The results will be revealed in November 2022. 1,000+ people were invited to submit ballots in 2012. The organizers hope to double the participants this year with a focus on diversity and inclusion.

Vertigo supplanted Citizen Kane to top the list in 2012. Will Vertigo still be #1?

Feel free to post your GOAT films lists here. If y'all want to do our own OKP poll to be revealed in October/Nov/Dec, I'm down to organize and compile it.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/poll-position-kaned

Poll position: Kaned!

In 2012, our Greatest Films poll broke the internet. What will happen this time?

13 June 2022

By Kieron Corless

‘Kaned!’ That thumpingly comical coinage may well be my most abiding memory of 2012, the year Sight and Sound last did its once-a-decade Greatest Films of All Time poll. If you didn’t already know you might guess that it headlined a news story about Vertigo (1958) displacing Citizen Kane (1941) to take the number one spot; but it appeared in – of all places – the Sun, and not even online but in the actual newspaper!

I still shake my head incredulously when I cast my mind back to that moment. How did a poll in a supposedly elitist film magazine, sounding out a bunch of nerdy list-obsessed critics, end up being covered in a mass-market tabloid read by millions in the UK? As the S&S team gathers itself for this year’s next iteration of said poll, it seems apt to glance back to the 2012 editorial process which brought us to that strange but exciting pass.


Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Over the years, Sight and Sound had clearly been more instrumental than any other outlet in naturalising Citizen Kane as the greatest film ever made. The S&S poll started in 1952, with Bicycle Thieves (1948) in the top spot; that time round Citizen Kane narrowly missed making the top ten. It was voted best film ever for the first time in 1962 and then held that position for the next 50 years. As we began work in early 2012 on planning and putting together the invitation list, we were all determined on some changes; that this time around the poll should be much bigger and more fully international than ever, which clearly meant that the critical consensus might be subject to alteration – whether major or minor, it was impossible to say.

Apart from the then-editor, Nick James, and the features editor, James Bell, none of us on the 2012 editorial team had been at the magazine when the 2002 poll was held. But we all felt that, given the ongoing expansion and democratisation of film criticism on the internet and elsewhere in the intervening decade, and given the social media and other communication tools now at our disposal, we could and should be reaching out to a lot more critics than previously. Any lingering whiff of insidery cliquishness would be dispelled; the mood in the office was quietly iconoclastic.

In particular, we all recognised that the invitee list had to be much more diverse and as inclusive as possible. As well as a comprehensive geographical spread, we ideally wanted a 50/50 male/female split and strong coverage of all ethnicities and identity categories. In addition, we decided to expand the term ‘critic’ to include a range of cinema workers – curators, programmers, archivists, festival directors etc. To enable all this we needed a worldwide team of advisers to help us with contacts, not to mention an Excel spreadsheet. The process of gathering names took several months. It was a lot of fun but exhausting. What I imagined had once entailed phoning round a bunch of your film-festival mates to solicit their top-ten lists had now become akin to planning the Normandy landings.

The result came in and, blimey, did we have a story; but one we all had to keep secret for several weeks until we went public. The launch event at the BFI Southbank in London was packed, with Nick James doing a countdown of the top ten. There was a current of genuine shock and perplexity when Citizen Kane was announced as number two; then a furore of excited chatter after Vertigo’s enthronement. I was introduced to Penelope Houston, the legendary former editor of S&S, in the hubbub afterwards, who was airily, fabulously dismissive. “How could anyone think that’s the best film ever?” – she positively shuddered as she uttered those words.


Vertigo (1958)
Next day in the office things went ballistic. Sky, the BBC and other TV channels wanted to interview Nick James. The BFI’s head of press, Nick Mason Pearson, stuck his head round the door to tell us we were trending on Twitter. An hour later he did the same again; this time we were the top-trending topic on Twitter. People from all the over the word were emailing us about it. A friend in Israel told me it had just been on the TV there. Another in Buenos Aires had heard it on the radio news in Argentina. We were speechless, not to say euphoric. We’d hoped to make a bit of a splash but this had exceeded all our expectations. We were literally at the centre of an international media storm.

So how do you top that? More of the same essentially, but even bigger. We invited more than a thousand people last time; the ambition is to at least double that number in 2022. The authority of the S&S poll has always been underpinned by its longevity and deep roots. Our belief is that authority will be enhanced, rather than diminished, by a judiciously curated expansion of our invitee list. Of course all the same principles apply in terms of diversity and inclusion, but we’ll have to work hard to make that apparent in the final analysis. I’ve been approached by a dozen people so far who’d like to be included. That’s the good news. The bad news – they’re all male and all white!

All this may stir things up considerably. We could also see more 21st-century films given that we’re almost a quarter of the way into it by now. Could there be more films by women directors, more by Black directors? It would be good to see the white male hegemony shaken up a bit. But perhaps it’s wise not to make too many assumptions about voting patterns. Do LGBTQ+ cinephiles vote for more LGBTQ+ films, for example? Let the debate begin. The results will be unveiled later this year. Now, where did I put that spreadsheet?

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/poll-position-why-so-serious

Poll position: why so serious?

A list of Greatest Films hardly makes sense – so if we are going to make one, let’s have some fun.

20 June 2022

By Christina Newland

When the filmmaker and film historian Peter Bogdanovich was asked to take part in the 2012 Sight and Sound Greatest Films poll, he tried to make a top ten. And then he changed his mind: “There are so many wonderful pictures to see that to reduce them down to a top ten is a disservice to all the great work that has been done.”

Anyone set to compile their own voting ballot – particularly for a poll as historically powerful as this one – may sympathise with Bogdanovich’s demurral. How does one value the revolutionary jump-cutting of À bout de souffle (1960) over the creeping formalist discomfort of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)? The pastel-drenched melancholy of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) beneath the zig-zagging existential doom of Rashomon (1950)?


The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
The answer, really, is that you can’t. It’s fundamentally absurd to rank art. You can only try, in your own lopsided, subjective way, to fashion a list of ‘greatest films’ that you love and that, in turn, you want other people to see and love. Invariably you’ll be in a Sophie’s Choice situation with two titles at some point, or realise you haven’t included a film from a particularly rich national cinema or decade. The cinematic ABCs in the traditional Sight and Sound poll are enduring: Welles, Ozu, Fellini, Hitchcock. Since the poll’s inception in 1952, the rankings have only changed incrementally, and slowly. Citizen Kane (1941) remained number one from 1962 to 2012, when it was usurped by Vertigo (1958). It’s fair to say that people have laboured over their choices, knowing greatness is bestowed upon their picks. I would argue that maybe it’s time we take list-making a little bit less seriously.

A decade on from the last poll, we’ve lived through the presidency of Donald Trump, a global pandemic, the rise of #MeToo and the Black Lives Matter movement, and we’ve seen a new focus on gender equality and trans rights. Our shifting world has asked for a major rethink of the dominant capitalist, colonialist and racist power structures that exist in life as in cinema. The concept of ‘experts’ building a ‘canon’ and selecting films for their relative ‘greatness’ may have been well-suited to the patriarchal 1950s, but today it feels old-fashioned. The concept will need continual updating, pruning and renovating to remain relevant. Recognising the fundamental imperfection of the process – and having fun with it – might be key to that relevance.

No one has to love all of the stone-cold classics (I don’t), but in the omnivorous paradise of high and low film culture, there is still value in the utilitarian purpose of canon-building and list-making. Not because opinions are dealt out from on high, but because people may continue to seek out and learn from them. For educational purposes alone, it’s vital that we both hold on to the historical gems while continuing to build onto the existing canon. I’d love to see films like Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991) or Melvin Van Peebles’ groundbreaking Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) make it on to the poll.


Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Another of my hopes is to see an inclusion of younger films on this year’s aggregate. Few were under 40 years old in the last poll. Yet going further back, in 1952 Bicycle Thieves (1948) topped the poll and in 1962 L’avventura (1960) finished second. In 2022, backing recent masterpieces like Moonlight (2016), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), or Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) would provide some contemporary vibrancy to proceedings, not to mention a better chance for Black, queer and women filmmakers to make an impact on the poll.

Some resist the notion of list-making entirely, and this is understandable. Elena Gorfinkel, in her 2019 piece ‘Against Lists’, published in the feminist film journal Another Gaze, takes the view that in today’s ‘hyper-mediated moment’ list-making is fuelled by narcissism more than the urge to draw attention to great art. She may well be correct. There’s no small amount of egotism involved in being in the position to ‘canonise’ one’s taste or show it off in this way, but the opposite is also true: calls to tear down the canon often take perverse pleasure in attacking burnished classics, and require no less ego.

Our current moment has a broad tendency toward over-correction. Even assumptions of a so-called ‘critical consensus’ are often not borne out by the stats. Individual voters’ lists tend to burst with fascinating choices, sometimes films that attract only one vote in the entire poll; since 1962, no winner has ever been on more than 37 per cent of all the ballots. I expect this year’s poll to be even less homogenous and more disparate in its choices. And I think there’s a space for that which might not have been there back in 2012.

One of my favourite things about cinema culture of the past ten years – at least as I have experienced it – is that there’s been a voracious curiosity among young cinephiles which means that they might have seen 13 Going on 30 (2004) before 8½ (1963) but enjoyed both equally; that they binge-watch reality TV alongside screenings of rare Edgar G. Ulmer films; share torrents of Kore-eda films and stream Farrelly Brothers comedies. This kind of cultural omnivorousness might be just what’s needed to bridge the gap between the old canon and the new. My greatest hope for the 2022 poll is that people lean into what they wholeheartedly love, without reservation or calculation – that they stop taking it all so seriously. After all, it’s just a list.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/greatest-films-all-time/introduction

How we made the Greatest Films of All Time poll

The story behind the biggest ever edition of our celebrated poll of the world’s best movies.

Updated: 8 June 2021

By Nick James

Every ten years, Sight & Sound has conducted a worldwide poll of critics in order to decide which films are currently regarded as the greatest ever made. We’re proud that the longevity of this poll means that it’s widely regarded as the most trusted guide there is to the canon of cinema greats.

Back in 1952, Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist parable Bicycle Thieves won the first poll only four years after it was shot. In today’s era of digital plenitude, it’s hard to imagine how critics could be so sure they had recently seen the greatest film ever made, but of course in those days there were vastly fewer films to measure Bicycle Thieves against than there are today.

Famously, Citizen Kane won the next five polls, up to and including 2002. Orson Welles’s film had the disadvantage in 1952 of not yet having been seen by a lot of Europeans because of World War II. If they had been able to see it, it might even have won then. So for over half a century, Citizen Kane had been the critics’ all-time champion movie.

About a year before we published our 2012 poll, the S&S team met to consider how we could best approach the poll this time. Given the dominance of electronic media, what was immediately apparent was that we would have to abandon the somewhat elitist exclusivity with which contributors to the poll had been chosen in the past and reach out to a much wider international group of commentators. We were also keen to include among them critics who’d established their careers online rather than purely in print.

To that end we approached more than 1,000 critics, programmers, academics, distributors, writers and other cinephiles, and received (in time for the deadline) precisely 846 top-ten lists that between them mention a total of 2,045 different films. This makes the process a little more democratic, though I can’t pretend that the 1,000 or so individuals were selected by any more rigorous process than simple chains of recommendation. (The 2002 critics’ poll, by contrast, was based on just 145 lists.)

Each entry on each list counts as one vote for the film in question, so personal rankings within the individual top tens don’t matter. And one important rule change compared to 2002 was that The Godfather and The Godfather Part II would no longer be accepted as a single choice, since they were made as two separate films.


The Godfather Part II (1974)
As a qualification of what ‘greatest’ means, our invitation letter stated, “We leave that open to your interpretation. You might choose the ten films you feel are most important to film history, or the ten that represent the aesthetic pinnacles of achievement, or indeed the ten films that have had the biggest impact on your own view of cinema.”

What the increase in numbers has – and hasn’t – done was surprising. We had hopes that some 21st-century films might break into top-flight contention, but not so. Instead, what we have achieved is a consensus on what represents ‘great cinema’ that now has a greater force of numbers behind it. Another fascinating result is that we now have a plausible Sight & Sound Top 250.

Since 1992, we have also conducted a separate directors’ poll, which before 2012 had likewise had been dominated by Citizen Kane. Around 350 directors contributed this time, with some pronounced differences between the critics’ list and what we can now call the Directors’ 100 Greatest Films of All Time.

I want to know more of the big names I've missed before 2022. I'd def be down to put together my Top 100-- I've been casually attempting to do so over the pandemic. I'm up to *checks the list* 67 that I feel pretty sure would make my list, lol.

I remember that one podcast ep you did on which you kept bringing up Battleship Potemkin haha.

films from the critics list I had never seen at the time and have watched since then:

Tokyo Story (1953)
The Rules of the Game (1939)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
8½ (1963)
Breathless (1960)
Late Spring (1949)
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Persona (1966)
Mirror (1975)
L'Avventura (1960)
Ordet (1955)
Andrei Rublev (1966)
Stalker (1979)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
The General (1926)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
The 400 Blows (1959)
La Dolce Vita (1960)
Journey to Italy (1954)
Pierrot le Fou (1965)
Playtime (1967)
Close-Up (1990)
The Battle of Algiers (1966)
City Lights (1931)
Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Sansho Dayu (1954)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Modern Times (1936)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Pickpocket (1959)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Sans Soleil (1982)
A Man Escaped (1956)
The Third Man (1949)
L'eclisse (1962)
La Grande Illusion (1937)
Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
Imitation of Life (1959)

hope there are many more modern choices this time and more variety.

Which of those were you underwhelmed by?

The 21st Century compilation list by They Shoot Pictures Don't They might be a decent preview of which post-1999 films might rank. I haven't looked at their methodology and source data in years, tho.

absolute favorites:

8½ (1963)
La Dolce Vita (1960)
-- had never seen Fellini before, yet his work remains imaginatively brilliant some 60 years later

The 400 Blows (1959) -- masterpiece, perfect

Breathless (1960) -- went on a heavy New Wave Godard kick, Vivre Sa Vie is his best film but this one is still a standard

Ordet (1955) -- stunning by the end, becomes much more than it seems

Stalker (1979)
Andrei Rublev (1966)
Mirror (1975)
-- I believe I had only seen Solaris at the time of the last S&S list, but Stalker punched me in the face. that's a maybe top ten, for sure top 25 all-timer for me. Rublev is the only 4 hour movie I'd watch again. Mirror is a visual, dream-like masterpiece. definitely one of my favorite directors now.

L'Avventura (1960)
L'eclisse (1962)
-- another director I had never seen before, I ate these up along with the rest of Antonioni's filmography. L'Eclisse is by far my favorite, and one of my favs of all-time.

The Battle of Algiers (1966) -- holy shit, was this a documentary or film? amazing

Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) -- same as Algiers, so goddamn naturalistic and enthralling; had never seen any Herzog before this

The Third Man (1949) -- clearly a movie of its era but so damn good that it transcends it and is just as enjoyable today. best ending ever

***

worth watching:

Wild Strawberries (1957)
Persona (1966)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
-- Bergman can be a little much, although there's no doubt his films are special

La Grande Illusion (1937)
The Rules of the Game (1939)
-- liked them; I really can't imagine so many people think these two are among the top 5 or 10 movies made in cinematic history

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) -- intense! more Dreyer good stuff

Late Spring (1949)
Tokyo Story (1953)
-- Ozu is very meditative, I like him but I don't feel compelled to revisit his works. Hiroshi Teshigahara >>>>

Playtime (1967)
Close-Up (1990)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
The General (1926)
Pierrot le Fou (1965)
City Lights (1931)
Modern Times (1936)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Sans Soleil (1982)
Sansho Dayu (1954)

****

not a fan:

Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Pickpocket (1959)
A Man Escaped (1956)
-- Bresson is just not my thing; his films are dour to me

Blue Velvet (1986) -- not huge on Lynch

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Journey to Italy (1954)
Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
Imitation of Life (1959)

Stalker is top 10 all-time for me. Thoroughly stunned me the first time. The simple techniques AT used to create something otherworldly - utterly masterful. The ride into the zone - transfixing.

Since you liked Mirror, I highly recommend Yuri Norstein's Tale of Tales. 29 minutes. It's on Youtube.

Ozu is my guy. A truly experimental filmmaker in the narrative space with his own cinematic rules. On GP, I love it. His low camera height, the mathematical shot lengths, 360 degree staging/crossing the 180 degree line, the pillow shots, graphic matching/games/patterns, elliptical stroytelling, etc.

His 30s work is very different with lots of editing of shots of short duration, camera movement, and flashy imagery. His later color works might be my favorite period because while they were not comedies they were his funniest works. There's dark Ozu, too (e.g. Tokyo Twilight).

Renoir's innovations is commonplace now. Extensive use of deep staging (not deep focus) and long takes and preference for real locations. Proto-neorealist. Rules of the Game is elevated, rightfully so IMO, by its context of production and release in its geopolitical climate. Without the context, on stylistic merit, it's a film I'd choose to study and analyze if I were teaching film studies.

Off the top, my three favorite 3+ hr films: GF2, Celine and Julie Go Boating, and Jeanne Dielman.

If you're an Ozu fan, you feel pressured to vote for Tokyo Story to get him high on the list even if you rank it as your 9th or 10th favorite Ozu. One of the Godfathers would probably have cracked the top 5 in 2012 if its voters decided on I vs II to pool their votes.

This has led to some less ideal, I think, "definitive" titles for directors that have emerged from the S&S list over the years. I love Bergman but would never recommend Seventh Seal as a first watch, etc.

I'm not sure there's a better way to do it, but I do think it can lead to a more narrow range of directors' works than is ideal.

Good to see you as well.

And by white, I mean white writer/director, mainly white cast, etc?

the PTSD from most of my pre adult literary journey being dominated by dead white men makes me examine all art through that lens and how the homogeneous set is critiqued in relation to more diverse sources.

The organizers have noted an effort to be more diverse as far as participants. Hope this leads to more non-US films in the top. Looking at individual ballots is my favorite part of this whole thing.

Whole list is at this link: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time

Here's the Top 20, pulled from NYT:

1. “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” (Chantal Akerman, 1975)

2. “Vertigo” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

3. “Citizen Kane” (Orson Welles, 1941)

4. “Tokyo Story” (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)

5. “In the Mood for Love” (Wong Kar-wai, 2001)

6. “2001: A Space Odyssey” (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

7. “Beau Travail” (Claire Denis, 1998)

8. “Mulholland Drive” (David Lynch, 2001)

9. “Man With a Movie Camera” (Dziga Vertov, 1929)

10. “Singin’ in the Rain” (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1951)

11. “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans” (F.W. Murnau, 1927)

12. “The Godfather” (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)

13. “The Rules of the Game” (Jean Renoir, 1939)

14. “Cléo From 5 to 7” (Agnès Varda, 1962)

15. “The Searchers” (John Ford, 1956)

16. “Meshes of the Afternoon” (Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, 1943)

17. “Close-Up” (Abbas Kiarostami, 1989)

18. “Persona” (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)

19. “Apocalypse Now” (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

20. “Seven Samurai” (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)

But when I'm in the right mood I can do movies like this so I'll have to track this down.

*************************************

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#2dopebrothersandastackofwax

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Are you tired of seeing it always listed?

I only just watched it for the first time a few weeks ago but I get why it’s so highly regarded

surprised that so many people would put that movie at the top or in their top five. the top ten seems very "cover your ass" -- how many people alive in 2022 really would say that Citizen Kane is the best movie of all-time?

Barry Lyndon -- it's good, it's not better than most of 50 films ranked behind it

Pierrot le Fou and Contempt -- Godard was so productive in a short span that everyone gravitates to their favorites, but having four Godard films and *not* Vivre sa Vie is absolutely mental

Mulholland Dr -- really? this consistently is one of everyone's top ten favorite movies? or did everyone decide David Lynch must be on here and landed on this one

Fear Eats the Soul -- haven't dug deep into Fassbinder but I feel like he has a better choice than this

Close-Up -- not my favorite Kiarostami

The Rules of the Game -- thankfully no longer top ten, but still astronomically high

Why in the mood for love warrants number 5 position, or even the top 20?

Directors' list-
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/directors-100-greatest-films-all-time

Sometime in March, you can click on a movie and see who voted for it.

a fucking 18-hour TV series? how?

Alternatively, click on a film title on the ranked movie list and you'll see who voted for that film.

Ballots-
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time/all-voters

Scorsese voted for 15 films :)

2001: A Space Odyssey
1968 USA, United Kingdom

In the last decade, Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece has become the film I've seen the most times on the big screen. The reason I keep coming back is that the further we travel away from it in time and space, the more impressive it becomes. It was groundbreaking in its day, but if anything it's even more confounding now. When a docking spaceship is soundtracked by the Blue Danube, I'm in heaven. Will we ever see a major studio film like it again?

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
1966 Italy

It's appropriate that an Italian version of an American genre would give us filmmaking at its most operatic. Sergio Leone's marriage of visual storytelling with composer Ennio Morricone's score becomes utterly divine in this film's climax, elevating a scene of three men standing in a cemetery to transcendent art. It was one of the first movies I saw again once cinemas reopened during the pandemic and it left me reeling and levitating at the sheer beauty of cinema.

Psycho
1960 USA

Perhaps the most influential and indelible film of them all, with its then-shocking subversions of the genre becoming well-worn tropes ever since. Yet even sixty plus years later, it still has the power to hypnotize. And it’s not just the shower scene. Psycho lures you into a lucid dream from the first bleakly beautiful monochromatic frame.

Singin' in the Rain
1951 USA

Undeniably magical cinema, leaving every single audience member who watches it delighted and transported. It's fascinating that what is ostensibly both a satire of the tricky transitional period from silent films to talkies, and a celebration of the back catalogue of songs from that era, becomes perhaps the most famous Hollywood film of them all.

Don't Look Now
1973 United Kingdom, Italy

A horror masterpiece that marries its theme of precognition to the beguiling wonders of associative editing. Colours, shapes, patterns, action and sound all merge to create a beautifully nightmarish palindrome.

Taxi Driver
1976 USA

An existential trip into hell so vividly depicted that you are not only transfixed by the fates of the characters, but concerned for the wellbeing of everyone involved in the making of it. The enduring enigma of Taxi Driver is how such a dark and ugly spiral is so electrifyingly compelling, pulling the mesmerised viewer willingly into a waking nightmare.

Madame de...
1953 France, Italy

To only be dazzled by Max Ophüls’ exquisite Fabergé eggs of the screen is to deny not just their sincere emotional power but countless other facets as well. Madame De… is a film about love, loss and wild chance that is, all at once, romantic, playful, tragic, strikingly self-reflexive and (yes) about as ornate and breathtakingly elaborate as cinema gets.

An American Werewolf in London
1981 USA, United Kingdom

I'm fully expecting to be the only person to pick this film for their top ten and that would make it a more subjective choice as 'the greatest film of all time.' However, this would be denying the idea that a perfect movie is sometimes the result of sheer alchemy. It's not clear to me why a film that mixes comedy, horror, pathos, groundbreaking effects, vivid gore, terrific location work, inspired casting, Buñuel-inspired dream logic, moon related soundtrack choices and jokes about British TV would merit being the pinnacle of the art form, but I've never spent a more enjoyable 97 minutes at the cinema and that alone earns a place on my list.

Raising Arizona
1987 USA

Making comedy is hard. When a film is very funny, the word 'effortless' is often used. But this denies the fact that any great comedy is a Herculean task that requires screenwriting, performance, direction, composition, astute editing and, frankly, every department of the crew to hit a bullseye on a moving target. That Raising Arizona also features exceptional action raises that difficultly level to ‘insanely ambitious’. Let's please describe this, and any classic comedy, as 'supernaturally funny'.

Mad Max: Fury Road
2015 USA, Australia

We are in an era where most films released by major studios are so homogenised in their tone and execution that the use of the word 'content' to describe them feels sadly apt. And then, racing out of the desert, comes a wildcard masterpiece that is so idiosyncratic it seems miraculous that it even exists. George Miller's visual wonder of an action movie is both thrillingly modern and a glorious tribute to engines of pure cinema like The General and Stagecoach. We should all be grateful that this film was made at all.

Further remarks
While I am more than honoured to contribute to this list a second time, the joy of being asked again was immediately overwhelmed by searching questions of the differences between the objective and the subjective, greatest and favourite, as well as the pressures to change one’s list, so as not to just be the same person you were a decade ago, and the resulting pain of having to seemingly invalidate the films you threw off.

But of course, individual taste and any personal attachments are inherently subjective, so rather than wrestle with the ultimately incomparable merits of acknowledged classics, I found myself creating a list of films that were perfect in my eyes. The list could change tomorrow and feature a whole other ten films, but this is not any fickleness on my part. It's more due to the whole galaxy of other classics out there to enjoy, as this 100-strong list will no doubt prove.

Citizen Kane
1941 USA

I know it’s become a cliche to say Citizen Kane is the greatest movie ever made but it very well may still be true.

Not only is it groundbreaking for its visual approach but Citizen Kane is as gutsy a movie as you’ll ever see. Welles went after not only one of the biggest figures in media history in William Randolph Hearst but also the notion of consolidated power, extreme wealth, and the power of a media gone wrong to twist a nation. It all very nearly cost him his career.

Network
1976 USA

Funny, razor-sharp and maybe as prescient as any movie ever made, Network to me is everything cinema can be.

GONG FU
2004 Hong Kong, People's Republic of China

An explosion of raw imagination, action, comedy and romance like I have never seen before. I remember standing outside the theater with friends after seeing it and being speechless. It’s a reminder that with cinema you can do anything. There are no limits.

L'avventura
1960 Italy, France

We always forget we’re living in a way that hasn’t existed in the 300,000 years humans have been around. For the last 160 years we have something most people have never had; leisure time. And this movie illustrates how, without work and necessity to moor us to the earth, life becomes strange and detached.

Do the Right Thing
1989 USA

I have never been in a theater that felt more alive than when I saw Do The Right Thing. Race, class, rising temperatures, anger… It’s maybe the most American film ever made.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
1975 Belgium, France

Although not by any means a horror movie, I still have never felt more uncomfortable and tense watching a movie than when I saw this.

Almost every emotion lives underneath the dialogue and routines. And when they finally reveal themselves the ending is like 20 Hitchcock films rolled into one.

The Sound of Music
1965 USA

Yes the songs are incredible and the performances legendary but this is quietly a very subversive movie.

Fighting fascism with music and nature? Yes please.

Did the Baroness get a raw deal? Yes she did. This is still in my opinion the greatest movie musical ever made.

A Separation
2011 Iran

The ways in which an authoritarian society’s ripples of dysfunction trickle into the family in this movie are so well drawn and painful I almost felt like I was being slowly suffocated.

It’s an Iranian film yes, but I had no problem relating to it as an American.

Office Space
1999 USA

It’s been 23 years since this movie was released to mixed reviews and low box office numbers and it’s still the movie I watch if I want to laugh.

Office Space’s depiction of pre-fab, low pay, degrading Capitalism has gotten even better and more on point with age.

And Gary Cole’s depiction of a mid manager who thinks he rules the world is an all timer.

Blue Velvet
1986 USA

The morning after I watched this movie for the first time on VHS I immediately got up and put the tape in again to rewatch it because I was convinced I had dreamt it.

Further remarks
Top 10 lists are ridiculous. But very, very fun.

I can’t believe the 30 or 40 movies I didn’t include. No Fellini? How can that be?

One-vote wonders from the ballots for last year's poll. Chronological order-
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/lists/101-hidden-gems-greatest-films-youve-never-seen