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

I love how everyone on Twitter is now using the phrase "word on the street" re: Vertigo usurping Kane.

word on the Vertigo street

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/pictures-michael-douglas-liberace-behind-candelabra-article-1.1125875

ok, in the alley, then

http://www.wisdomportal.com/Vertigo/FloristAlley188(658x460).jpg

Word on Lombard Street

There were three ladies, all in their 60s, talking about it this morning at the donut shop where I have coffee every day.

Can't wait for the instant "Hitchcock has a dozen films as good as Vertigo"/"Kane is kind of underrated" revisionism.

got a boost from ppl sharing Kim Novak's distaste for French soundtrack-pinching?

vertigo as no.1 was the final story on the BBC news this evening. so i take it we have confirmation.

Sight & Sound ‏@SightSoundmag
Anyone know how to do a half sign on an iPad?

BBC has broken the full results:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19078948

Citizen Kane not number one on either list!

Sad day...sort of, not really. Change is good. I don't have any major protective feelings about Kane, even though I much prefer it to its usurper. I do continue to find a 30-year trajectory from unavailable to greatest-film-ever-made strange.

Taxi Driver fifth on directors' list, wow.

hmmm...I thought The Passion of Joan of Arc made the cut fifty years ago?

Holy crap! Double backlash leads to two #2 ranks!

TBH, I'm having a way harder time wrapping my head around the directors picking Tokyo Story #1 over critics picking Vertigo.

In: Searchers, Man with a Movie Camera, Passion of Joan of Arc
Out: Godfather, Battleship Potemkin, Singin' in the Rain

(^Critix list)

is that The Mirror's first appearance on either one? p sure it would make mine.

My biggest gtfo is reserved for Apocalypse Now.

Where's Pulp Fiction?! wtf

First time ever that Potemkin hasn't been Top 10, I think.

Three out of 10 silents should quell some complaints...yes, I'm looking at you.

needs Keaton or Chaplin

Sea change at #1 aside, this might actually be the most ancient set of top 10 movies ever for S&S.

By a matter of a few years, on average, no doubt, but still.

movies are older than ever.

where are the Iranians?

You're right in terms of the gap: 33 years for the newest film on either list. (They've mis-dated Taxi Driver.) That gap has been widening with every new list; in 1972, it was six years.

Site seems down, but apparently their full top 50 is now online.

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