Sight & Sound’s 50 Greatest Films of All Time 2012

Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Every ten years since 1952 they have polled film directors and critics to put together a list of the greatest films of all time (See the results from the first critic’s poll). Notably for the first time since ‘Citizen Kane’ topped the list in 1962, Welles’s masterpiece has been knocked off top spot and replaced by Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ a film that continues to age remarkably well.

Below’s list is the top fifty from the results of the top ten ballots of critics, programmers, academics, distributors and writers.

1. Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock, 1958 (191 votes)

2. Citizen Kane – Orson Welles, 1941 (157 votes)

3. Tokyo Story – Ozu Yasujiro, 1953 (107 votes)

4. La Règle du jeu – Jean Renoir, 1939 (100 votes)

5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans – FW Murnau, 1927 (93 votes)

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Stanley Kubrick, 1968 (90 votes)

7. The Searchers – John Ford, 1956 (78 votes)

8. Man with a Movie Camera – Dziga Vertov, 1929 (68 votes)

9. The Passion of Joan of Arc – Carl Dreyer, 1927 (65 votes)

10. 8½ – Federico Fellini, 1963 (64 votes)

11. Battleship Potemkin – Sergei Eisenstein, 1925 (63 votes)

12. L’Atalante – Jean Vigo, 1934 (58 votes)

13. Breathless – Jean-Luc Godard, 1960 (57 votes)

14. Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola, 1979 (53 votes)

15. Late Spring – Ozu Yasujiro, 1949 (50 votes)

16. Au Hasard Balthazar – Robert Bresson, 1966 (49 votes)

17= Seven Samurai – Kurosawa Akira, 1954 (48 votes)

17= Persona – Ingmar Bergman, 1966 (48 votes)

19. Mirror – Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974 (47 votes)

20. Singin’ in the Rain – Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1951 (46 votes)

21= L’Avventura – Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960 (43 votes)

21= Le Mépris – Jean-Luc Godard, 1963 (43 votes)

21= The Godfather – Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 (43 votes)

24= Ordet – Carl Dreyer, 1955 (42 votes)

24= In the Mood for Love – Wong Kar-wai, 2000 (42 votes)

26= Rashomon – Kurosawa Akira, 1950 (41 votes)

26= Andrei Rublev – Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966 (41 votes)

28. Mulholland Dr. – David Lynch, 2001 (40 votes)

29= Stalker – Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979 (39 votes)

29= Shoah – Claude Lanzmann, 1985 (39 votes)

31= The Godfather Part II – Francis Ford Coppola, 1974 (38 votes)

31= Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese, 1976 (38 votes)

33. Bicycle Thieves – Vittoria De Sica, 1948 (37 votes)

34. The General – Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926 (35 votes)

35= Metropolis – Fritz Lang, 1927 (34 votes)

35= Psycho – Alfred Hitchcock, 1960 (34 votes)

35= Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (English Subtitled) – Chantal Akerman, 1975 (34 votes)

35= Satantango – Béla Tarr, 1994 (34 votes)

39= The 400 Blows – François Truffaut, 1959 (33 votes)

39= La Dolce Vita – Federico Fellini, 1960 (33 votes)

41. Journey to Italy – Roberto Rossellini, 1954 (32 votes)

42= Pather Panchali – Satyajit Ray, 1955 (31 votes)

42= Some Like It Hot – Billy Wilder, 1959 (31 votes)

42= Gertrud – Carl Dreyer, 1964 (31 votes)

42= Pierrot Le Fou – Jean-Luc Godard, 1965 (31 votes)

42= Playtime – Jacques Tati, 1967 (31 votes)

42= Close-Up – Abbas Kiarostami, 1990 (31 votes)

48= The Battle of Algiers – Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966 (30 votes)

48= Histoire(s) Du Cinema – Jean-Luc Godard, 1998 (30 votes)

50= City Lights – Charlie Chaplin, 1931 (29 votes)

50= Ugetsu – Mizoguchi Kenji, 1953 (29 votes)

50= La Jetee – Chris Marker, 1962 (29 votes)