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

"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.