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

Bunuel perceived as too contemptuous of humanity (poss similar to Altman).

what's the highest Jerry Lewis?

Third Man all the way down in the 80s, sounds like. (Also apparently the highest-ranking British movie?)

Bunuel perceived as too contemptuous of humanity (poss similar to Altman).

Crix prefer ignorant of (i.e. Kubrick, Coppola)?

No Polanski, which is probably not all that surprising...guessing maybe 20 votes for Chinatown?

well 2001 is arguably Kubrick's most optimistic film. o i c what you did there

Kubrick and Coppola at their best have a good handle on humanity at its worst

I'm guessing that Chinatown doesn't resonate as much outside of America?

OK, for the top 50:

IN
14. Apocalypse Now
15. Late Spring
17. Persona
24. In the Mood for Love
28. Mulholland Dr.
29. Stalker
35. Jeanne Dielman...
35. Satantango
41. Journey to Italy
42. Gertrud
42. Play Time
42. Close Up
48. The Battle of Algiers
48. Histoire(s) du Cinema
50. La Jetee

OUT

15. Touch of Evil
19. Jules et Jim
24. M
24. The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums
27. Barry Lyndon
27. Les Enfants du Paradis
27. Ivan the Terrible
27. Wild Strawberries
35. Fanny and Alexander
35. Le Grande Illusion
35. The Magnificent Ambersons
35. Modern Times
35. The Seventh Seal
35. The Third Man
45. Blade Runner
45. Greed
45. Intolerance
45. Lawrence of Arabia
45. Letter from an Unknown Woman
45. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
45. Rio Bravo
45. Sansho Dayu
45. The Travelling Players
45. Two or Three Things I Know About Her

Discrepancy in number in/out because, due to ties, the 2002 list is really a top 60 and the 2012 list is really a top 52. Also there's an extra Godfather in the 2012 list.

Interesting that Persona came back so strongly when three other Bergmans dropped off.

i'd be delighted to see 'chimes' in the top 5 even but it'll never happen, thanks to whatever welles estate nonsense has kept it from ever being released in the states.

i'm always kind of surprised that british films get completely shafted in this list, apart from 'third man.'

xpost to self
No complaints here, since I prefer it to Strawberries and Seventh Seal anyway. (Haven't seen Fanny & Alexander.)

24. M
27. Barry Lyndon
27. Ivan the Terrible

You monsters!

Those filmmakers continue to hang onto Bicycle Thieves like a hungry child clinging to a cheesy piece of pizza.

nobody has use for griffith anymore, huh

Add Fassbinder to the list of directors not represented in the top 50.

I almost mentioned Griffith's absence much earlier--Intolerance was Top 10 on the first list--but I figured his fall from favor was easier to figure out than that of others (and probably happened two or three lists ago).

Yeah, I'm surprised Berlin Alexanderplatz wouldn't break through--can't blame length, with Shoah on there. Vote-splitting, I guess.

i guess some critics consider it to be TV

Was Godard's Histoire TV (or at last parts of it)?

On that note, how DID Shoah land so high?

All the Kael haters made a pact. (Just kidding--the video store I go to has it for a cheap weekly rental, so I've made a vow to watch it before I go back to work.)

I wonder if Sarris was able to submit a ballot--I think he'd been in poor health for a while.

i wonder how many ppl watch griffith films just for pleasure these days -- i admire his films but they're not something i want to revisit that often, whereas chaplin and keaton and eisenstein and murnau all seem endlessly fresh.

Anyway, given current conditions and the weight of history, the top 30 placings of In the Mood for Love and Mulholland Dr. are basically the 2012 equivalent of L'aaventura placing #2 in 1962 imo.

What happened to the big Malick surge, specifically Tree of Life?

is there a malick in the 50 at all? expected to see tree of life in there. Jeanne Dielman in the top 40 is a very pleasant surprise.

John McCain was a big supporter of the Malick surge; General Petraeus, too.

man am i glad no malick ranked.

So the most recent movie in the top 10 is 2001: A Space Odyssey, which seems a bit ridiculous to me but whatever. I'd like to know whether it's because overall people voted more for older movies or whether there's just consensus over which are the best pre-1960 movies, but much less for afterwards. I guess it's probably a combination of both.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/aug/01/vertigo-film-critics-top-10?newsfeed=true

MALICK EATS @ CHIK-FIL-A!

Hoping a few more post-Y2K movies show up in slots 51-100, but pretty sure Tree of Life will not be one of them.

Perhaps it is the stunning success of the recent Oscar-winning The Artist that has triggered a new interest in silent movies

(From the link above) I'm all for mediocre art as a gateway to better art, but I really doubt this.

surely the Malick that would place would be either Badlands or Days of Heaven, not Tree of Life

Ebert put Tree of Life on his ballot, iirc.

Not crazy to imagine that others looking to slip a super-recent film in the mix would've gone in that direction, too.

i wonder how many ppl watch griffith films just for pleasure these days -- i admire his films but they're not something i want to revisit that often, whereas chaplin and keaton and eisenstein and murnau all seem endlessly fresh

Broken Blossoms is the only one I can rewatch tbh

On our last day my undergraduate film teacher, a boob in most respects, said she had a "surprise": she would show her print of Way Down East. The class looked catatonic.

Pleasure might be the thing going most in Griffith's favor, if all his other innovations have been refined/usurped.

What about Joe Weerasethakul? Wasn't he a reasonable guess for the Top 50?

In the little, petty victories column:

Keaton over Chaplin
Apocalypse Now over the Godfathers
Taxi Driver well over Raging Bull
Mulholland Dr. well over Blue Velvet

Joe may be a new Bunuel. You love one, you sort of love them all.

Keaton over Chaplin -- eh, narcissism of small differences
Apocalypse Now over the Godfathers -- concur with this
Taxi Driver well over Raging Bull -- ditto
Mulholland Dr. well over Blue Velvet -- basically detest both of them but BV is better

What's your pick for least essential? Mine: The Searches or 2001

I'll add a petty victory nobody cares about: The 400 Blows over Jules and Jim (I think the latter came reasonably close to the top 10 once).

my pick would be '8 1/2' -- i like fellini, but have never gotten the love for that one.

'the searchers' definitely has more all-out embarrassing stuff in it than anything else i've seen on the list: you could take out about 20 minutes of it without sacrificing anything decent. still riveting whenever wayne's on the screen.

least essential = obv vertigo

i was mildly surprised that 8 1/2 was so high on the critics list too - i always thought of it as a directors movie

As I said way upthread, 8-1/2 mystifies me. Not that La Dolce Vita is a favourite or anything, but I much preferred that the one time I saw it.