Last month I wrote an article about how no one movie can be “The greatest movie of all time”. The idea being that how good a movie is, is far too subjective to be quantifiable, thus it is all a matter of opinion. This in itself wouldn’t be a problem but when take into account the variables, not to mention that opinions both differ and change the whole idea falls apart. While the point may have been lost in my esoteric ramblings, it did create a certain amount of discussion. At the time, I didn’t realise it was time for Sight and Sound to update its list of “The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time”
The list (compiled every ten years since its inception in 1962) was voted for by “A panel of 846 distributors, academics and critics” who each chose a top ten, 2,045 different films in total. The big news is that after 50 years, Citizen Kane has topped from the top spot by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. As I looked through the list all the usual thoughts came to mind: is 8½ really a top ten movie? My favorite Federico Fellini film is down at number 39. La Jetée is great and influential but 50 greatest of all time, really? Great to see Some Like It Hot on the list but why isn’t it in the top ten. Pleased but surprised to see Mulholland Dr. on the list. There is a lot of Andrei Tarkovsky on the list! Should I admit that I have never heard of Late Spring, Ugetsu monogatari or Close-Up? But all this speculation misses my own point. There is no such thing as The Greatest Film of All time, and therefore there can not be a top 50 greatest.
The list and the fact it has changed perfectly proves my point. None of the top ten movies was released since the last time the list was undated a decade ago. Actually only two of the top ten (Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968 and Federico Fellini‘s 8½ from 1963) where released since the list was first conceived in 1962. Have films suddenly got better or worse? The films haven’t changed, the audiences have. We often talk about films aging well or poorly, this isn’t true, the films are the same as they ever were, its is just our mindset or zeitgeist as we watch them. This also asks another question, why so few modern movies? Are old films really better than new ones? I am the first to defend older movies but firmly believe there have been good and bad movie made through the history of filmmaking. So why no place on the list? Are the voters to set in their ways or attached to the old films on the list to let them slip away in favour of something more modern? Do they feel a movie is like vintage wine and last to mature before being considered? Will the list in ten or twenty years be full of films from the 80’s and 90’s? I don’t know the answers, but to look for them would give undeserving credence to the idea that fifty films are better than all others, at least for the next ten years when they update their list again.
When a blogger writes a “best of” list, it is personal to them it is a list of their favourites or the best in their opinion, but when a collective is brought together to vote it appears to lend a certain credibility (like Oscar voters!!!), but this in itself creates problems. Philip French writes in today’s Observer about films that didn’t make the list “ Ingmar Bergman, too, has also been and gone, possibly because votes were divided between a string of his masterpieces. The same is true of the French new wave, with neither Truffaut nor Godard reaching the top 10”. French should know, he is one of the 846 critics who voted on the list. He goes on to talk about the films he voted for the first time he was asked to participate in 1972. The fact that he has changed his list over time says it all. When voting are people conscious that their choices may be published and they could be judged on them, you may feel The Man with Two Brains is the best comedy of all time but you will look more intellectual if you put La Règle du jeu on your list. So do the opinions of critics and film makers matter more than those of the audiences who watch them? Again it is a question I won’t answer but it is one worth thinking about. None of the Sight and Sound top ten appear in the top ten of the IMDB top 250, Empire top 500 or the Rotten Tomatoes top 100!
Back to the headline of Vertigo v Kane; for two films that have been around for so long Vertigo and Citizen Kane have seen a real change in opinion in recent years. I fell in love with Vertigo when I first saw it around twenty years ago, my opinion of it hasn’t changed. Even back then it wasn’t the most loved or appreciated of films. On the other hand Citizen Kane was still considered the greatest film of all time. It has seen a certain backlash in recent years, especially in the film blogging community. In some quarters it has become a badge of hour to say “I’ve never seen Citizen Kane”. This is a shame, as much as I have turned against the idea of definitive lists of THE best films of all time, I do think all film fans should see Citizen Kane if only for Gregg Toland’s stunning photography.
I have asked more questions than I have given answers but stand by my headline, it isn’t absurd that Vertigo is suddenly better than Citizen Kane, the absurdity lies in the concept of there being a top ten or a top fifty. It is more troubling that it is all taken so seriously, the fun is take out of the movies and the process of compiling a list. And that is my final point as much as I don’t like the idea of definitive best of lists, they can be fun to compile and if you take the fun away they are totally pointless.
* * * * *
How would you vote? Would you pick your favourite ten movies or would you try and be subjective and pick what you feel are “the best” films? The following guidance was given to the voters: “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.”
The Sight and Sound top ten for 2012 is:
- Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
- Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
- Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
- La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939)
- Sunrise (FW Murnau, 1927)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
- The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
- Man With a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
- The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1927)
- 8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
As of today, the top ten movies on the IMDB top 250 are:
- The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
- The Godfather (1972)
- The Godfather: Part II (1974)
- Pulp Fiction (1994)
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
- 12 Angry Men (1957)
- Schindler’s List (1993)
- The Dark Knight (2008)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
- Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The top ten on the Empire “ The 500 Greatest Movies of all Time” as voted for by “10,000 Empire readers (including me), 150 of Hollywood’s finest and 50 Key film critics” is:
- The Godfather (1972)
- Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)
- The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
- The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
- Jaws (1975)
- Goodfellas (1990)
- Apocalypse Now (1979)
- Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
- Pulp fiction (1994)
- Fight club (1999)
Fandango Groovers Movie Blog 
Agree, agree, agree! Movies don’t change–how can one suddenly be the greatest over another one once deemed the greatest?
The interesting thing about the lists you posted is that all the films on them are great films. Trying to come to a consensus over what constitutes the top 50 or 100 will never happen.
I wouldn’t try to put my own list of great films in order of greatest on down. To me, that’s an impossible task. Too many factors involved.
Alright, You’ve Inspired Me…
…I’m Gonna Have To Make My Own Personal Top 10 List Of Flicks.
I’m Not Sure About #2 Through #10, But #1 Will ALWAYS Be “KRULL”!!!
Best. Flick. Ever. Fo. Sho. 😉
-BRAD
Great link to The Observer article btw and good post once more
What I try to do is never lose sight of the subjective nature of my own lists. That’s why I steer clear of polls – as they are generally meaningless when all things are considered. IMDB, for example, often highlights the Movie of the Week as the Best Ever while Sight and Sound exhibits the collective elitist’s view as well as an average viewer age much higher than the “18 to 30” audiences making the studios mega rich.
The same people have been voting for Sight and Sounds list for many years. It’ll be interesting to see how that list changes, and it will, in 50 years time when those voting will be experiencing cinema as it is now.
I find it interesting comparing the Sight and Sound and Empire polls. Sight and Sound (average age of its readers, critics, academics = 50 to 70; films made between 1927 to 1968). Empire (average age of critics/readers = 20 to 40; films made – mainly – between 1972 and 1999). Sight and Sound readers/critics born in the 1940s/1950s. Empire readers/critics born in the 1970s/1980s. Perhaps a generational thing. But like you say, it is subjective, there’s no right or wrong answer.
[…] Sight and Sound Poll was released this past week and Andy Hart finds something unsettling and absurd about this sort of […]
Totally agreed. I scoffed at the people complaining about Vertigo overtaking Citizen Kane…As if a list somehow made Citizen Kane a lesser movie?
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I agree with your arguments, put your conclusion strikes me as odd. You think the Sight and Sound poll is absurd, even pointless, but your arguments, in my opinion, actually validate its importance.
Roger Ebert famously said that all lists of “greatest” movies are propaganda. Trust me, nobody understands this better than the critics who voted for the Sight and Sound 2012 poll. In fact, many of them, like Jonathan Rosenbaum, insisted in not voting for any of the movies they has voted for in previous polls, just to underline how nothing is definite when ranking the best of the best.
The point of the Sight and Sound poll is not to rank the definite and unquestionable “greatest”. It’s to inspire debate, characterize the changes in critical taste over the decades, and create a list that is representative of everything cinema has to offer. “Representative” is a key word. Citizen Kane is always high on the list not because its greatness is cemented beyond doubt, but because it represents attributes that most critics value and would like to see every movie aim for: ambition, vision, innovation, wit, etc…
The fact that Vertigo replaced Citizen Kane as #1 is not in any way a sign of the poll’s unreliability, but rather evidence that, like I said, critical taste changes over the decades, and reflecting, representing those changes is the poll’s intent. It also goes to show how this poll contributes to keep things fresh and dynamic, instead of stale and unchanging, which is the opposite of what you suggest when you say that “the fun is taken out of the movies”.
The voters and critics, I think, mostly share your opinion that it’s absurd to have a definite top ten or fifty. That’s why they like to shake things up by voting for obscure or less-recognizable movies (and almost every critic votes for at least one relatively obscure movie, as a way generate productive discussion). I think you’re interpreting the poll as a way of dogmatizing critic taste when, in fact, it attempts to do the opposite, hence Vertigo taking the throne for now, and the Man with the Movie Camera slipping into the top ten for the first time.
Anyways, I thought this was a great article. It really inspired me to discuss this subject.