We have a new greatest film ever made, according to a poll conducted once every 10 years — and for the first time, it was directed by a woman.
Sight & Sound magazine has released its prestigious list of the greatest films of all time based on a poll of critics and other experts. The last time the poll was conducted in 2012, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo topped the list. Before that, Citizen Kane came in at No. 1 for five straight decades.
But in the 2022 version, which was based on polling more than 1,600 experts, Vertigo was unseated by Belgian director Chantal Akerman's 1975 film Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. This makes Akerman the first woman to have a movie top the Sight & Sound poll. The more than three-hour film is "an astonishing, compelling movie experiment" that "meticulously details" the "daily routine of a middle-aged widow," The Criterion Collection explains. It can be streamed on HBO Max. In the 2012 list, Jeanne Dielman was ranked 36th.
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Vertigo came in at No. 2 this year, and Citizen Kane came in third. The rest of the top 10 consists of Tokyo Story, In the Mood for Love, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Beau travail, Mulholland Drive, Man with a Movie Camera, and Singin' in the Rain. The Godfather ranked 12th, while John Ford's The Searchers came in at 15th and Apocalypse Now was ranked 19th.
The 2022 list also included several modern films that were released since the 2012 poll, the highest-ranked being 2019's Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which was named the 30th greatest movie of all time. 2016's Moonlight (tied for 60th), 2019's Parasite (tied for 90th), and 2017's Get Out (tied for 95th) also made the list.
Check out the full list here.
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