Sight & Sound: 2012 Critics Poll

Top films as voted by international critics. The Sight & Sound poll is probably 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 Vertigo 1958 USA Alfred Hitchcock
2 Citizen Kane 1941 USA Orson Welles
3 Tokyo Story 1953 Japan Yasujirō Ozu
4 The Rules of the Game 1939 France Jean Renoir
5 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 1927 USA F. W. Murnau
6 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 USA, UK Stanley Kubrick
7 The Searchers 1956 USA John Ford
8 Man with a Movie Camera 1929 Soviet Union Dziga Vertov
9 The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 France Carl Theodor Dreyer
10 1963 France, Italy Federico Fellini
11 Battleship Potemkin 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein
12 L'Atalante 1934 France Jean Vigo
13 Breathless 1960 France Jean-Luc Godard
14 Apocalypse Now 1979 USA Francis Ford Coppola
15 Late Spring 1949 Japan Yasujirō Ozu
16 Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France, Sweden Robert Bresson
17 Seven Samurai 1954 Japan Akira Kurosawa
18 Persona 1966 Sweden Ingmar Bergman
19 Mirror 1975 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky
20 Singin' in the Rain 1952 USA Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen
21 L'Avventura 1960 France, Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
22 Contempt 1963 France, Italy Jean-Luc Godard
23 The Godfather 1972 USA Francis Ford Coppola
24 Ordet 1955 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer
25 In the Mood for Love 2000 France, Hong Kong Wong Kar-wai
26 Rashomon 1950 Japan Akira Kurosawa
27 Andrei Rublev 1966 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky
28 Mulholland Drive 2001 France, France, France, France, USA David Lynch
29 Stalker 1979 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky
30 Shoah 1985 France Claude Lanzmann
31 The Godfather Part II 1974 USA, USA, USA Francis Ford Coppola
32 Taxi Driver 1976 USA Martin Scorsese
33 Bicycle Thieves 1948 Italy Vittorio De Sica
34 The General 1926 USA, UK Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman
35 Metropolis 1927 Germany Fritz Lang
36 Psycho 1960 USA Alfred Hitchcock
37 Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles 1976 Belgium, France Chantal Akerman
38 Satantango 1994 Germany, Hungary, Switzerland Béla Tarr
39 The 400 Blows 1959 France François Truffaut
40 La Dolce Vita 1960 France, Italy Federico Fellini
41 Journey to Italy 1954 France, Italy Roberto Rossellini
42 Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyajit Ray
43 Some Like It Hot 1959 USA Billy Wilder
44 Gertrud 1964 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer
45 Pierrot le Fou 1965 France, Italy Jean-Luc Godard
46 PlayTime 1967 France, Italy Jacques Tati
47 Close-Up 1990 Iran Abbas Kiarostami
48 The Battle of Algiers 1966 Italy, Algeria Gillo Pontecorvo
49 Histoire(s) du Cinéma 1a: All the (Hi)stories 1989 France, Switzerland Jean-Luc Godard
50 City Lights 1931 USA Charlie Chaplin
51 Ugetsu 1953 Japan Kenji Mizoguchi
52 La Jetée 1962 France Chris Marker
53 Rear Window 1954 USA Alfred Hitchcock
54 North by Northwest 1959 USA Alfred Hitchcock
55 Raging Bull 1980 USA Martin Scorsese
56 M 1931 Germany Fritz Lang
57 Touch of Evil 1958 USA Orson Welles
58 The Leopard 1963 France, Italy Luchino Visconti
59 Sherlock Jr. 1924 USA Buster Keaton
60 Sansho the Bailiff 1954 Japan Kenji Mizoguchi
61 The Mother and the Whore 1973 France Jean Eustache
62 Barry Lyndon 1975 USA, UK Stanley Kubrick
63 Modern Times 1936 USA Charlie Chaplin
64 Sunset Boulevard 1950 USA, USA Billy Wilder
65 The Night of the Hunter 1955 USA Charles Laughton
66 Wild Strawberries 1957 Sweden Ingmar Bergman
67 Rio Bravo 1959 USA Howard Hawks
68 Pickpocket 1959 France Robert Bresson
69 A Man Escaped 1956 France Robert Bresson
70 Blade Runner 1982 USA, Hong Kong, UK Ridley Scott
71 Sans Soleil 1983 France Chris Marker
72 Blue Velvet 1986 USA David Lynch
73 Grand Illusion 1937 France, France Jean Renoir
74 Children of Paradise 1945 France Marcel Carné
75 The Third Man 1949 UK Carol Reed
76 L'Eclisse 1962 France, Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
77 Nashville 1975 USA Robert Altman
78 Once Upon a Time in the West 1968 USA, Italy Sergio Leone
79 Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski
80 Beau Travail 2000 France Claire Denis
81 The Magnificent Ambersons 1942 USA Orson Welles
82 Lawrence of Arabia 1962 UK David Lean
83 The Spirit of the Beehive 1973 Spain Víctor Erice
84 Greed 1924 USA Erich von Stroheim
85 Casablanca 1943 USA Michael Curtiz
86 The Color of Pomegranates 1969 Soviet Union Sergei Parajanov
87 The Wild Bunch 1969 USA Sam Peckinpah
88 Fanny and Alexander 1982 France, Sweden, Germany Ingmar Bergman
89 A Brighter Summer Day 1991 Taiwan Edward Yang
90 A Day in the Country 1946 France Jean Renoir
91 A Matter of Life and Death 1946 UK Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
92 Aguirre, the Wrath of God 1972 Mexico, Germany, Germany, Peru Werner Herzog
93 Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages 1916 USA D.W. Griffith
94 Un Chien Andalou 1929 France Luis Buñuel
95 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943 UK Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
96 The Earrings of Madame de... 1953 France, Italy Max Ophüls
97 The Seventh Seal 1957 Sweden Ingmar Bergman
98 Imitation of Life 1959 USA Douglas Sirk
99 Touki Bouki 1973 Senegal Djibril Diop Mambéty
100 Yi Yi 2000 Japan, Taiwan Edward Yang
101 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul 1974 Germany Rainer Werner Fassbinder