Sight and Sound's Top 100 Films

The British Film Institute recently unveiled its updated "Top 100 Greatest Films of All Time" from Sight and Sound magazine, which tallied votes from 1600+ film critics.  The list caused a big hullabaloo with film nerds who complained that the title at the top of the list - Jeanne Dielman, an obscure 1970s social realism drama from Belgium written and directed by a woman - replaced the usual "best of" movies like Vertigo and Citizen Kane.  

We just figured it was film snobs doing what film snobs do best: impress other film snobs by championing the most unknown and challenging movies possible.  But there have been accusations of a purposeful "woke" agenda that may have rigged the ballot box to be sure underrepresented filmmakers got in and bumped out more traditional titles.  A more charitable spin is that the voters may have simply wanted to encourage film lovers to sample movies they might not otherwise watch, especially those from international filmmakers.  Shrug.

Anyway... we took a look at the list to see how our own moviegoing has stacked up with the fancy critics of Sight and Sound. 

How many of these "greatest movies ever" have you seen?

One interesting side note: we saw one critic suggest that these sort of lists should never include recent titles, that it can take 10-15 years to properly evaluate a film's lasting value and import.  This makes sense.  Will Parasite and Get Out really be regarded as the best ever ten years from now?

Category 1: We saw it and we love it.  We'd have no issue watching any of these again and again.
Ranked #6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
12 on the list. “The Godfather” (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
19. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
24. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
36. (tie) City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, 1931)
38. (tie) Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)
38. (tie) Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
54. (tie) Blade Runner (Ridley Scott 1982)
63. (tie) Casablanca (Michael Curtiz 1942)
63. (tie) GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese 1990)
78. (tie) Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder 1950)
88. (tie) The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
95. (tie) The General (Buster Keaton, 1926)

Category 2: We saw it and we like it.  Solid, top tier movies everyone should see, but not necessarily ones we're eager to sit down and watch again.
2. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
3. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
8. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
10. Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1951)
15. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
29. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
31. (tie) Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
41. (tie) Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
45. (tie) North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
50. (tie) The Piano (Jane Campion, 1992)
54. (tie) The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
63. (tie) The Third Man (Carol Reed 1949)
67. (tie) Metropolis (Fritz Lang 1927)
67. (tie) La Jetée (Chris Marker 1962)
78. (tie) Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin 1936)
95. (tie) Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
95. (tie) Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

Category 3: We saw it and once was enough.  Big props to our film theory and criticism classes that allowed me to see most of these movies.  We appreciate the importance of these titles, many of which helped create film "grammar" as we know it. But they're not the easiest things to sit through.
13. La Règle du Jeu aka Rules of the  Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
21. (tie) The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1927)
23. Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)
38. (tie) À bout de souffle aka Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
43. (tie) Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
50. (tie) The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)
54. (tie) Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
84. (tie) Blue Velvet (David Lynch 1986)

Category 4: We haven't seen it, but we'd certainly like to.  These remain on our "to do" list.
4. Tokyo Story (Ozu Yasujiro, 1953)
5. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2001)
20. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
25. (tie) The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
30. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019)
36. (tie) M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
41. (tie) Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
45. (tie) Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
45. (tie) The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
54. (tie) Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)
60. (tie) La dolce vita (Federico Fellini 1960)
60. (tie) Moonlight (Barry Jenkins 2016)
72. (tie) My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki Hayao 1988)
75. (tie) Spirited Away (Miyazaki Hayao 2001)
88. (tie) Chungking Express (Wong Kar Wai, 1994)
90. (tie) Parasite (Bong Joon Ho, 2019)

Category 5: We haven't seen it, and, honestly, probably won’t.  Maybe this makes us film heathens, but file these under "life is too short."
7. Beau travail” (Claire Denis, 1998)
9. Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
11. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
18. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
31. (tie) 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
43. (tie) Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977)
60. (tie) Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash 1991)
67. (tie) The Red Shoes (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger 1948)
72. (tie) L’avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni 1960)
75. (tie) Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk 1959)
90. (tie) Ugetsu (Mizoguchi Kenji, 1953)
90. (tie) Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 1999)

Category 6: We never heard of it.  In some cases, we've heard of the filmmaker.  But either way, a good chunk of these titles are the sort you'd find on film school syllabi across the country or whispered at swanky cocktail parties.  Since this is the longest list, turns out were are indeed film heathens.
1. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
14. Cléo from 5 to 7 (Agnès Varda, 1962)
16. Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, 1943)
17. Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1989)
21. (tie) Late Spring (Ozu Yasujiro, 1949)
25. (tie) Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
27. Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)
28. Daisies (Věra Chytilová, 1966)
31. (tie) Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
34. L’Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934)
35. Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
48. (tie) Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1970)
48. (tie) Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955)
52. (tie) News from Home (Chantal Akerman, 1976)
52. (tie) Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974)
54. (tie) Le Mépris (Jean-Luc Godard 1963)
59. Sans soleil (Chris Marker 1982)
66. Touki Bouki (Djibril Diop Mambéty 1973)
67. (tie) The Gleaners and I (Agnès Varda 2000)
67. (tie) Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky 1966)
72. (tie) Journey to Italy (Roberto Rossellini 1954)
75. (tie) Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi Kenji 1954)
78. (tie) A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang 1991)
78. (tie) Sátántangó (Béla Tarr 1994)
78. (tie) Céline and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette 1974)
78. (tie) A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger 1946)
84. (tie) Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard 1965)
84. (tie) Histoire(s) du cinéma (Jean-Luc Godard 1988-1998)
84. (tie) The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)
90. (tie) Madame de… (Max Ophüls, 1953)
90. (tie) The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1962)
95. (tie) A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)
95. (tie) Black Girl (Ousmane Sembène, 1965)
95. (tie) Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)

For the record, the Cheese Fry's "Best Film" list is incomplete and always pending, but among those you'll find on the list (in addition to Category 1 above) are Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993), Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003), Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975), Out of Sight (Steven Soderberg, 1998), The Parallax View (Alan J. Pakula, 1974), and Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1990).

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