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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

The definitive, final 10 greatest films of all time.

17:41 / 20.08.02

Via Slate.

Sight and Sound, a British film mag, apparently polls directors and critics every decade in order to create a list of the 10 greatest films of all times.

The Critic's List
The Director's List

What makes this poll a little more interesting than similar lists, is the availability, via the magic of the Internet, of each participant's ballot.

Behold:
Links to all Director's Ballots

Tryphena Absent

21:53 / 20.08.02

I didn't like the lists as they existed but I took a look at some of the ballots, they were much more interesting. I especially appreciated Cedric Kahn's.

gentleman loser

22:06 / 20.08.02

For the most part, a bunch of rather obvious and uninspired choices, which is why I don't take such polls very seriously. AKA, "a bunch of brilliant directors and critics voted for these films, so YOU MUST LOVE THEM OR YOU'RE A COMPLETE MORON!"

In my opinion, the Godfather films are the most horribly overrated of the past fifty years or so.

What do I know?

Films I do dig from the director's ballots:

A Clockwork Orange
Dr. Strangelove
A Taste of Cherry
Jacob's Ladder
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
Brazil
Blade Runner
Waiting For Guffman
Full Metal Jacket

Yes, I clicked on every single one. Some of the picks were rather frightening: E.T.? Pulp Fiction? The Matrix? Yikes!

gentleman loser

22:16 / 20.08.02

I also missed F for Fake from Orson Welles on the first scan. Sorry!

08:59 / 21.08.02

These lists always annoy the heck out of me, so I'll try to resist going why do they always pick 'Singing in the Rain'? What's so fucking great about it? 'Lawrence of Arabia'? What kind of losers voted for that?? etc., and instead make known my opinion that these lists mean absolutely jack.

My standard choices when asked to pick 'the best films ever' (not that I am very often, but y'know) are Herbie Goes Bananas and '80s skateboarding movie Gleaming the Cube.. well, either that or Smokey and the Bandit 3...

The Natural Way

09:43 / 21.08.02

Well, I love the Matrix, Pulp Fiction's great and Lawrence of Arabia's rather nice.

The Natural Way

10:11 / 21.08.02

But not Citizen Fucking Kane AGAIN!

12:19 / 21.08.02

Riz: Have you seen Singin' In The Rain? or are you just operating (as many young folk do) off a gut distrust/dislike of musicals?

Because if the latter, you owe it to yourself to see it. Its big set pieces--the dance sequences--are the Rosetta Stone for the modern action movie. Seriously. John Woo cops to it: everything he knows about framing action, he lifted from Gene Kelly.

12:41 / 21.08.02

I'm with Jack. Singin' In The Rain is fantastic. Jackie Chan is also a big SitR lifter. Nearly every Gene Kelly picture is worth checking out for one reason or another, but SitR is not to be missed.

And it's all about context. Even if you think Citizen Kane blows (maybe you should take another look at it, for one) there's no defense for the argument that it isn't one of the most influential, and therefore important, films ever made. Of the people who made films between 1941 and 1970, at least 50% were influenced by Kane. That figure's probably a lot higher. If you don't like the film, at least have some understanding of its place in things before bemoaning its inclusion on yet another list.

The Apple-Picker

13:20 / 21.08.02

Because if the latter, you owe it to yourself to see it. Its big set pieces--the dance sequences--are the Rosetta Stone for the modern action movie. Seriously. John Woo cops to it: everything he knows about framing action, he lifted from Gene Kelly.

Gene Kelly is wonderful. My best friend in high school committed to wear black for an entire year when he died.... She didn't make it. Her devotion was rewarded with a letter from his widow, though.

And it's hard not to faint in that scene An American in Paris where they're dancing around the fountain and he lifts his partner.

Oh, Gene Kelly....

14:57 / 21.08.02

If you don't like the film, at least have some understanding of its place in things before bemoaning its inclusion on yet another list.

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes!

Citizen Kane, the first film to really take advantage of its being a movie--as opposed to a recorded stage play--was a total revolution at the time it was made. People have gotten so used to the innovations which Welles introduced in this film that they are incapable of seeing it as the work of genius that it is.

I'd go so far as to say that anyone who put together a top ten list of movies that didn't include Kane proves that he doesn't know what he's talking about...

15:00 / 21.08.02

singin in the rain is fucking hilarious and very cool. its one of my favourites. i like it when leena can't talk into the mike when they first decide to make a talking picture. and i like it when leena sings. leena kicks ass in that movie, far more than the prissy and boring kathy seldon.

15:28 / 21.08.02

"...an' I ceeeeee-aaan't stee-annim!"

Old brown-eye is back

15:31 / 21.08.02

Re Citizen Kane

Not exactly the first movie to take advantage of film as a form - Birth of a Nation, Man With a Movie Camera, Greed, October were all way before. Certainly the first notable example of a Hollywood film neglecting content (his childhood was like, really bad, and that's why he's unhappy) in favour of aforesaid mastery of form.

Old brown-eye is back

15:34 / 21.08.02

It's probably a bad idea to dis Singing in the Rain as well, but I'm not sure The Riz wasn't just fucking with people.

17:13 / 21.08.02

Yes, Ruth they were. But they weren't Hollywood films that used oblique camera angles, showed ceilings, had scenes that were so dark faces couldn't be seen and had a 24-year-old actor/writer/director playing a man over the entire course of his life, believably.

And yeah, Kane's childhood is bad, but that's hardly the point. It's how his life plays out that's interesting. I think this is the first time I've seen 'neglected content' used to describe Kane.

20:13 / 21.08.02

Hey, don't forget Donald O'Connor! He's the best thing about Singing in the Rain!

I can't really take a top ten film list seriously if it doesn't have "Harold and Maude" on it though....

Old brown-eye is back

23:30 / 21.08.02

The main reason people big up Citizen Kane is Greg Toland's beautiful deep focus photography, which allowed the viewer to see every aspect of the shot no matter how far back into the distance it streched. That still doesn't stop it, at least from my point of view, from being deeply unaffecting. Did Wells actually believe in his cliched characters and ropey ending, or was he just, you know, being ironic after making that poor bastard journalist do all that legwork? As for oblique camera angles and shadowy faces, I'm thinking Caligari, Metropolis, Dr Mabuse and about 50 other German films made while Kane was still a twinkle in the cinematographer's eye. (Or are we just interested in Hollywood films now?)

I'm interested to know if we're talking about influence or loveability here. If influence, you can't help but notice that Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will are a bit thin on the ground in this here poll for some reason. If loveability, why Kane over Touch of Evil, which is far more entertaining?

Eh?

(Re Donald O'Connor. He is truly the bomb. As for Harold and Maude, I salute you sir (or madam)!

Old brown-eye is back

23:52 / 21.08.02

So what are people's fave films, anyway?

01:45 / 22.08.02

I think the reason Kane is big for so many people is that, yes, it was Hollywood doing German Expressionism. That's not good or bad, but the combination left an impression. Well, that and Welles and his larger-than-life persona. If the same film was made by someone else under different circumstances, would it have the same appeal and cachet? Quite possibly not.

I do still love it, though, despite the ropey ending. I place more faith in it than in Caligari, which I've never loved as much as some do. Dr. Mabuse is pretty fantastic, though, even if it is trumped by The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse...

04:17 / 22.08.02

from George Romero's ballot:

Touch of Evil (Welles)
Faced with hell, who needs Citizen Kane? I'd take Touch of Evil any day of the eternity. Not the 'restored' version. Bring on Mancini!

The Natural Way

08:38 / 22.08.02

Vid...

It doesn't blow. Just bored of it ALWAYS hogging the no. 1 spot. Obviously very good, very innovative...blah.....

08:39 / 22.08.02

Romero's comments are the best bit of this whole malarky. He rocks.

And maybe this is an extremely dumb question but .. why did nobody vote for Apocalypse Now? Admittedly, not many 'modern' American films made the lists, but I'd say that in terms of importance (and epic pompousness, which seems to count for a lot) it rates way higher than The Godfather and is on a par with 2001 .. yet no mention at all (that I can find).

The Natural Way

08:43 / 22.08.02

For the record: old film studies student - 5 yrs of bearding - don't need to watch Kane again...seen it a gazillion times and used to defend from twatty-no-watch-but-cuss-because-old-dicks too. Are you calling me a twatty-no-watch-but-cuss-because-old-dick?

Old brown-eye is back

12:01 / 22.08.02

Bearding?

Old brown-eye is back

23:11 / 22.08.02

At the risk of sounding yet more argumentative, surely The Godfather has had far more lasting impact than Apocalypse Now, if only due to the sheer volume of subsequent gangster films that are made squarely in its image. Hollywood never took Apocalypse Now as a template for its subsequent war films - there's no trace of it in glossy 80s dogshit like Top Gun, stuff like Blackhawk Down and Windtalkers are too busy being 'realistic' to reference it, while the 80s Vietnam films were more interested in being All Quiet on the Western Front.

Thinking about it, I reckon The Godfathers have got Apocalypse Now beat in the pompousness stakes as well. By the end the second one, Michael has, very nearly quite literally, gained the world but lost his soul - Apocalypse Now, on t'other hand, aint nothing but an amorality tale. You can't help but love all three of them though, can you?

08:42 / 23.08.02

yeah, ok then.

But Apocalypse Now still makes my list. Um .. if I had one, which I don't.

09:58 / 23.08.02

I love these directors:

Denys Arcand
George Armitage
John Boorman
Lewis Gilbert
Taylor Hackford
Ann Hui
Jim Jarmusch
Richard Lester
Gillies MacKinnon
Babak Payami
Philip Saville
Santosh Sivan

Roy Andersson
Gillian Armstrong
Jana Bokova
Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Joe Dante
Ernest R. Dickerson
Randa Haines
Norman Jewison
Paul Mazursky
Tanvir Mokammel
Digvijay Singh
Paul Verhoeven

For they share a mighty understanding of cinema at its best.