Since 1952,
Sight and Sound has conducted a decennial poll to determine the
greatest films of all time. Until 1992, the votes of the invited critics and directors were compiled in one list; since 1992, directors have been invited to participate in a separate poll. The
Sight and Sound poll has come to be regarded as the most important of the "greatest ever film" lists. The critic
Roger Ebert described it as "by far the most respected of the countless polls of great movies—the only one most serious movie people take seriously."
Sight and Sound first ran the poll in 1952 following publication earlier in the year of a list of the Top Ten Films, headed by
Battleship Potemkin, based on a poll of mostly directors conducted by the committee of the Festival Mondial du Film et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Following publication of that poll,
Sight and Sound decided to poll film critics for their choices and announced the results in their next issue. 85 critics from Britain, France, the United States, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were asked but only 63 responded including
Lindsay Anderson,
Lotte H. Eisner,
Curtis Harrington,
Henri Langlois,
Friedrich Luft,
Claude Mauriac,
Dilys Powell,
Jean Queval,
Terry Ramsaye,
Karel Reisz,
G. W. Stonier (under the name William Whitebait) and
Archer Winsten. Most critics found the question unfair. The first poll was topped by
Bicycle Thieves with 25 out of 63 votes and contained six
silent films. For the 2012 poll,
Sight and Sound listened to decades of criticism about the lack of diversity of its poll participants and made a huge effort to invite a much wider variety of critics and filmmakers from around the world to participate, taking into account gender, ethnicity, race, geographical region, socioeconomic status, and other kinds of underrepresentation.
1962 '' (1941)
Citizen Kane (22 mentions) ''
L'Avventura'' (20 mentions)
The Rules of the Game (19 mentions)
Greed and
Ugetsu (17 mentions)
Battleship Potemkin,
Ivan the Terrible and
Bicycle Thieves (16 mentions)
La Terra Trema (14 mentions) ''
L'Atalante'' (13 mentions) Closest runners-up:
Hiroshima mon amour, and
Zero for Conduct. (11 mentions apiece) The number of silent films on the list dropped from six to two. Films directed by
Sergei Eisenstein received the most votes with 46, followed by
Charles Chaplin with 43 and
Jean Renoir with 35.
1972 Citizen Kane (32 mentions)
The Rules of the Game (28 mentions)
Battleship Potemkin (16 mentions)
8½ (15 mentions) ''L'Avventura
and Persona'' (12 mentions)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (11 mentions)
The General and
The Magnificent Ambersons (10 mentions)
Ugetsu and
Wild Strawberries (9 mentions) Closest runners-up:
The Gold Rush,
Hiroshima mon amour,
Ikiru,
Ivan the Terrible,
Pierrot le Fou, and
Vertigo. (8 mentions apiece) Films directed by
Orson Welles received the most votes with 46 votes followed by
Jean Renoir with 41 and
Ingmar Bergman with 37.
1982 Citizen Kane (45 mentions)
The Rules of the Game (31 mentions)
Seven Samurai and ''
Singin' in the Rain'' (15 mentions)
8½ (14 mentions)
Battleship Potemkin (13 mentions) ''L'Avventura
, The Magnificent Ambersons
, and Vertigo'' (12 mentions)
The General and
The Searchers (11 mentions) Closest runners-up:
2001: A Space Odyssey and
Andrei Rublev. (10 mentions apiece)
1992 Citizen Kane (43 mentions)
The Rules of the Game (32 mentions)
Tokyo Story (22 mentions)
Vertigo (18 mentions)
The Searchers (17 mentions)
Battleship Potemkin,
The Passion of Joan of Arc, ''L'Atalante'' and (15 mentions)
2001: A Space Odyssey (14 mentions) Closest runners-up:
Bicycle Thieves and ''Singin' in the Rain''. (10 mentions apiece)
2002 Citizen Kane (46 mentions)
Vertigo (41 mentions)
The Rules of the Game (30 mentions)
The Godfather and
The Godfather Part II (23 mentions)
Tokyo Story (22 mentions)
2001: A Space Odyssey (21 mentions)
Battleship Potemkin and
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (19 mentions)
8½ (18 mentions) ''Singin' in the Rain'' (17 mentions) Closest runners-up:
Seven Samurai and
The Searchers. (15 mentions apiece)
2012 A new rule was imposed for this ballot: related films that are considered part of a larger whole (e.g.
The Godfather and
The Godfather Part II,
Krzysztof Kieślowski's
Three Colors trilogy and
Dekalog, or
Satyajit Ray's
The Apu Trilogy) were to be treated as separate films for voting purposes.
Vertigo (191 mentions)
Citizen Kane (157 mentions)
Tokyo Story (107 mentions)
The Rules of the Game (100 mentions)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (93 mentions)
2001: A Space Odyssey (90 mentions)
The Searchers (78 mentions)
Man with a Movie Camera (68 mentions)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (65 mentions)
8½ (64 mentions) Closest runner-up:
Battleship Potemkin. (63 mentions)
2022 The participants in this poll nearly doubled to 1,639.
Chantal Akerman became the first woman director to top the poll with her 1975 film
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. The poll reflected greater diversity than previously, with films by black filmmakers increasing from one in 2012 to seven in 2022, and from two to eleven, by female filmmakers.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (215 votes)
Vertigo (208 votes)
Citizen Kane (163 votes)
Tokyo Story (144 votes)
In the Mood for Love (141 votes)
2001: A Space Odyssey (130 votes)
Beau Travail (106 votes)
Mulholland Drive (105 votes)
Man with a Movie Camera (100 votes) ''Singin' in the Rain'' (99 votes) Closest runner-up:
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans Directors' Top Ten Poll 1992 Citizen Kane (30 votes)
8½,
Raging Bull (16 votes)
La Strada (12) ''
L'Atalante'' (11)
The Godfather,
Modern Times,
Vertigo (10 votes)
The Godfather Part II,
The Passion of Joan of Arc,
Rashomon,
Seven Samurai (9 votes)
2022 2001: A Space Odyssey Citizen Kane The Godfather Tokyo Story;
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles Vertigo,
8½ Mirror Persona,
In the Mood for Love,
Close-Up ==The Greatest Directors of All Time==