had seen it yet.

Manny Farber convincingly traces the influence of fifties on "serious" Hollywood film of the mid to late fifties.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I think the right year won.

off track but the s and sound get smart review was pretty funny

I saw it, In the cinema. like, paid money

booooooooooooo

jeez, sorry to offend your sensibilities morbs

i can't remember whether i voted in this thread but it's weird to look at the 1952 list and see how many of those selections basically disappeared from consideration by the next list -- no more chaplin, griffith, carne, flaherty, clair, even von stroheim. like a glimpse into a lost world.

it's also fascinating how FAST l'avventura jumped onto the 1962 list. i can't imagine any movie making it onto the list at all, let alone at no. 2, within two years of its release nowadays.

surely the answer is 1992

i can't imagine any movie making it onto the list at all, let alone at no. 2, within two years

make it four and prepare to be knocked for a loop by The Dark Knight

When I look at the six lists together (especially the last five), it's like looking at one of those 3D pictures where things come into focus gradually, if at all--they all blur together for me.

The '72 list had a huge effect on me: saw it in the Book of Lists in the late '70s, and it was so mysterious to me, all these films like Persona and L'Avventura that I'd never heard of--pre-internet, pre-video, pre-everything if you lived in a small town--I know it played a part in my decision to enroll in film at university, rather than math. One of the dumbest decisions of my life. Thanks Sight & Sound!

cinephilia is like catholicism; right now I'm lapsed, but I'm never not going to be a cinephile.

Haha. Um.

The durability of Potemkin amazes me. Even allowing for the fact that it's not my kind of film, it just doesn't strike me as something that would be on every list across six decades (and never lower than seventh).

Roger Ebert has picked just one new film to replace one old one on his 2002 Top 10 list http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012/04/the_greatest_films_of_all_time.html

A movie that was only his 3rd best movie of his year-end list for 2011.

I like that he almost went for Synecdoche, New York.

On another blog, he floated the horrifying possibility that JUNO was on the shortlist for that slot.