Sight & Sound 2012 critics top 250 films

“by far the most respected of the countless polls of great movies—the only one most serious movie people take seriously.” Roger Ebert

In 2012 Sight & Sound magazine asked film critics from around the world to name their top 10 films and these votes were compiled into the published list of the top 250 films. There are actually 282 films due to some having the same number of votes.

1 Vertigo 1958 Alfred Hitchcock
2 Citizen Kane 1941 Orson Welles
3 Tôkyô monogatari 1953 Yasujirô Ozu
4 La règle du jeu 1939 Jean Renoir
5 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 1927 F.W. Murnau
6 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 Stanley Kubrick
7 The Searchers 1956 John Ford
8 Chelovek s kino-apparatom 1929 Dziga Vertov
9 La passion de Jeanne d’Arc 1928 Carl Theodor Dreyer
10 8½ 1963 Federico Fellini
11 Bronenosets Potemkin 1925 Sergei M. Eisenstein
12 L’Atalante 1934 Jean Vigo
13 Breathless 1960 Jean-Luc Godard
14 Apocalypse Now 1979 Francis Ford Coppola
15 Late Spring 1949 Yasujirô Ozu
16 Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 Robert Bresson
17 Shichinin no samurai 1954 Akira Kurosawa
(=17) Persona 1966 Ingmar Bergman
19 Zerkalo 1975 Andrei Tarkovsky
20 Singin’ in the Rain 1952 Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen
21 L’Avventura 1960 Michelangelo Antonioni
(=21) The Godfather 1972 Francis Ford Coppola
(=21) Contempt (Le Mepris) 1963 Jean-Luc Godard
24 Rashômon 1950 Akira Kurosawa
(=24) Ordet 1955 Carl Theodor Dreyer
(=24) Faa yeung nin wa 2000 Kar-Wai Wong
27 Andrey Rublev 1966 Andrei Tarkovsky
28 Mulholland Drive 2001 David Lynch
29 Stalker 1979 Andrei Tarkovsky
(=29) Shoah 1985 Claude Lanzmann
31 Taxi Driver 1976 Martin Scorsese
(=31) The Godfather: Part II 1974 Francis Ford Coppola
33 Ladri di biciclette 1948 Vittorio De Sica
34 Psycho 1960 Alfred Hitchcock
(=34) The General 1926 Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman
36 Satantango 1994 Béla Tarr
(=36) Metropolis 1927 Fritz Lang
(=36) Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles 1975 Chantal Akerman
39 La dolce vita 1960 Federico Fellini
(=39) Les quatre cents coups 1959 François Truffaut
41 Pather Panchali 1955 Satyajit Ray
(=41) Journey to Italy 1954 Roberto Rossellini
43 Pierrot Le Fou 1965 Jean-Luc Godard
(=43) Close-Up 1990 Abbas Kiarostami
(=43) Some Like It Hot 1959 Billy Wilder
(=43) Playtime 1967 Jacques Tati
(=43) Gertrud 1964 Carl Theodor Dreyer
48 Histoire(s) du cinéma 1989 Jean-Luc Godard
(=48) The Battle of Algiers 1966 Gillo Pontecorvo
50 City Lights 1931 Charles Chaplin
(=50) Ugetsu 1953 Kenji Mizoguchi
(=50) La Jetee 1962 Chris Marker
53 North By Northwest 1959 Alfred Hitchcock
(=53) Rear Window 1954 Alfred Hitchcock
(=53) Raging Bull 1980 Martin Scorsese




56 M 1931 Fritz Lang
57 The Leopard 1963 Luchino Visconti
(=57) Touch of Evil 1958 Orson Welles
59 Sherlock Jr. 1924 Buster Keaton
(=59) Barry Lyndon 1975 Stanley Kubrick
(=59) The Mother and the Whore 1973 Jean Eustache
(=59) Sansho the Bailiff 1954 Kenji Mizoguchi
63 Wild Strawberries 1957 Ingmar Bergman
(=63) Modern Times 1936 Charles Chaplin
(=63) Sunset Boulevard 1950 Billy Wilder
(=63) The Night of the Hunter 1955 Charles Laughton
(=63) Pickpocket 1959 Robert Bresson
(=63) Rio Bravo 1959 Howard Hawks
69 Blade Runner 1982 Ridley Scott
(=69) Blue Velvet 1986 David Lynch
(=69) Sans Soleil 1983 Chris Marker
(=69) A Man Escaped 1956 Robert Bresson
73 The Third Man 1949 Carol Reed
(=73) L’Eclisse 1962 Michelangelo Antonioni
(=73) Children of Paradise 1945 Marcel Carné
(=73) La Grande Illusion 1937 Jean Renoir
(=73) Nashville 1975 Robert Altman
78 Chinatown 1974 Roman Polanski
(=78) Beau Travail 1999 Claire Denis
(=78) C’era una volta il West 1968 Sergio Leone
81 The Magnificent Ambersons 1942 Robert Wise, Orson Welles, Fred Fleck
(=81) Lawrence of Arabia 1962 David Lean
(=81) The Spirit of the Beehive 1973 Víctor Erice
84 Fanny and Alexander 1982 Ingmar Bergman
(=84) Casablanca 1942 Michael Curtiz
(=84) The Color of Pomegranates 1969 Sergei Parajanov
(=84) Greed 1924 Erich von Stroheim
(=84) A Brighter Summer Day 1991 Edward Yang
(=84) The Wild Bunch 1969 Sam Peckinpah
90 A Day in the Country 1936 Jean Renoir
(=90) Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes 1972 Werner Herzog
(=90) A Matter of Life and Death 1946 Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
93 The Seventh Seal 1957 Ingmar Bergman
(=93) Un Chien Andalou 1929 Luis Buñuel
(=93) Intolerance 1916 D.W. Griffith
(=93) Yi Yi 2000 Edward Yang
(=93) Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943 Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
(=93) Touki Bouki 1973 Djibril Diop Mambéty
(=93) Ali: Fear Eats the Soul 1974 Rainer Werner Fassbinder
(=93) Imitation of Life 1959 Douglas Sirk
(=93) Earrings of Madame De. 1953 Max Ophüls




102 Wavelength 1967 Michael Snow
(=102) Il conformista 1970 Bernardo Bertolucci
(=102) The Travelling Players (O Thiasos) 1975 Theodoros Angelopoulos
(=102) Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 Alexander Hammid, Maya Deren
(=102) 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her 1967 Jean-Luc Godard
(=102) The Tree Of Life 2011 Terrence Malick
(=102) Ivan The Terrible 1944 Sergei M. Eisenstein
(=102) Last Year At Marienbad 1961 Alain Resnais
110 The Lady Eve 1941 Preston Sturges
(=110) The Young And The Damned 1950 Luis Buñuel
(=110) Bringing Up Baby 1938 Howard Hawks
(=110) Performance 1970 Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg
(=110) The Passenger 1975 Michelangelo Antonioni
(=110) Viridiana 1961 Luis Buñuel
(=110) L’Age D’Or 1930 Luis Buñuel
117 A Canterbury Tale 1944 Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
(=117) Mouchette 1967 Robert Bresson
(=117) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb 1964 Stanley Kubrick
(=117) Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau
(=117) The Red Shoes 1948 Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
(=117) Trouble in Paradise 1932 Ernst Lubitsch
(=117) A City of Sadness 1989 Hsiao-Hsien Hou
(=117) Amarcord 1973 Federico Fellini
(=117) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 1962 John Ford
(=117) Days of Heaven 1978 Terrence Malick
127 Spring in a Small Town 1948 Mu Fei
(=127) Do the Right Thing 1989 Spike Lee
(=127) Out 1, noli me tangere 1971 Jacques Rivette, Suzanne Schiffman
(=127) Tropical Malady 2004 Apichatpong Weerasethakul
(=127) The River 1951 Jean Renoir
(=127) Jules and Jim 1962 François Truffaut
(=127) Pulp Fiction 1994 Quentin Tarantino
(=127) Meet Me in St. Louis 1944 Vincente Minnelli
(=127) L’argent 1983 Robert Bresson
(=127) Ikiru 1952 Akira Kurosawa
(=127) Three Colors: Blue 1993 Krzysztof Kieslowski
(=127) Don’t Look Now 1973 Nicolas Roeg
(=127) Celine and Julie Go Boating 1974 Jacques Rivette
(=127) Annie Hall 1977 Woody Allen
(=127) The Apartment 1960 Billy Wilder
(=127) The Last Laugh 1924 F.W. Murnau
(=127) Hiroshima mon amour 1959 Alain Resnais
144 Blowup 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni
(=144) The Great Dictator 1940 Charles Chaplin
(=144) Memories of Underdevelopment 1968 Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
(=144) Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d’un curé de campagne) 1951 Robert Bresson
(=144) Chungking Express 1994 Kar-Wai Wong
(=144) To Be or Not to Be 1942 Ernst Lubitsch
(=144) A Woman Under the Influence 1974 John Cassavetes
(=144) Napoleon 1927 Abel Gance
(=144) Vivre sa Vie 1962 Jean-Luc Godard
(=144) The Wizard of Oz 1939 Mervyn LeRoy, George Cukor, King Vidor, Norman Taurog, Victor Fleming




154 Marketa Lazarova 1967 Frantisek Vlácil
(=154) Cache (Hidden) 2005 Michael Haneke
(=154) The Shining 1980 Stanley Kubrick
(=154) Solaris 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky
(=154) Chimes at Midnight 1965 Orson Welles
(=154) The Gold Rush 1925 Charles Chaplin
(=154) Letter From an Unknown Woman 1948 Max Ophüls
(=154) Brief Encounter 1945 David Lean
(=154) In a Lonely Place 1950 Nicholas Ray
(=154) Black Narcissus 1947 Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
(=154) My Neighbor Totoro 1988 Hayao Miyazaki
(=154) Only Angels Have Wings 1939 Howard Hawks
(=154) Vampyr 1932 Carl Theodor Dreyer
(=154) Come And See / Idi I Smotri 1985 Elem Klimov
(=154) Distant Voices, Still Lives 1988 Terence Davies
(=154) Once Upon a Time in America 1984 Sergio Leone
(=154) Cries and Whispers 1972 Ingmar Bergman
171 King Kong 1933 Ernest B. Schoedsack, Merian C. Cooper
(=171) Werckmeister Harmonies 2000 Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky
(=171) Star Wars: A New Hope 1977 George Lucas
(=171) Notorious 1946 Alfred Hitchcock
(=171) His Girl Friday 1940 Howard Hawks
(=171) Goodfellas 1990 Martin Scorsese
(=171) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964 Jacques Demy
(=171) A Trip to the Moon 1902 Georges Méliès
(=171) Sweet Smell Of Success 1957 Alexander Mackendrick
(=171) Kind Hearts And Coronets 1949 Robert Hamer
(=171) Tabu 1931 F.W. Murnau
(=171) Earth (Zemlya) 1930 Aleksandr Dovzhenko
183 Breaking the Waves 1996 Lars von Trier
(=183) The Grapes Of Wrath 1940 John Ford
(=183) Paris, Texas 1984 Wim Wenders
(=183) E.T.,The Extra-Terrestrial 1982 Steven Spielberg
(=183) Rome Open City 1945 Roberto Rossellini
(=183) Faces 1968 John Cassavetes
(=183) The Music Room 1958 Satyajit Ray
(=183) Zangiku monogatari 1939 Kenji Mizoguchi
(=183) A Touch of Zen 1971 King Hu
(=183) Listen to Britain 1942 Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister
(=183) Day of Wrath 1943 Carl Theodor Dreyer
(=183) The Thin Red Line 1998 Terrence Malick
(=183) Eraserhead 1977 David Lynch
(=183) The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 Tobe Hooper
(=183) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 1972 Luis Buñuel
(=183) The Conversation 1974 Francis Ford Coppola
(=183) Out Of The Past 1947 Jacques Tourneur
(=183) Otona no miru ehon – Umarete wa mita keredo 1932 Yasujirô Ozu
(=183) I Know Where I’m Going! 1945 Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger




202 The Death of Mr. Lazarescu 2005 Cristi Puiu
(=202) Red Desert 1964 Michelangelo Antonioni
(=202) Chelsea Girls 1966 Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey
(=202) Badlands 1973 Terrence Malick
(=202) Kings of the Road 1976 Wim Wenders
(=202) There Will Be Blood 2007 Paul Thomas Anderson
(=202) Wall-E 2008 Andrew Stanton
(=202) Berlin Alexanderplatz 1980
(=202) Videodrome 1983 David Cronenberg
(=202) Daisies (Sedmikrasky) 1966 Vera Chytilová
(=202) Loong Boonmee raleuk chat 2010 Apichatpong Weerasethakul
(=202) Manhattan 1979 Woody Allen
(=202) Cléo de 5 à 7 1962 Agnès Varda
(=202) Tie Xi Qu: West Of The Tracks 2002 Bing Wang
(=202) Russian Ark 2002 Aleksandr Sokurov
(=202) Skazka skazok 1979 Yuriy Norshteyn
(=202) Spirited Away 2001 Hayao Miyazaki, Kirk Wise
(=202) La strada 1954 Federico Fellini
(=202) Paisan 1946 Roberto Rossellini
(=202) The Shop Around the Corner 1940 Ernst Lubitsch
(=202) The Big Sleep 1946 Howard Hawks
(=202) Killer of Sheep 1978 Charles Burnett
(=202) Wanda 1970 Barbara Loden
(=202) Germany Year Zero 1948 Roberto Rossellini
(=202) The Life Of Oharu 1952 Kenji Mizoguchi
(=202) L’Armee Des Ombres 1969 Jean-Pierre Melville
(=202) Salo Or 120 Days of Sodom 1975 Pier Paolo Pasolini
(=202) Duck Soup 1933 Leo McCarey
(=202) The Devil, Probably 1977 Robert Bresson
(=202) The Turin Horse 2011 Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky
(=202) Love Streams 1984 John Cassavetes
(=202) The Exterminating Angel 1962 Luis Buñuel
(=202) Ukigumo (Floating Clouds) 1955 Mikio Naruse
235 The Piano 1993 Jane Campion
(=235) Gone with the Wind 1939 Sam Wood, George Cukor, Victor Fleming
(=235) Melancholia 2011 Lars von Trier
(=235) The House Is Black 1963 Forugh Farrokhzad
(=235) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920 Robert Wiene
(=235) Red River 1948 Arthur Rosson, Howard Hawks
(=235) A Clockwork Orange 1971 Stanley Kubrick
(=235) Two-Lane Blacktop 1971 Monte Hellman
(=235) An Autumn Afternoon 1962 Yasujirô Ozu
(=235) The Thin Blue Line 1988 Errol Morris
(=235) Apur Sansar 1959 Satyajit Ray
(=235) The Testament of Dr. Mabuse 1933 Fritz Lang
(=235) My Darling Clementine 1946 John Ford
(=235) The Double Life of Veronique 1991 Krzysztof Kieslowski
(=235) Kes 1969 Ken Loach
(=235) Three Colors: Red 1994 Krzysztof Kieslowski
(=235) The Big Lebowski 1998 Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
(=235) Where Is the Friend’s Home? 1987 Abbas Kiarostami
(=235) All That Heaven Allows 1955 Douglas Sirk
(=235) Gospel According to St. Matthew 1964 Pier Paolo Pasolini
(=235) Husbands 1970 John Cassavetes
(=235) The Puppetmaster 1993 Hsiao-Hsien Hou
(=235) All About Eve 1950 Joseph L. Mankiewicz
(=235) How Green Was My Valley 1941 John Ford
(=235) Belle de Jour 1967 Luis Buñuel
(=235) Sicilia! 1999 Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub
(=235) The Band Wagon 1953 Vincente Minnelli
(=235) The White Ribbon 2009 Michael Haneke
(=235) F for Fake 1973 Oja Kodar, Gary Graver, Orson Welles, François Reichenbach
(=235) Nun va Goldoon 1996 Mohsen Makhmalbaf
(=235) The Wind Will Carry Us 1999 Abbas Kiarostami
(=235) Rocco and His Brothers 1960 Luchino Visconti
(=235) Sud sanaeha Aka Blissfully Yours 2002 Apichatpong Weerasethakul
(=235) Flowers of Shanghai 1998 Hsiao-Hsien Hou
(=235) Juventude Em Marcha 2006 Pedro Costa
(=235) Death in Venice 1971 Luchino Visconti
(=235) All About My Mother 1999 Pedro Almodóvar
(=235) The Cloud Capped Star 1960 Ritwik Ghatak
(=235) Pandora’s Box 1929 Georg Wilhelm Pabst
(=235) Le Samourai 1967 Jean-Pierre Melville
(=235) By The Bluest Of Seas 1936 Samad Mardanov, Boris Barnet
(=235) Stromboli 1950 Roberto Rossellini
(=235) A Nos Amours 1983 Maurice Pialat
(=235) Throne of Blood 1957 Akira Kurosawa
(=235) Umberto D. 1952 Vittorio De Sica
(=235) The Young Girls of Rochefort 1967 Jacques Demy
(=235) Sullivan’s Travels 1941 Preston Sturges
(=235) Shadows 1959 John Cassavetes
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