Sight & Sound: 2022 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 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 USA, UK Stanley Kubrick
2 Citizen Kane 1941 USA Orson Welles
3 The Godfather 1972 USA Francis Ford Coppola
4 Tokyo Story 1953 Japan Yasujirō Ozu
5 Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles 1976 Belgium, France Chantal Akerman
6 Vertigo 1958 USA Alfred Hitchcock
7 8½ 1963 France, Italy Federico Fellini
8 Mirror 1975 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky
9 Persona 1966 Sweden Ingmar Bergman
10 In the Mood for Love 2000 France, Hong Kong Wong Kar-wai
11 Close-Up 1990 Iran Abbas Kiarostami
12 Taxi Driver 1976 USA Martin Scorsese
13 Barry Lyndon 1975 USA, UK Stanley Kubrick
14 Beau Travail 2000 France Claire Denis
15 Seven Samurai 1954 Japan Akira Kurosawa
16 Breathless 1960 France Jean-Luc Godard
17 Stalker 1979 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky
18 Apocalypse Now 1979 USA Francis Ford Coppola
19 A Woman Under the Influence 1974 USA John Cassavetes
20 Bicycle Thieves 1948 Italy Vittorio De Sica
21 Rashomon 1950 Japan Akira Kurosawa
22 Mulholland Drive 2001 France, France, France, France, USA David Lynch
23 Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyajit Ray
24 The Battle of Algiers 1966 Italy, Algeria Gillo Pontecorvo
25 Raging Bull 1980 USA Martin Scorsese
26 Andrei Rublev 1966 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky
27 The Godfather Part II 1974 USA, USA, USA Francis Ford Coppola
28 GoodFellas 1990 USA, USA, USA Martin Scorsese
29 Do the Right Thing 1989 USA Spike Lee
30 Man with a Movie Camera 1929 Soviet Union Dziga Vertov
31 The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 France Carl Theodor Dreyer
32 Ordet 1955 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer
33 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 1927 USA F. W. Murnau
34 The 400 Blows 1959 France François Truffaut
35 La Dolce Vita 1960 France, Italy Federico Fellini
36 La Jetée 1962 France Chris Marker
37 Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France, Sweden Robert Bresson
38 The Rules of the Game 1939 France Jean Renoir
39 L'Avventura 1960 France, Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
40 La Strada 1954 Italy Federico Fellini
41 PlayTime 1967 France, Italy Jacques Tati
42 The Night of the Hunter 1955 USA Charles Laughton
43 A Man Escaped 1956 France Robert Bresson
44 Vagabond 1985 France, UK Agnès Varda
45 Come and See 1985 Soviet Union Elem Klimov
46 Psycho 1960 USA Alfred Hitchcock
47 L'Atalante 1934 France Jean Vigo
48 Contempt 1963 France, Italy Jean-Luc Godard
49 Once Upon a Time in the West 1968 USA, Italy Sergio Leone
50 Don't Look Now 1973 UK, Italy Nicolas Roeg
51 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb 1964 USA, UK, UK Stanley Kubrick
52 Singin' in the Rain 1952 USA Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen
53 Cléo from 5 to 7 1962 France, Italy Agnès Varda
54 City Lights 1931 USA Charlie Chaplin
55 The Piano 1993 France, New Zealand, Australia Jane Campion
56 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul 1974 Germany Rainer Werner Fassbinder
57 The Mother and the Whore 1973 France Jean Eustache
58 Fanny and Alexander 1982 France, Sweden, Germany Ingmar Bergman
59 La Notte 1961 France, Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
60 Eraserhead 1977 USA David Lynch
61 Viridiana 1962 Spain, Mexico Luis Buñuel
62 Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 USA Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid
63 Late Spring 1949 Japan Yasujirō Ozu
64 Some Like It Hot 1959 USA Billy Wilder
65 Blade Runner 1982 USA, Hong Kong, UK Ridley Scott
66 Sunset Boulevard 1950 USA, USA Billy Wilder
67 Satantango 1994 Germany, Hungary, Switzerland Béla Tarr
68 Tropical Malady 2004 France, Italy, Germany, Thailand Apichatpong Weerasethakul
69 Jaws 1975 USA Steven Spielberg
70 Lawrence of Arabia 1962 UK David Lean
71 La Ciénaga 2001 France, Japan, Spain, Argentina Lucrecia Martel
72 The Searchers 1956 USA John Ford
73 Shoah 1985 France Claude Lanzmann
74 News from Home 1977 Belgium, France, Germany Chantal Akerman
75 Sans Soleil 1983 France Chris Marker
76 Touki Bouki 1973 Senegal Djibril Diop Mambéty
77 The Red Shoes 1948 UK Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
78 Modern Times 1936 USA Charlie Chaplin
79 A Brighter Summer Day 1991 Taiwan Edward Yang
80 The Spirit of the Beehive 1973 Spain Víctor Erice
81 Blue Velvet 1986 USA David Lynch
82 Wild Strawberries 1957 Sweden Ingmar Bergman
83 The Ascent 1977 Soviet Union Larisa Shepitko
84 The Seventh Seal 1957 Sweden Ingmar Bergman
85 Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski
86 Ikiru 1952 Japan Akira Kurosawa
87 Where Is My Friend's House? 1987 Iran, Iran Abbas Kiarostami
88 L'Argent 1983 France, Switzerland Robert Bresson
89 The Conversation 1974 USA Francis Ford Coppola
90 Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom 1976 France, Italy Pier Paolo Pasolini
91 A Separation 2011 France, Iran, Australia Asghar Farhadi
92 Kes 1970 UK Ken Loach
93 Wanda 1970 USA Barbara Loden
94 Battleship Potemkin 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein
95 Moonlight 2016 USA Barry Jenkins
96 Yi Yi 2000 Japan, Taiwan Edward Yang
97 Parasite 2019 South Korea Bong Joon-ho
98 The Conformist 1970 France, Italy, Germany Bernardo Bertolucci
99 The Color of Pomegranates 1969 Soviet Union Sergei Parajanov
100 Pickpocket 1959 France Robert Bresson
101 Taste of Cherry 1997 France, Iran Abbas Kiarostami
102 Caché 2005 France, Italy, Germany, Austria Michael Haneke
103 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2004 USA Michel Gondry
104 Throne of Blood 1957 Japan Akira Kurosawa