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

No, I see 2001 sustaining its high rankings for the long haul now. Aside from being about the only acceptable excursion into "genre" here (along with Searchers), it's also in the last few decades come to stand in for the 1960s en toto.

i wonder what the first post-1980 film to make one of these top 10s will be. and when.

As a side note ...

Barry Lyndon holds up so much better than 2001 as K's masterpiece; no contest. How 2001 can't be seen as a somewhat dated, if mesmerizing, relic has always been beyond me...

Here is the bottom of hat list - all the movies that got at least two mentions to be tied at 226. More interesting, but parts are just as canonical rather than anti-canonical...

And "Topsy Turvy" ? Really ? From 1999, I believe that's the most recent film. I guess I need to watch it. I still haven't seen that Angelopoulos film from the year before either..

226 1900 Berolucci 1976
226 Accattone Pasolini 1961
226 African Queen, The Huston 1951
226 Age of Innocence Scorsese 1993
226 All that Heaven Allows Sirk 1956
226 And Life Goes On Kiarostami 1991
226 Angel Lubitsch 1937
226 Annie Hall Allen 1997
226 Apu Trilogy, The Ray, Satyajit 1959
226 Atanarjuat Kunuk 2001
226 Autumn Afternoon, An Ozu 1964
226 Baby Doll Kazan 1956
226 Bigger Than Life Ray, Nicholas 1956
226 Birth of a Nation, The Griffith 1915
226 Bob le flambeur Melville 1955
226 Bride of Frankenstein Whale 1935
226 Bringing up Baby Hawks 1938
226 Burnt by the Sun Mikhalkov 1994
226 Dames du Bois de Boulogne, Les Bresson 1945
226 Day of Wrath Dreyer 1943
226 Death in Venice Visconti 1971
226 Demoiselles de Rochefort, Les Demy/Varda
1967
226 Devils, The Russell 1971
226 Don't Look Back Pennebaker 1967
226 Double Life of Veronique, The Kieslowski
1993
226 Naked Childhood Pialat 1970
226 Eternity and a Day Angelopoulos 1998
226 Europa Von Trier 1991
226 F for Fake Welles 1976
226 Phantom of Liberty Bunuel 1974
226 Farewell My Concubine Chen 1993
226 Fargo Coens 1996
226 Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Meyer 1985
226 Woman Next Door, The Truffaut 1981
226 Fires Were Started Jennings 1943
226 Germany Year Zero Rossellini 1947
226 Godfather Trilogy, The Coppola 1992
226 Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Leone 1967
226 Great Expectations Lean 1947
226 Hate Kassovitz 1995
226 Hidden Fortress, The Kurosawa 1958
226 High and Low Kurosawa 1963
226 Hiroshima mon Amour Resnais 1959
226 Hotel Terminous: Klaus Barbie, His Life and
Times Ophuls, Marcel 1988
226 I vitelloni Fellini 1953
226 Red Desert, The Antonioni 1964
226 Lacombe Lucien Malle 1974
226 Lady Vanishes, The Hitchcock 1938
226 Lancelot of the Lake Bresson 1974
226 Last Laugh, The Murnau 1924
226 Last Picture Show, The Bogdanovich 1971
226 Limelight Chaplin 1952
226 Lola Demy 1961
226 Love Me Tonight Mamoulian 1932
226 Ludwig Visconti 1972
226 Make Way for Tomorrow McCarey 1937
226 Maltese Falcon, The Huston 1941
226 Masculin Feminin Godard 1986
226 Mean Streets Scorsese 1973
226 Meghe dhaka tara Ghatik 1960
226 Miracle in Milan De Sica 1951
226 Moment of Innocence, A Makhmalbaf 1996
226 My Neighbor Totoro Miyazaki 1988
226 Nanook of the North Flaherty 1922
226 Navigator, The Keaton 1924
226 Network Lumet 1976
226 Nights of Cabiria Fellini 1957
226 October Eisenstein 1927
226 Odd Man Out Reed 1947
226 Oedipus Rex Pasolini 1967
226 Orlando Potter 1992
226 Orphee Cocteau 1949
226 Pakeezah Amrohi 1975
226 Pandora's Box Pabst 1929
226 Day in the Country, A Renoir 1936
226 Passenger, The Antonioni 1975
226 Performance Roeg 1970
226 Puppetmaster Hou 1993
226 Red Shoes, The Powell/Pressburger 1948
226 Region Centrale, La Snow 1971
226 Remains of the Day, The Ivory 1993
226 Riff-Raff Loach 1990
226 Rosemary's Baby Polanski 1968
226 Round-Up, The Jancso 1965
226 Rue Cases-Negres, La Palcy 1983
226 Sacrifice, The Tarkovsky 1986
226 Salvatore Giuliano Rosi 1961
226 Scarlett Empress, The Von Sternberg 1934
226 Schindler's List Spielberg 1993
226 Shadows Cassavetes 1959
226 Shane Stevens 1953
226 She Wore a Yellow Ribbon Ford 1949
226 Shining, The Kubrick 1980
226 Short Cuts Altman 1993
226 Silences du palais, Les Tlati 1994
226 Steamboat Bill, Jr. Keaton/Reisner 1928
226 Still Life Saless 1974
226 Strangers on a Train Hitchcock 1951
226 Stray Dog Kurosawa 1949
226 Strike Eisenstein 1925
226 Thief of Bagdad, The Berger/Powell 1940
226 Thing from Another World, The Hawks/Nyby
1951
226 Three Colours Blue Kieslowski 1991
226 Time of Gypsies Kusterica 1988
226 Tingler, The Castle 1959
226 Shoot the Piano Player Truffaut 1960
226 To Be or Not ot Be Lubitsch 1942
226 To Sleep with Anger Burnett 1990
226 Topsy-Turvy Leigh 1999
226 Touch of Zen, A Hu 1969
226 Underground Kusterica 1995
226 Vampires, Les Feuillade 1915
226 Vampyr Dreyer 1932
226 Vidas Secas Dos Santos 1963
226 Weekend Godard 1967
226 Where is My Friend's House? Kiarostami 1987
226 White Heat Walsh 1949
226 Wind, The Sjostrom 1928
226 Woman under the Influence, A Cassavetes
1974
226 Xala Sembene 1975

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

it's also in the last few decades come to stand in for the 1960s en toto

because of all the sex, drugs and rock & roll?

"i wonder what the first post-1980 film to make one of these top 10s will be. and when."

Judging by the top 50 thing it'll be Fanny and Alexander.

And "Topsy Turvy" ? Really ?

i love that movie so much.

It's a good movie. Leigh's best?

i seem to remember Topsy Turvy got one vote at number 1 on someone's list?

no, 2 votes, no number ones.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/voted.php?film=Topsy-Turvy%20(Leigh)

Not the SDR&R, but rather the elliptical storytelling methods of Antonioni, Resnais, et al that have been all but eradicated from the S&S top 10 canon since 1972.

honestly, most of these films I wouldn't sit down and watch with pleasure. The exceptions: Renoir, Welles, Ozu, The General. The rest remind me of homework assignments.

that's just silly. none of these would be my top 10 list either, but the chaplin, vigo, fellini, bergman, kelly/donen. ford, kurosawa and mizoguchi choices are hardly a chore to sit through.

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.