Sight & Sound

[senseabove]

La maman et la putain can easily be watched in 1080p, even without ever having had a bonafide Blu-ray release.

Though, for anyone getting jealous, this is just an old SD source in an HD container, like watching a VHS tape on an HD TV.

[GaryC]

Also, the easy availability of films always influences lists like this. So no one under 50 is going to vote for La maman et la putain because no one in the last 30 years has been able to see it.

I've seen it - and in the cinema in 35mm too. It last surfaced in the UK in 1997 when Artificial Eye reissued it. They also gave it a VHS release (don't think they did a DVD but could be wrong). So it's certainly possible that someone of my generation (I'm 57) or younger could have seen it, who wasn't old enough when it played in the 1970s.

[hearthesilence]

I think this was discussed in this forum ages ago (I recall participating) but increased availability and visibility do play a big role in the Sight & Sound poll historically. Like Vertigo was treading water until those famous batch of unavailable Hitchcock films were finally reissued, and that immediately landed the film into the upper echelons of the poll. The later restoration, flawed as it may be, helped exposure even more. The same with major restorations of L'Atalante and Sunrise - those films weren't widely available before, much less in excellent condition, and both films landed in the top ten in the very next poll following their restoration/revival. This was all before streaming took off, but still, just being available in some dark corner of some streaming service isn't enough. It's so common now to see up and coming filmmaker gush on IndieWire or Criterion's promotional materials (social media, etc.) about discovering a new film simply because of a new restoration or because Criterion put it out. I've been a huge fan of Beau Travail since more or less its release, and when Criterion brought it back on physical media, I can't tell you how many people I've met or heard talk about it non-stop as if it was this great re-discovery.

[domino harvey]

Also, the easy availability of films always influences lists like this. So no one under 50 is going to vote for La maman et la putain because no one in the last 30 years has been able to see it.

I've seen it - and in the cinema in 35mm too. It last surfaced in the UK in 1997 when Artificial Eye reissued it. They also gave it a VHS release (don't think they did a DVD but could be wrong). So it's certainly possible that someone of my generation (I'm 57) or younger could have seen it, who wasn't old enough when it played in the 1970s.

Before back channels, I saw it on a commercial VHS in college (mid 00s) via ILL, so it’s had releases

[swo17]

Nearly everything being readily available in at least some dark corner of the internet is a relatively new phenomenon, which probably only would have had an impact on the 2012 poll and now this one

[Dr Amicus]

After their Director specials, Sight and Sound are now changing focus to a historical period / movement with the first volume of The New Hollywood.

[Detective Arkadin]

It looks like the ballots for Sight & Sound's 2022 poll have finally been mailed out. Read this.

[Ovader]

After their Director specials, Sight and Sound are now changing focus to a historical period / movement with the first volume of The New Hollywood.

Sight and Sound Presents The New Hollywood Volume 2 is now available. Volume 1 is now out of stock

[MV88]

It looks like the ballots for Sight & Sound's 2022 poll have finally been mailed out. Read this.

I’m going to predict the top 10 will be some ordering of:

2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
8½ (Fellini)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
In the Mood for Love (Wong)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman)
Mulholland Dr. (Lynch)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
Persona (Bergman)
Tokyo Story (Ozu)
Vertigo (Hitchcock)

Also very real possibilities for the top 10:

Apocalypse Now (Coppola)
Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson)
Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
Beau travail (Denis)
A Brighter Summer Day (Yang)
Close-Up (Kiarostami)
Come and See (Klimov)
Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
Really any of the three most acclaimed Tarkovsky films (which is why I’m not predicting any of them to quite make the top 10; I’m not sure there’s enough of a consensus around any one of them to get that high up)

[isakorg2]

Like everyone else on this discussion board, in my idle moments I've conjured up what I consider the ten greatest films ever made. I have up to eight films that for me are undeniable, and then a last two that get changeable. There's only one of my films that has never made it on a S&S list. Is anyone out there as shocked as I am that nowhere on any of these world-wide polls has Children of Paradise, for me one of the greatest of films (even if Carne was not one of the greatest directors) in the French or any other cinema been recognized?

[hearthesilence]

I think I posted here during the last poll (Jesus, I can't believe it's been ten years already), but when the top results came in, I recall some friends laughing and saying it was very "guy-oriented," with one person facetiously asking "where's Rocky?"

[colinr0380]

The next Sight & Sound Presents special edition is The History of Horor Part 1: Vampires, compiled and curated by Kim Newman. Some interesting choices in there with a reprinting of a contemporary article on The Keep standing out and a nice double page reprint of Philip Strick's 1986 review of a re-release of Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires (and Black Sunday turns up elsewhere). Articles on Nosferatu and Vampyr are in there and a big mid-section focus on Guillermo del Toro's Cronos and the Blade series, which he directed the second entry of. Twilight is represented only by the first film, with much more emphasis on Trouble Every Day, Let The Right One In and its American remake. Paging twbb: The Addiction gets its contemporary review reproduced along with Amy Taubins mid-90s essay which notes its companion piece Nadja, which is a film that otherwise goes relatively unacknowledged. The most recent films that have their reviews reproduced are Only Lovers Left Alive from 2014, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night from 2014 and Carmilla from 2019.

(Coming soon: The History of Horror Part 2: Ghosts)

[MichaelB]

There's only one of my films that has never made it on a S&S list. Is anyone out there as shocked as I am that nowhere on any of these world-wide polls has Children of Paradise, for me one of the greatest of films (even if Carne was not one of the greatest directors) in the French or any other cinema been recognized?

It actually came in at number 73 on the 2012 S&S poll - although of course as Les Enfants du Paradis; I think it's only in the US where they insisted on translating it into English.

[Noiretirc]

December 1st.

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2022/1 ... 3bnb8uw4ru

[Maltic]

My 10 Greatest films of all-time: “The Godfather,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Vertigo,” “The Rules of the Game,” “The Searchers,” “Sunrise,” “L’Avventura,” “Mulholland Drive,” “Tree of Life” and “Bicycle Thieves,” all would all figure prominently on my final list.

"Prominently" how? You mentioned all your ten films, dude.

[Jack Kubrick]

3 days till the announcement are here. My final verdict before the results on Thursday.

--Vertigo either retains the Number 1 spot or loses momentum from another title. Tokyo Story or 2001 are the likely contestants to become the new crown champion of the esteemed poll.

--The Searchers will fall out of the top ten.

--Something from this century will crawl up in the top twenty. Mulholland Drive or In The Mood for Love would be my educated picks as being the the titles to crawl into higher positioning. Not going to say they'll be in the top ten but it wouldn't shock me to see them positioned at say 15th in the poll.

--Classical Hollywood is going to be out of favor among the taste makers, if the younger voting is to be believed with the intel. We'll see the Hitchcock, Wells, and to lesser degree Billy Wilder retain critical cred with the newcomers of the poll. Many other figures from the era, John Ford in particular, are going to be under represented in the ballots.

--The slow cinema filmmakers will have more prominence in the 250. Betting a Kiarostami will gain traction, as would Bela Tarr.

[bad future]

--The Searchers will fall out of the top ten.

--Classical Hollywood is going to be out of favor among the taste makers, if the younger voting is to be believed with the intel. We'll see the Hitchcock, Wells, and to lesser degree Billy Wilder retain critical cred with the newcomers of the poll. Many other figures from the era, John Ford in particular, are going to be under represented in the ballots.

FWIW in the (largely millennial, queer) parts of "film twitter" I lurk in, Ford seems to be among the most popular classic Hollywood guys -- I'd place him and also Hawks above Wilder in terms of my totally anecdotal observations. Not sure if that actually gives lie to your concept of what the incoming class will go for, though; I'm sure they're casting a wide net and if they're also soliciting lists from like, people who write listicles about A24 or whatever, then the portion of the demographic I feel like I have any insight on will be pretty diluted anyway. I also feel like maybe there's not as much of a consensus around The Searchers among younger Ford fans, so that could indeed fall.

--The slow cinema filmmakers will have more prominence in the 250. Betting a Kiarostami will gain traction, as would Bela Tarr.

I'm expecting Goodbye Dragon Inn to rise a good bit. Also maybe Akerman beyond just Jeanne Dielman, maybe News From Home?

Orrr all the new voters could barely move the needle and we're all disappointed! I'm going to have so much fun looking at the individual lists though

[MV88]

I'm expecting Goodbye Dragon Inn to rise a good bit. Also maybe Akerman beyond just Jeanne Dielman, maybe News From Home?

Taiwanese cinema in general will likely have a lot more representation on the list, and I actually wouldn’t be surprised at all to see one of Edward Yang’s films (probably A Brighter Summer Day) make it as far as the top 20.

As far as what will top the list, I think Vertigo will fall a few spots from last time. I don’t know, I just get the impression that it topping the 2012 list was more of a “ripping the bandaid off” move in terms of finally toppling Citizen Kane, and I don’t see it becoming anything close to a perennial choice for greatest film of all time. I predict 2001 will be #1 this time, although Tokyo Story wouldn’t surprise me either. I see those in the top two spots, with Vertigo and Citizen Kane in the 3 and 4 spots (not necessarily in that order).

I’m also gonna go out on a limb and say both of the assumed 21st Century favorites — Mulholland Dr. and In the Mood for Love — make the top 10. And I foresee several Lynch films in the top 100.

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

--The Searchers will fall out of the top ten.

--Classical Hollywood is going to be out of favor among the taste makers, if the younger voting is to be believed with the intel. We'll see the Hitchcock, Wells, and to lesser degree Billy Wilder retain critical cred with the newcomers of the poll. Many other figures from the era, John Ford in particular, are going to be under represented in the ballots.

FWIW in the (largely millennial, queer) parts of "film twitter" I lurk in, Ford seems to be among the most popular classic Hollywood guys -- I'd place him and also Hawks above Wilder in terms of my totally anecdotal observations. Not sure if that actually gives lie to your concept of what the incoming class will go for, though; I'm sure they're casting a wide net and if they're also soliciting lists from like, people who write listicles about A24 or whatever, then the portion of the demographic I feel like I have any insight on will be pretty diluted anyway. I also feel like maybe there's not as much of a consensus around The Searchers among younger Ford fans, so that could indeed fall.

Sounds like you follow me, lol. For what it's worth, I voted for a Ford, but it was not The Searchers. And from what I understand, the net is much wider and less strictly professional class than in earlier polls.

[MichaelB]

I think predictions are fairly pointless, because this is a radically different poll from previous ones - the sample size is much bigger, I suspect it's going to skew a fair bit younger, and they also made a conscious effort to significantly expand geographical coverage.

Marketa Lazarová is an interesting case, because it got only a tiny handful of votes in 2002 (Peter Hames being the only non-Czech voter), at a time when it was pretty much impossible to see outside its native country. Then the Second Run DVD came out in 2007, and by the 2012 poll it got enough votes to put it in the top 160, but the Criterion BD came out after that. So it'll be interesting to see if it's shifted again. (I voted for it in 2012 and 2022, but didn't participate in the 2002 poll - and even if I had done I wouldn't have voted for it because I hadn't seen it.)

[rrenault]

The bottom third or so of the top 100 was allegedly leaked in the comments on the blog World of Reel, but I'm not sure how reliable the source is:


https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2022/1 ... -time-poll

If this turns out to be accurate, Andrei Rublev and L'Avventura falling out of the top 50 would be the biggest surprise to me. Likewise Get Out and Parasite both cracking the top 100. Otherwise, it's nothing to pull one's teeth out over.

[colinr0380]

Taiwanese cinema in general will likely have a lot more representation on the list, and I actually wouldn’t be surprised at all to see one of Edward Yang’s films (probably A Brighter Summer Day) make it as far as the top 20.

I mean, beyond his work having obvious merit, and not condoning the crassness of using such a poll as a purely political tool, it would work as a great relatively 'safe' protest vote too. What could China do, stop Edward Yang from making any more films?

[MV88]

The bottom third or so of the top 100 was allegedly leaked in the comments on the blog World of Reel, but I'm not sure how reliable the source is:


https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2022/1 ... -time-poll

If this turns out to be accurate, Andrei Rublev and L'Avventura falling out of the top 50 would be the biggest surprise to me. Likewise Get Out and Parasite both cracking the top 100. Otherwise, it's nothing to pull one's teeth out over.

It seems like it probably is accurate given that the source cited is the BFI’s own upcoming series of screenings devoted to the new Sight & Sound top 100, although from what I can tell the part about all 35 “leaked” titles being from the bottom half of the list seems to be speculation. Still, Get Out in the top 100 is surprising. Parasite a bit less so even if I didn’t think it would get quite as high as the top 100. My Neighbor Totoro is another title that surprises me as I figured Spirited Away was probably the only animated film that might make the top 100, but I guess I underestimated how much Miyazaki’s stature has grown.

[Mr. Deltoid]

The bottom third or so of the top 100 was allegedly leaked in the comments on the blog World of Reel, but I'm not sure how reliable the source is:


https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2022/1 ... -time-poll

If this turns out to be accurate, Andrei Rublev and L'Avventura falling out of the top 50 would be the biggest surprise to me. Likewise Get Out and Parasite both cracking the top 100. Otherwise, it's nothing to pull one's teeth out over.

Get Out in the top 100? Oh lordy.

[Lemmy Caution]

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2022/1 ... -time-poll

Many regular moviegoers would have probably gone with "Psycho" or "North by Northwest" as Hitch's best, but “Vertigo” is truly his masterpiece, if you give it the time and effort needed to rank high up in your head. It’s one of the very few films I can think of that gets better with every viewing. I’ve seen it 5 times, all in theaters, refusing to watch it at home.

What a snobby condescending paragraph.