Sight & Sound

[hearthesilence]

Honestly, though, I'm more surprised by some of the omissions than I am any of the inclusions. I mean, I figured Raging Bull would fall below Taxi Driver and Goodfellas as far as Scorsese films go, but to not even make the top 100? That's certainly unexpected. Ditto The Godfather Part II. In general, it seems like New American cinema didn't do nearly as well this time as it has in the past, but I suspect that may have been somewhat conscious given that era has already gotten its due and those films are not in any danger of becoming obscure.

I posted this here (probably when the last poll was published - Jesus, ten years goes by fast), but when the 2012 results came out, the immediate reaction I saw from those around me was how "guy-centric" the top ten seemed to be, leading one to sarcastically ask "where's Rocky?" It's partly why I find the seeming correction in this poll so delightful.

[reaky]

Jeanne Dielman being #1 but the 100 having no room for Hawks, Lubitsch or Sternberg is a triumph of theory over pleasure, and for me antithetical to what cinema is for.

[Noiretirc]

Where's my Lawrence Of Arabia?

There are certainly some surprises and piss-offs for me, but damn, it's still a great list.

[mhofmann]

I think Jeanne Dielman is a fantastic choice for the top 10, and I don't mind its top 1 spot at all either. Another truly wonderful addition: Meshes of the Afternoon.

But on the whole, many of the choices seem too, obvious for lack of a better word. Personally, I would have loved to see some more daring ones, as unlikely as they are to emerge from a consensus algorithm:
Forget about Portrait of a Lady on Fire. If there is just one film from the 2010s that deserved inclusion, it would be Peter Strickland's The Duke of Burgundy. Where is Żuławski if not in the top ranks? No Cronenberg at all? Where is Todd Haynes's masterpiece Safe? And so on, and so on.

[Beloved Aunt]

Why is Blue Velvet so canonized? It's probably Lynch's weakest writing or near to it (unless you let The Elephant Man into the field of contenders, and I have not seen Dune). I mean it has a lovely plot and some amazing, hilarious moments that you can point to, but I agree with Pauline Kael that a lot of the rest of the dialogue is very flat, close to or perhaps even reaching amateurishness. I would have picked Fire Walk with Me over any of his other films as the most profound emotionally, but I guess that just makes me a stupid millennial. Same goes for The Third Man as far as canonization according to me, it's another film that I like a lot but believe to be tres overrated. Honestly I prefer most of Graham Greene's fiction to this film. My main problem with it is that the film doesn't do such a great job of making evil seductive--Welles has his undeniable assets as a performer, but I think the performances of his that work best are when he's playing one of his fat, cartoonishly craven, ridiculous characters, rather than someone like Lime who, yes, is craven, but who also should be explored and illuminated well enough beyond such cartoonishness for this film to be what its cracked up to be. And Alida Valli, highly talented actress and beautiful, vampish woman though she clearly be, has a character who, perhaps curiously, seems intentionally meant to register on the viewer as kind of a drippy bitch when all is said and done, whose devotion to Lime is not only shitty but also pretty unattractive, almost risible--so there goes this character's chance of rescuing the film re: seductive evil-ness, which I would have thought necessary for a film such as this. Some critics really make it sound like Outcast of the Islands is the Carol Reed film that belongs on such a list, but I haven't seen it and its both hugely obscure and not a fashionable kind of film, so if there is going to be any Reed on the list, I get that it has to be The Third Man.

And if any old masters are to be kicked to the curb, surely they should be Max Ophuls and The Leopard (a pretty feeble film) (though they are just barely hanging on to the lower reaches of the list), and never Antonioni. Why isn't Blowup on this list? I guess it's gone out of fashion. Why is Taxi Driver on this list? Paul Schrader's a pretty weak screenwriter from what I've seen. Why Killer of Sheep and not vehemently To Sleep with Anger instead, when KoS has its would-be-important-film-list-disqualifying intermittent film-schoolishness in its style? Does Kos's characters impoverishment vs. TSwA's not-impoverished characters have anything to do with it? I have no idea, just asking. And why is there no Jonathan Demme on this list? Melvin and Howard, Citizens Band, and maybe even Something Wild are truly great, original, brilliant filmmaking. There is also no Manoel de Oliveira, no Inquietude ("this exquisite masterpiece"--Jonathan Rosenbaum), etc. Surely there is at least another few lists' worth, or maybe a lot more than that, i don't know, of films of the general quality and reputation, what there is of it, of Oliveira's best films in the world, but they'd all no doubt be more off the beaten track. I'm not really too dissatisfied with this list tho'.

[soundchaser]

Blue Velvet is among my least-favorite Lynches too, but it still has a lot of love in psychoanalytic schools of thought. Personally, I'm with you re: Fire Walk With Me.

[hearthesilence]

Jeanne Dielman being #1 but the 100 having no room for Hawks, Lubitsch or Sternberg is a triumph of theory over pleasure, and for me antithetical to what cinema is for.

No way, it's more wrong that Billy Wilder could have three films (including one of his most uneven IMHO) whereas Lubitsch could have none. As for Hawks and Sternberg, I could see them missing the 100 for prosaic reasons - I think their masterworks are pretty much on even plane and more likely to split any votes Hawks or Sternberg would get.

[soundchaser]

Lubitsch is probably also a victim of vote splitting. Which direction do you go in? Trouble in Paradise and Heaven Can Wait would both be somewhere in my list, and I imagine there are a few others people would pick.

[hearthesilence]

Lubitsch is probably also a victim of vote splitting. Which direction do you go in? Trouble in Paradise and Heaven Can Wait would both be somewhere in my list, and I imagine there are a few others people would pick.

Very true as well. I don't think he has one that towers above the others in terms of recognition.

But on the whole, many of the choices seem too, obvious for lack of a better word. Personally, I would have loved to see some more daring ones, as unlikely as they are to emerge from a consensus algorithm.

I kind of agree with this. There are far less surprises than I anticipated - like there's maybe a few more films from non-American or European countries than the last one.

[DarkImbecile]

Forget about Portrait of a Lady on Fire. If there is just one film from the 2010s that deserved inclusion, it would be Peter Strickland's The Duke of Burgundy.

Never been so torn between offering a (metaphorical) slap in the face or a high-five

[vsski]

Interesting to see people getting so worked up over this. For me any of these lists are questionable at best. Every year Wine Spectator publishes a list of the 100 best wines of the year and the top ones immediately get sold out everywhere. And yet that doesn’t mean that they are really the ones that most people like to drink even by the people who put the list together.
There is so much conjecture going into these lists and people often vote for something they think they should put in vs. what they really enjoyed.

I will continue to watch the films I like just like I continue to drink the wines I like, wether they are on any list or not.

[MV88]

I like Jeanne Dielman, but there's no denying it's an idiosyncratic #1. How much that matters is up to you, I suppose. I'd prefer something a LITTLE more crowd-pleasing, honestly, but then I think the worst part of the list is the dearth of musicals.

Ultimately, I think the real statement that seems to have been made by choosing Jeanne Dielman as the greatest film ever made probably won’t be interpreted as one of inclusion or diversification by most, but rather, to your point, as a critical rejection of populism. This is the “artsiest” list Sight & Sound has ever produced, with by FAR the least accessible choice for #1 they’ve ever made. To think there was a time when Citizen Kane was considered by many (casual moviegoers, not cinephiles) to be the ultimate “boring art film” largely because of Sight & Sound repeatedly naming it #1 now seems pretty laughable, especially now that it’s actually become one of the most accessible films in the top 10.

While I’m sure much will be said in some circles about how “woke” the list is, I think the bigger statement being made this time around may be that the critics who participated completely and thoroughly rejected any notion that a list of greatest films should make an effort to appeal even somewhat to casual moviegoers. Maybe it’s a just reaction to the current state of mainstream cinema, but yeah, there’s no way this list is going to be warmly received by anyone other than the sort of cinephiles who occupy spaces like this, as naming Jeanne Dielman the greatest film of all time might as well be a giant middle finger to anyone who insists a film should even be accessible to non-cinephiles, let alone enjoyable.

To be clear, I’m firmly in the pro-Jeanne Dielman camp and I adore Akerman in general, but I don’t know, considering the kind of publicity these lists get, it almost feels aggressive towards 99% of the people who will be looking at the results.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Why is Blue Velvet so canonized? It's probably Lynch's weakest writing or near to it (unless you let The Elephant Man into the field of contenders, and I have not seen Dune). I mean it has a lovely plot and some amazing, hilarious moments that you can point to, but I agree with Pauline Kael that a lot of the rest of the dialogue is very flat, close to or perhaps even reaching amateurishness. I would have picked Fire Walk with Me over any of his other films as the most profound emotionally, but I guess that just makes me a stupid millennial. Same goes for The Third Man as far as canonization according to me, it's another film that I like a lot but believe to be tres overrated. Honestly I prefer most of Graham Greene's fiction to this film. My main problem with it is that the film doesn't do such a great job of making evil seductive--Welles has his undeniable assets as a performer, but I think the performances of his that work best are when he's playing one of his fat, cartoonishly craven, ridiculous characters, rather than someone like Lime who, yes, is craven, but who also should be explored and illuminated well enough beyond such cartoonishness for this film to be what its cracked up to be. And Alida Valli, highly talented actress and beautiful, vampish woman though she clearly be, has a character who, perhaps curiously, seems intentionally meant to register on the viewer as kind of a drippy bitch when all is said and done, whose devotion to Lime is not only shitty but also pretty unattractive, almost risible--so there goes this character's chance of rescuing the film re: seductive evil-ness, which I would have thought necessary for a film such as this. Some critics really make it sound like Outcast of the Islands is the Carol Reed film that belongs on such a list, but I haven't seen it and its both hugely obscure and not a fashionable kind of film, so if there is going to be any Reed on the list, I get that it has to be The Third Man.

And if any old masters are to be kicked to the curb, surely they should be Max Ophuls and The Leopard (a pretty feeble film) (though they are just barely hanging on to the lower reaches of the list), and never Antonioni. Why isn't Blowup on this list? I guess it's gone out of fashion. Why is Taxi Driver on this list? Paul Schrader's a pretty weak screenwriter from what I've seen. Why Killer of Sheep and not vehemently To Sleep with Anger instead, when KoS has its would-be-important-film-list-disqualifying intermittent film-schoolishness in its style? Does Kos's characters impoverishment vs. TSwA's not-impoverished characters have anything to do with it? I have no idea, just asking. And why is there no Jonathan Demme on this list? Melvin and Howard, Citizens Band, and maybe even Something Wild are truly great, original, brilliant filmmaking. There is also no Manoel de Oliveira, no Inquietude ("this exquisite masterpiece"--Jonathan Rosenbaum), etc. Surely there is at least another few lists' worth, or maybe a lot more than that, i don't know, of films of the general quality and reputation, what there is of it, of Oliveira's best films in the world, but they'd all no doubt be more off the beaten track. I'm not really too dissatisfied with this list tho'.

The Fallen Idol is Reed/Greene's masterpiece IMO.

[John Cope]

Why is Blue Velvet so canonized? It's probably Lynch's weakest writing or near to it (unless you let The Elephant Man into the field of contenders, and I have not seen Dune). I mean it has a lovely plot and some amazing, hilarious moments that you can point to, but I agree with Pauline Kael that a lot of the rest of the dialogue is very flat, close to or perhaps even reaching amateurishness. I would have picked Fire Walk with Me over any of his other films as the most profound emotionally, but I guess that just makes me a stupid millennial.

I actually consider Blue Velvet and Fire Walk with Me to be Lynch's best films (along with Dune which I never expect anyone to agree with me on), closely followed by the pilot first episode to the original Twin Peaks and the "Tricks" episode of Hotel Room. Anyway, if you'll forgive a little self-promotion, here's an extended explanation as to why I place Blue Velvet so high. I've always liked a critical quote I read on this long ago from someone somewhere which basically amounted to, "Eraserhead only seems more difficult" (or mysterious or complex--something like that).

There is also no Manoel de Oliveira, no Inquietude ("this exquisite masterpiece"--Jonathan Rosenbaum), etc. Surely there is at least another few lists' worth, or maybe a lot more than that, i don't know, of films of the general quality and reputation, what there is of it, of Oliveira's best films in the world, but they'd all no doubt be more off the beaten track. I'm not really too dissatisfied with this list tho'.

Yeah, the lack of Oliveira really got to me for obvious and not surprising reasons I guess. Of course I would have a hell of a time limiting myself to just one representative film of his (though I'm sure that would be Vale Abraão). Also feeling the lack of both Malick and Angelopoulos. My own list though would have skewed heavily toward nothing but idiosyncratic outliers I suppose; films like Jost's All the Vermeers in New York, Bidgood's Pink Narcissus and Bernt Capra's Mindwalk or, if you want a properly cinematic meta reflection, Richard Rush's The Stunt Man. As to the bias toward "recency", I would only dispute the selections as I would have included Ceylan, Costa and Ferrara instead.

[Walter Kurtz]

I don't get the love for JD23-1080 or the hate for Portrait of A. Haenel.

JD was okay until it turned into an action/comedy at the end. I've never been a fan of cheap theatrics. At least its remake (Nymphomaniac) had a little BDSM.

Portrait is an infinitely better film... no... make that infinity times infinity... and has one of my favorite endings of all time.

[soundchaser]

I like Jeanne Dielman, but there's no denying it's an idiosyncratic #1. How much that matters is up to you, I suppose. I'd prefer something a LITTLE more crowd-pleasing, honestly, but then I think the worst part of the list is the dearth of musicals.

Ultimately, I think the real statement that seems to have been made by choosing Jeanne Dielman as the greatest film ever made probably won’t be interpreted as one of inclusion or diversification by most, but rather, to your point, as a critical rejection of populism.
…
To be clear, I’m firmly in the pro-Jeanne Dielman camp and I adore Akerman in general, but I don’t know, considering the kind of publicity these lists get, it almost feels aggressive towards 99% of the people who will be looking at the results.

Which is why they should have split the difference and crowned Ishtar.

(Great post, by the way.)

[bottlesofsmoke]

Lubitsch is probably also a victim of vote splitting. Which direction do you go in? Trouble in Paradise and Heaven Can Wait would both be somewhere in my list, and I imagine there are a few others people would pick.

I thought there might be a chance that Preston Sturges would get a film in too, as I’ve seen nothing but praise for him and his movies in recent years and most are on Blu-ray (though not some of the very best, imo) but this also might be a case of vote splitting, heck I’m not even sure which of his films I would pick, same with Lubitsch and Hawks.

Also only one American western on the list, Rio Bravo and The Wild Bunch having fallen out.

[bad future]

Jeanne Dielman at #1 definitely sends some messages, but many of them (e.g. "theory trumps pleasure," "if you can't hang with this as your intro to serious film then get off my lawn" etc) probably aren't ones anyone consciously decided to send. I would be surprised if many who included it in their 10 had any idea it could come out ahead of Kane and Vertigo, and imagine many stuck it in their list along with The Apartment and Singin' in the Rain or whatever to make their list feel more respectable or representational, maybe their one concession to such austere formalism, and didn't realize it would be such a consensus pick for that purpose. But of course, everything that would make it such a common pick is rightly conveyed by its placement, just magnified more than most planned on.

I also get the feeling that a bunch of people who voted for Portrait of a Lady on Fire as a "one for me" sentimental pick of a recent favorite with no chance might rather change their vote now than defend or answer for it being declared the 30th greatest film of all time, similar to my suspicions about some of the recent unpopular Best Picture upsets. I predict it'll fall precipitously next go-around because no one will want to be part of *that* embarrassment. Or, who knows, maybe the backlash will be brief but it'll enjoy 10 years of young cinephiles discovering it alongside L'Atalante and La Règle du jeu and its canon status will be taken as given.

[yoloswegmaster]

Apparently the individual lists (which are infinitely more interesting than the combined lists) is going to be released next month.

[therewillbeblus]

Apparently the individual lists (which are infinitely more interesting than the combined lists) is going to be released next month.

Hmm maybe if we get some stats like this, Grasshopper will do the right thing

[spectre]

While it's not the film of hers I would have chosen (Je, tu, il, elle was in my own top ten), I'm pretty happy with something by Akerman at no. 1 – and Jeanne Dielman is an exceptional and important film, as worthy of its place in the list as any of its predecessors.

Here's hoping this encourages whoever is planning to release her various 1980s/1990s films on disc to get a bit of a move on.

[TMDaines]

You’d get a far better answer to the question this poll looks to serve if nobody asked was ever able to share their ballot, and voters could vote for 25 or 50 films rather than 10. Particularly now with the pressure to be seen to support diversity and representation, you are going to get a number of films being prime targets for ticking public-facing boxes, leaving fewer slots for the previous canon.

[Maltic]

Any idea as to why Blade Runner is so high (#55)? I was suprised to find it was quite high on the 2012 list as well (#69)

You don't have The Thing, The Fly, Alien, Robocop, T2 etc.

[John Cope]

Any idea as to why Blade Runner is so high (#55)? I was suprised to find it was quite high on the 2012 list as well (#69)

You don't have The Thing, The Fly, Alien, Robocop, T2 etc.

I think it deserves to be that high and I actually think it's better than any of those.

[domino harvey]

I also get the feeling that a bunch of people who voted for Portrait of a Lady on Fire as a "one for me" sentimental pick of a recent favorite with no chance might rather change their vote now than defend or answer for it being declared the 30th greatest film of all time, similar to my suspicions about some of the recent unpopular Best Picture upsets. I predict it'll fall precipitously next go-around because no one will want to be part of *that* embarrassment. Or, who knows, maybe the backlash will be brief but it'll enjoy 10 years of young cinephiles discovering it alongside L'Atalante and La Règle du jeu and its canon status will be taken as given.

I mean, while I didn’t like it as much as most did, Sciamma’s film is the best film directed by a woman on the list (which I don’t find a helpful metric for or against anything) and one where I can see the “instant classic” appeal. I’d find it ranking number 1 a lot more defensible than the current resident, and it’s my turn to be surprised that this is one of the rankings to get some pushback here!

Recency bias in one sense is annoying, but show of hands for everyone: regardless of original release date, how many of your favorite films of all time did you see for the first time within the last ten years? It’s not that different than that, so