Sight & Sound: 2012 Directors Poll

Top films as voted by select directors. The Sight & Sound poll is perhaps the most renowned film poll. 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."

# Film Year Country Director
1 Tokyo Story 1953 Japan Yasujirō Ozu
2 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 USA, UK Stanley Kubrick
3 Citizen Kane 1941 USA Orson Welles
4 8½ 1963 France, Italy Federico Fellini
5 Taxi Driver 1976 USA Martin Scorsese
6 Apocalypse Now 1979 USA Francis Ford Coppola
7 The Godfather 1972 USA Francis Ford Coppola
8 Vertigo 1958 USA Alfred Hitchcock
9 Mirror 1975 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky
10 Bicycle Thieves 1948 Italy Vittorio De Sica
11 Breathless 1960 France Jean-Luc Godard
12 Raging Bull 1980 USA Martin Scorsese
13 Persona 1966 Sweden Ingmar Bergman
14 The 400 Blows 1959 France François Truffaut
15 Andrei Rublev 1966 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky
16 Fanny and Alexander 1982 France, Sweden, Germany Ingmar Bergman
17 Seven Samurai 1954 Japan Akira Kurosawa
18 Rashomon 1950 Japan Akira Kurosawa
19 Barry Lyndon 1975 USA, UK Stanley Kubrick
20 Ordet 1955 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer
21 Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France, Sweden Robert Bresson
22 Modern Times 1936 USA Charlie Chaplin
23 L'Atalante 1934 France Jean Vigo
24 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 1927 USA F. W. Murnau
25 The Rules of the Game 1939 France Jean Renoir
26 Touch of Evil 1958 USA Orson Welles
27 The Night of the Hunter 1955 USA Charles Laughton
28 The Battle of Algiers 1966 Italy, Algeria Gillo Pontecorvo
29 La Strada 1954 Italy Federico Fellini
30 Stalker 1979 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky
31 City Lights 1931 USA Charlie Chaplin
32 L'Avventura 1960 France, Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
33 Amarcord 1973 France, Italy Federico Fellini
34 The Gospel According to Matthew 1965 France, Italy Pier Paolo Pasolini
35 The Godfather Part II 1974 USA, USA, USA Francis Ford Coppola
36 Come and See 1985 Soviet Union Elem Klimov
37 Close-Up 1990 Iran Abbas Kiarostami
38 Some Like It Hot 1959 USA Billy Wilder
39 La Dolce Vita 1960 France, Italy Federico Fellini
40 The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 France Carl Theodor Dreyer
41 PlayTime 1967 France, Italy Jacques Tati
42 A Man Escaped 1956 France Robert Bresson
43 Viridiana 1962 Spain, Mexico Luis Buñuel
44 Once Upon a Time in the West 1968 USA, Italy Sergio Leone
45 Contempt 1963 France, Italy Jean-Luc Godard
46 The Apartment 1960 USA, USA Billy Wilder
47 Hour of the Wolf 1968 Sweden Ingmar Bergman
48 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 1975 USA Miloš Forman
49 The Searchers 1956 USA John Ford
50 Psycho 1960 USA Alfred Hitchcock
51 Man with a Movie Camera 1929 Soviet Union Dziga Vertov
52 Shoah 1985 France Claude Lanzmann
53 Lawrence of Arabia 1962 UK David Lean
54 L'Eclisse 1962 France, Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
55 Pickpocket 1959 France Robert Bresson
56 Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyajit Ray
57 Rear Window 1954 USA Alfred Hitchcock
58 GoodFellas 1990 USA, USA, USA Martin Scorsese
59 Blow-Up 1966 USA, UK, Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
60 The Conformist 1970 France, Italy, Germany Bernardo Bertolucci
61 Aguirre, the Wrath of God 1972 Mexico, Germany, Germany, Peru Werner Herzog
62 Gertrud 1964 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer
63 A Woman Under the Influence 1974 USA John Cassavetes
64 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1966 USA, USA, Italy, Italy, Spain Sergio Leone
65 Blue Velvet 1986 USA David Lynch
66 Grand Illusion 1937 France, France Jean Renoir
67 Badlands 1974 USA Terrence Malick
68 Blade Runner 1982 USA, Hong Kong, UK Ridley Scott
69 Sunset Boulevard 1950 USA, USA Billy Wilder
70 Ugetsu 1953 Japan Kenji Mizoguchi
71 Singin' in the Rain 1952 USA Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen
72 In the Mood for Love 2000 France, Hong Kong Wong Kar-wai
73 Journey to Italy 1954 France, Italy Roberto Rossellini
74 Vivre Sa Vie 1962 France Jean-Luc Godard
75 The Seventh Seal 1957 Sweden Ingmar Bergman
76 Caché 2005 France, Italy, Germany, Austria Michael Haneke
77 Battleship Potemkin 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein
78 M 1931 Germany Fritz Lang
79 There Will Be Blood 2007 USA Paul Thomas Anderson
80 The Shining 1980 USA, UK Stanley Kubrick
81 The General 1926 USA, UK Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman
82 Mulholland Drive 2001 France, France, France, France, USA David Lynch
83 A Clockwork Orange 1971 USA, UK Stanley Kubrick
84 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul 1974 Germany Rainer Werner Fassbinder
85 Kes 1970 UK Ken Loach
86 Husbands 1970 USA John Cassavetes
87 The Wild Bunch 1969 USA Sam Peckinpah
88 Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom 1976 France, Italy Pier Paolo Pasolini
89 Jaws 1975 USA Steven Spielberg
90 The Young and the Damned 1950 Mexico Luis Buñuel
91 Pierrot le Fou 1965 France, Italy Jean-Luc Godard
92 Un Chien Andalou 1929 France Luis Buñuel
93 Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski
94 The Mother and the Whore 1973 France Jean Eustache
95 Beau Travail 2000 France Claire Denis
96 Opening Night 1977 USA John Cassavetes
97 The Gold Rush 1925 USA Charlie Chaplin
98 Zero for Conduct 1933 France Jean Vigo
99 The Deer Hunter 1978 USA, UK Michael Cimino
100 L'Argent 1983 France, Switzerland Robert Bresson
101 The Killing of a Chinese Bookie 1976 USA John Cassavetes
102 Sans Soleil 1983 France Chris Marker
103 Don't Look Now 1973 UK, Italy Nicolas Roeg
104 I Am Cuba 1964 Soviet Union, Cuba Mikhail Kalatozov
105 Last Year at Marienbad 1961 France, Italy Alain Resnais
106 Le Samouraï 1967 France, Italy Jean-Pierre Melville