Pretend you have a ballot for the 2022 edition of Sight & Sound's top 10 movies of all time list

Even those among us who, you know, actually may get one.

Pretend you have a ballot for the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's top 10 movies of all time list
Pick only one Sight and Sound Top Ten Poll.
Which Sight & Sound all-time top 10 list is the best?

Like how conservative or how totally idiosyncratic would you let your list get?

I'd be tempted to only list movies from the last 20 years, just because recent movies have been underrepresented since the 1972 poll.

I continue to wear out my favourite films--last time I watched Nashville, I knew I'd crossed the line (which doesn't mean I think it's any less great, I just lose that feeling of discovery or elation or whatever)--so I'd have to think about this. I know for sure Zodiac would be very high this time.

Based on my two ballots for Film Twitter's annual "SHMIGHT & SHMOUND" polls, I'd likely be culling from this shortlist:

MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (McCarey)
DAISY KENYON (Preminger)
UN CHANT D'AMOUR (Genet)
DUCK AMUCK (Jones)
THE LADIES' MAN (Lewis)
LA JETÉE (Marker)
UNSERE AFRIKAREISE (Kubelka)
FEMALE TROUBLE (Waters)
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (Hooper)
TANGO (Rybczynski)
A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY (Yang)
SHOWGIRLS (Verhoeven)
TASTE OF CHERRY (Kiarostami)
OUTER SPACE (Tscherkassky)
YI YI (Yang)
INLAND EMPIRE (Lynch)

Aside from there being no Sirk or Dreyer there.

THE LAST LAUGH (Murnau)
CITY LIGHTS (Chaplin)
THE MIRROR (Tarkovski)
JEANNE DIELMANN (Akermann)
HISTOIRE(S) DU CINEMA (Godard)
CLOSE UP (Kiarostami)
WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (Tarr)
UNCLE BOONMEE (Weerasethakul)
STRAY DOGS (Tsai)
AMOUR FOU (Haussner)

w/out thinking much, first draft;

SHERLOCK JUNIOR
DUCK SOUP
L'ATALANTE
THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK
FIRES ON THE PLAIN
THE LEOPARD
BLACK GIRL
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
TRISTANA
THE MIRROR
A MOMENT OF INNOCENCE
MULHOLLAND DR.

I'd be tempted to only list movies from the last 20 years

I wouldn't, bcz narrative filmmakers are kinda out of ideas.

A list of non-narrative filmmaking from the last 20 years would be awesome, though

Duck Amuck 💜

This reminds me of some ilx polls with 50 options, of which 32 each receive one vote and the poll winner receives two votes.

FIRES ON THE PLAIN

Good choice, but I was thinking The Burmese Harp would get my Ichikawa spot.

my list would be absolute nonsense

This reminds me of some ilx polls with 50 options, of which 32 each receive one vote and the poll winner receives two votes.

― A is for (Aimless), Monday, February 24, 2020

more like seeing ilxors' individual choices in the year-end polls, which I think is interesting

Duck Amuck 💜

― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Monday, February 24, 2020 2:49 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

The best film mentioned in this thread thus far.

really like Tscherkassky's Outer Space

alternate list bcz really, no Hitchcock on the last one

THE CROWD
LA CHIENNE
MODERN TIMES
LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN
EUROPA '51
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE
POINT BLANK
CHINATOWN
FOX AND HIS FRIENDS
MIKEY AND NICKY
THE KING OF COMEDY

idg Duck Amuck, or why anyone would particularly care about it, fwiw.

Tscherkassky, yes!

/I'd be tempted to only list movies from the last 20 years/

I wouldn't, bcz narrative filmmakers are kinda out of ideas.

Sorry, 18. Point taken.

BAD TIMING
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
NEWS FROM HOME
TASTE OF CHERRY
CALIFORNIA SPLIT
IN A YEAR WITH 13 MOONS
SHADOW OF A DOUBT
LIFE IS SWEET
DISHONORED
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
THE DEER HUNTER
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS (Schrader)
PERSONA (Bergman)
REPULSION (Polanski)
LA JETÉE (Marker)
STALKER (Tarkovsky)
LA RÈGLE DU JEU (Renoir)
MELANCHOLIA (von Trier)
LIQUID SKY (Tsukerman)
UNDER THE SKIN (Glazer)
THE WHITE BALLOON (Panahi)
ORPHÉE (Cocteau)
BLACK NARCISSUS (Powell and Pressburger)

Oh look, we only have three films in common! But one of them is Liquid Sky and that's what counts

2001: A Space Odyssey
Arabian Nights
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Hard To Be A God
Liquid Sky
Penda's Fen
Rear Window
Stalker
That Obscure Object Of Desire
The Rules Of The Game
Toni Erdmann
Watership Down

Penda's Fen! right on

ty ty but as is clear, tt is the film expert in our house

yes Eric, you see more recent greatness than I do*, that's why youre still in the arena

*do you? really? I can't even call Certified Copy great. It's... enough already.

I don't understand why you *wouldn't* make an idiosyncratic list

Mishima is more or less my favourite movie so good work tt

A Brighter Summer Day
Lancelot Du Lac
Kiki's Delivery Service
Johnny Guitar
Le Rayon Vert
Late Autumn
Stray Dogs
Workers, Peasants
Rio Bravo
No Home Movie

prediction for the poll: the searchers falls out of top 10, a brighter summer day enters the top 30

Jeanne Dielmann should be top ten, more Akerman should enter the top 100

Are all your 'ballots' ordered? Mine's alphabetical

Good old Lancelot would be on my longer list, nice choice

Rewatched Andrei Rublev the other night and it's right up there

Andrei Rublev
Mishima
The Assassin
M or Mabuse the Gambler
For a Few Dollars More
Weekend
The Big Sleep
The Gospel According to St Matthew
Vertigo
Kikujiro

I dunno, top of my head, not ordered

Mine was attempted chronological. I only now realized I forgot A Matter of Life and Death. So delete either Boonmee or Amour Fou, I guess. Good thing I still have a couple of years.

Jeanne Dielmann should be top ten, more Akerman should enter the top 100

Les Rendez-vous d'Anna svp

If I'd put any thought in there'd probably be a P&P in there, Black Narcissus or The Red Shoes

News From Home and No Home Movie could as well

Eh, it'll change tomorrow/five minutes from now but fuckit:

Mulholland Drive (Lynch)
Tree of Life (Mallick)
Hausu (Obayashi)
Possession (Zulawski)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Altman)
Phantom of the Paradise (De Palma)
Stop Making Sense (Demme)
Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson)
The Innocents (Clayton)
Robot Monster (Tucker)

mine was unordered

Mine was unordered too, but yeah - Mishima pretty much top of the pack.

Le Rayon Vert v. close to making mine

I've watched Mishima more than any other film and I will never tire of it

Summer Hours
Vagabond
The Turin Horse
The Lady Eve
Los Olvidados
Early Summer
Dead Ringers
Certified Copy
Strangers on a Train
The Merchant of Four Seasons
Pandora's Box

Oh shit I missed out L'Age d'Or and an Ozu to be decided

Late Spring?

Rublev and The Assassin are amazing to me in their ability/attempts to recreate the texture of the past, presentation of other worlds without trying to mediate them for modernity. Really love King Hu's Legend of the Mountain for similar reasons. They are transportive in amazing ways.

oh what the hell

Sunrise
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Grave of the Fireflies
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna
Inland Empire
The Long Goodbye
Stalker
Point Blank
The Thin Blue Line
Audition

this is a ludicrous mind game

New board/life description

(xposts) Fast Times is definitely an outlier--critics like it, but it just doesn't turn up on greatest-ever lists, certainly not ones meant as an overview (individual lists, sometimes).

1. Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg)

I'd save my Cronenberg slot for Crash, or maybe Cosmopolis, these days

It took the pandemic for me to re-evaluate Crash.

It's taking the end of civilization to make me recognize Cosmopolis as one of his (and the 2010s') greatest

Fast Times is definitely an outlier

Maybe I'm generalizing while thinking of Robin Wood, who loved it.

he also loved My Best Friend's Wedding

(xpost) Didn't know that...I've wanted to buy his '80s/Reagan-era movies book for a long time, but never found a reasonably priced copy. Haven't checked in a while, though.

He also loved Shame! But that never makes lists...till now.

Shame is top three Bergman for me.

Crime Wave (John Paizs, Canada)

There is one movie from 1985 called "Crime Wave" that I've seen, and it's not that one.

The films that had one vote.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/lists/101-hidden-gems-greatest-films-youve-never-seen

Some amazing stuff in that list

🤩

Allegedly, Labuza's list here is comprised of films that have only ever received a single vote across the entire history of the polls. There are some shockers in there (The Naked Spur and Fury, for starters)

For a project I was asked to put together a list of films I wanted to vote for that have only received a single vote in the entire history of Sight & Sound polls. Here's all the films I submitted, which makes for a pretty interesting list! pic.twitter.com/sFr8kGxJFa

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) December 4, 2023

watched Pickup on South Street last month, absolutely loved it and still think about scenes from it.
Come Drink With Me is a classic

PUT THIS IN MY EYEBALLS NOW!

57. Shepherds of Tusheti (1978)
Soso Chkhaidze, Georgia

It’s impossible to find a film that resembles Shepherds of Tusheti; it is cinema as pure as one could dream of. The film has a clear story but if you were to attempt to retell it, it would say nothing about the film; it has a clear cinematic language but if you were to describe it you would fail. The film is 240 minutes long and every second is simultaneously highly realistic and dreamlike. Just like astrophysics, it’s an attempt to look at the biggest things through the smallest ones, and vice versa.

I refuse to believe more people didn't vote for Ménilmontant.

Going to go on a YouTube hunt later. How many of those items are easily available.

I refuse to believe more people didn't vote for _Ménilmontant_.

Alec Guinness and Marlene Dietrich thought so too apparently.

But that could just be Wikinoise. IMDb says Alec Guinness’s favorite was actually Pierre Fresnay.

Whoa @ that 'one vote only ever' list. Uptight is fuckin' astounding, for a start. Come Drink With Me, Streets of Fire, Matinee, Fury...some major favorites of mine in there.

I might have voted for Night Nurse in the Morbsies poll here a couple of years back

All eight of the films I've seen on that list are worthy. On the other hand, I can see why film fans in general haven't seen or wouldn't be voting for the sixth-best Tarr or Assayas films.

Like L'eau froide didn't even get a vote in our Assayas poll here, how many would put in on a list of all-time greats?

The Other Two has absolutely ruined the title Night Nurse for me

Whoever voted for The Eiger Sanction was taking the piss

Is Night Nurse in that list? Didn’t finish reading it.

Seems like Night Nurse will alway be the bridesmaid to Baby Face, despite its own inherent quality.

BTW, the magazine's made available online all of Kevin B. Lee's absolutely top-notch data crunching analyses over the last year:

Tomorrow marks one year since the release of the #SightAndSoundPoll, which saw Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles take the top spot

We’re kicking of the celebrations by making every one of @alsolikelife’s Poll Position columns available to read online – see 🧵 pic.twitter.com/qpMDeLsIqf

— Sight and Sound magazine (@SightSoundmag) November 30, 2023

One more new one from KBL: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/poll-position-its-time-or-all-time

When S&S recapped the first decade of this century, it issued a list of 30 films that defined the 2000s, plus an editorial summarising the era’s prevailing trends and concepts (digitalisation, slow cinema). For the 2010s, the magazine discarded a ‘best films’ approach altogether, offering an alphabetical index alternating between individuals, themes and films (A for Ava DuVernay, B for Bridesmaids, C for class…). This broader lexicon gives a welcome view of cinema’s ecosystem beyond marquee titles. But it raises a question: in order to earn critical approval these days, must a film resonate with prevailing concerns and ideological frameworks? Does this signal a weakening of the appeal of the cinematic experience in a world obsessed with theme-driven discourse? Do concepts precede cinema?

Paul S. has found the fuel to keep his flame raging against the dying of the light for many years to come: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/gkmpWKLSjgHHHo9t/?mibextid=WiMSqg

It's that time of year again, the annual update of the top 1,000 movies at TSPDT:

https://theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm

Doesn't appear to be too many major changes after last year's massive S&S data dump, or even really minor changes.

Top Climbers within the 1,000
Paper Moon (1973), 841 to 738 (up 103)
My Own Private Idaho (1991), 725 to 640 (up 85)
Caro diario (1993), 975 to 897 (up 78)
Y tu mamá también (2001), 823 to 747 (up 76)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), 974 to 898 (up 76)

Highest Entrants into the 1,000
After Hours (1985), ranked 876
The Ice Storm (1997), ranked 942
Tabu (2012), ranked 949
Shaun of the Dead (2004), ranked 963
Summer with Monika (1953), ranked 966

Biggest Sliders within the 1,000
Russian Ark (2002), 497 to 548 (down 51)
Othello (1951), 916 to 961 (down 45)
Il Grido (1957), 681 to 725 (down 44)
Triumph of the Will (1935), 697 to 740 (down 43)
Arabian Nights (1974), 950 to 992 (down 42)

Biggest Sliders from the 1,000
The Long Farewell (1971), formerly ranked 932
Mother India (1957), formerly ranked 936
Not Reconciled (1965), formerly ranked 949
Elevator to the Gallows (1958), formerly ranked 963
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), formerly ranked 978

(Avatar is back in, *sigh*)

How they arrive at this:

In summary, here is an abbreviated breakdown of the 9,664 individual best-of/all-time ballots used (these are classified as A-Lists here), or if you like, from where I have begged, borrowed and stolen:

Sight & Sound 1952-2022 (4,100 ballots)
Rotten Tomatoes 2003-2023 (243 ballots) UPDATED
Senses of Cinema 2000-2007 (201 ballots)
Filmes do Chico 2005-2017 (194 ballots)
Kino Muzeum’s 2015 poll (183 ballots)
A.Frame 2020-2023 (147 ballots) NEW
Nickel Odeon 1994-1998 (136 ballots)
Positif’s 1991 & 2019 polls (132 ballots)
Time Out's 1995 poll (128 ballots)
La Cinetek 2014-2023 (123 ballots) UPDATED
Cinephilia's 2012 poll (121 ballots) UPDATED
Kinema Junpo 1989-2009 (113 ballots)
Your Movie Database (YMDB) Critics Corner 2002-2005 (102 ballots)
El Mundo's 1995 poll (100 ballots) UPDATED
PBS Independent Lens 2005-2008 (83 ballots)
Film-Magazine's (Iran) 2009 poll (82 ballots)
John Kobal Presents the Top 100 Movies (Book) (1988) (81 ballots)
Le CiNéMa Club 2015-2023 (79 ballots) UPDATED
Steadycam's 2007 poll (79 ballots)
Facets 2003-2008 (76 ballots)
Empire 1989-2020 (75 ballots)
The Cinematheque's Top 10 Project 2005-2009 (74 ballots)
One-Line Review's 2009 poll (69 ballots)
El Pais 2009-2010 (60 ballots)
HKCinema 2011-2022 (58 ballots)
Cut Insight 2012-2018 (53 ballots) UPDATED
Cinematheque Belgique's 1952 poll (54 ballots)
Cinema Review's 2002 poll (51 ballots)
Faróis do Cinema 2010-2015 (51 ballots)
Libre Journal du Cinéma's 2009 poll (50 ballots)
IONCINEMA.com 2009-2020 (50 ballots)
Plus 2,516 more ballots from a variety of other sources.

You should send them a link to the last ILX poll. I don't know if it's any less legitimate than some of those.

I'll (uncharacteristically) refrain from turning this into a new poll, but S&S's latest issue features what they're calling the 25 "films of the century" so far ... none of which are Portrait of a Lady on Fire or Moonlight or Parasite: https://letterboxd.com/bfi/list/sight-and-sounds-films-of-the-century/

The Gleaners and I (2000)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Divine Intervention (2002)
Oldboy (2003)
Anatomy of Hell (2004)
A History of Violence (2005)
Inland Empire (2006)
Unrelated (2007)
La Rabbia di Pasolini (2008)
Everyone Else (2009)
Attenberg (2010)
Bridesmaids (2011)
Barbara (2012)
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)
The Babadook (2014)
Cemetery of Splendor (2015)
Aquarius (2016)
Get Out (2017)
Kaala (2018)
This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (2019)
Self-Portrait: Window in 47KM (2019)
Petite Maman (2021)
Walk Up (2022)
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023)
The Human Surge 3 (2023)

Very sad that they overlooked The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

More seriously, I would have thought Zodiac or American Honey might have a chance at something like that. Bridesmaids? I didn't dislike it...

no room for them when they need to include melissa mccarthy farting movies

I think I assume Lucrecia Martel to be more canonical than she is because I was expecting to see one of hers in that list. Looking at the latest all time list zama & headless woman are both =196

ok list considering it's just 25 films chosen by 25 critics, want to read the justification for AI tho

25 different critics, that makes a little more sense.

That Suleiman film wouldn't have made the list a couple of years ago I don't think.

I don't mean that in a negative way, these things are always a snapshot of their time.

Unrelated and Everyone Else were good small-scale art films; I don't see the point of raising expectations unreasonably high by putting them on a list like this.

They need one film per year and they need them to not be too obvious.

ok list considering it's just 25 films chosen by 25 critics, want to read the justification for AI tho

Me too. Not because I'm skeptical, but rather because it's actually the key American film of the century thus far

bold claim! I don't think I've seen any discussion about it over the years, surprised at the idea of it casting any shadow tbh

I've got no problem with this list.

I remain a major skeptic of A History of Violence. Cosmopolis feels a lot closer to the times imho

It's a very quirky list. I assume each writer got to pick a film from one year.

I really liked Petit Maman, which in retrospect is a favorite Celine Sciamma film, and I'm happy to see it here.

I also love Weerasethakul's The Cemetery of Splendor. It is very mysterious and beautiful, and like with all of his films it is about the presence of a secret world that is masked behind the real one. Along with Tropical Malady and Uncle Boonmee I think it is in the top echelon of his films.

A make-shift hospital ward in an old schoolhouse is illuminated with eerie flourescent light poles that change colors to soothe the Thai soldiers there who affected with a sleeping sickness (I guess as a metaphor for the Thai government's ineptitude)

Apparently the past is also present, though. The hospital was built on the burial site of kings from thousands of years ago, and in another world the kings are sapping the energies of the soldiers in the ward to wage a battle

Twin princesses, first seen as figurines in a store but then as real beings, explain this to the protagonist, Jenjira Pongpas (who has fallen in love with a sleeping younger soldier) in a very surreal scene.

The hidden text gives away the plot, but it's not an exciting plot. Like with all of his films, not much happens but it is transfixing

Petit Maman is the the only Sciamma film I don't get.