The decennial Sight and Sound poll are out, and below are the results. I’ve also looked at the changes from last year. So far, only the top 100 are out, not 250, so I’ve only got the top 100. 

Any thoughts?

Placement	Film	Director	Year	Previous Result	Change
1	Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles	Chantal Akerman	1975	38	+37
2	Vertigo	Alfred Hitchcock	1958	1	-1
3	Citizen Kane	Orson Welles	1941	2	-1
4	Tokyo Story	Yasujiro Ozu	1953	3	-1
5	In The Mood For Love	Wong Kar Wai	2000	26	+21
6	2001: A Space Odyssey	Stanley Kubrick	1968	6	0
7	Beau travail	Claire Denis	1999	79	+72
8	Mulholland Dr.	David Lynch	2001	28	+20
9	Man with a Movie Camera	Dziga Vertov	1929	8	-1
10	Singin’ in the Rain	Gene Kelly & Stanly Donen	1952	20	-10
11	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans	F.W. Murnau	1927	5	-6
12	The Godfather	Francis Ford Coppola	1972	22	+10
13	Le Regle du jeu	Jean Renoir	1939	4	-9
14	Cleo from 5 to 7	Agnes Varda	1962	214	+200
15	The Searchers	John Ford	1956	7	-8
16	Meshes of the Afternoon	Maya Deren & Alexander Hackenschmied	1943	105	89
17	Close-up	Abbas Kiarostami	1990	44	+27
18	Persona	Ingmar Bergman	1966	18	0
19	Apocalypse Now	Francis Ford Coppola	1979	11	-5
20	Seven Samurai	Akira Kurosawa	1954	17	-3
=21	The Passion of Joan of Arc	Carl Th. Dreyer	1927	9	-12
=21	Late Spring	Yasujiro Ozu	1949	15	-6
23	Playtime	Jacques Tati	1967	46	+23
24	Do The Right Thing	Spike Lee	1989	128	+104
=25	Au Hasard Balthazar	Robert Bresson	1966	16	-9
=25	The Night of the Hunter	Charles Laughton	1955	66	+41
27	Shoah	Claude Lanzmann	1985	30	+3
28	Daisies	Vera Chytilova	1966	211	+183
29	Taxi Driver	Martin Scorsese	1976	31	+2
30	Portrait of a Lady on Fire	Celine Sciamma	2019	NEW	NEW
=31	8 1/2	Federico Fellini	1963	10	-21
=31	Mirror	Andrei Tarkovsky	1975	19	-12
=31	Psycho	Alfred Hitchcock	1960	34	+3
34	L’Atalante	Jean Vigo	1934	12	-22
35	Pather Panchali	Satyajit Ray	1955	41	+6
=36	City Lights	Charles Chaplin	1931	50	+14
=36	M	Fritz Lang	1931	56	+20
=38	A bout de souffle	Jean-Luc Godard	1960	13	-25
=38	Some Like It Hot	Billy Wilder	1959	45	+7
=38	Rear Window	Alfred Hitchcock	1954	54	+16
=41	Bicycle Thieves	Vittorio De Sica	1948	33	-8
=41	Rashomon	Akira Kurosawa	1950	24	-17
=43	Stalker	Andrei Tarkovsky	1979	29	-14
=43	Killer of Sheep	Charles Burnett	1977	223	+180
=45	Barry Lyndon	Stanley Kubrick	1975	60	+15
=45	The Battle of Algiers	Gillo Pontecorvo	1966	49	+4
=45	North by Northwest	Alfred Hitchcock	1959	53	+8
=48	Ordet	Carl Th. Dreyer	1955	25	-23
=48	Wanda	Barbara Loden	1970	224	+176
=50	The 400 Blows	Francois Truffaut	1959	40	-10
=50	The Piano	Jane Campion	1993	235	+185
=52	Fear Eats the Soul	Rainer Werner Fassbinder	1974	99	+47
=52	News from Home	Chantal Akerman	1976	NEW	NEW
=54	Le Mepris	Jean-Luc Godard	1963	23	-31
=54	Blade Runner	Ridley Scott	1982	69	+15
=54	Battleship Potemkin	Sergei Eisenstein	1925	11	-43
=54	The Apartment	Billy Wilder	1960	141	+87
=54	Sherlock Jr	Buster Keaton	1924	59	+5
59	Sans Soleil	Chris Marker	1982	71	+12
=60	La dolce vita	Federico Fellini	1960	39	-21
=60	Moonlight	Barry Jenkins	2016	NEW	NEW
=60	Daughters of the Dust	Julie Dash	1991	NEW	NEW
=63	GoodFellas	Martin Scorsese	1990	176	+113
=63	The Third Man	Carol Reed	1949	73	+10
=63	Casablanca	Michael Curtiz	1942	85	+22
66	Touki Bouki	Djibril Diop Mambety	1973	98	+32
=67	Andrei Rublev	Andrei Tarkovsky	1966	27	-40
=67	La Jetee	Chris Marker	1962	52	-15
=67	The Red Shoes	Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger	1948	121	+54
=67	The Gleaners and I	Agnes Varda	2000	NEW	NEW
=67	Metropolis	Fritz Lang	1927	37	-30
=72	L’avventura	Michelangelo Antonioni	1960	21	-51
=72	Journey to Italy	Roberto Rossellini	1954	42	-30
=72	My Neighbour Totoro	Hayao Miyazaki	1988	164	+92
=75	Spirited Away	Hayao Miyazaki	2001	218	+143
=75	Imitation of Life	Douglas Sirk	1959	100	+25
=75	Sansho the Bailiff	Kenji Mizoguchi	1954	62	-15
=78	Sunset Blvd.	Billy Wilder	1950	65	-13
=78	Satantango	Bela Tarr	1994	36	-42
=78	A Brighter Summer Day	Edward Yang	1991	88	+10
=78	Modern Times	Charles Chaplin	1936	64	-14
=78	A Matter of Life and Death	Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger	1946	92	+14
=78	Celine and Julie Go Boating	Jacques Rivette	1974	139	+61
=84	Blue Velvet	David Lynch	1986	70	-14
=84	The Spirit of the Beehive	Victor Erice	1973	83	-1
=84	Pierrot le fou	Jean-Luc Godard	1965	43	-41
=84	Histoire(s) du Cinema	Jean-Luc Godard	1988 – 1998	48	-36
=88	The Shining	Stanley Kubrick	1980	156	+68
=88	Chungking Express	Wong Kar Wai	1994	148	+60
=90	Parasite	Bong Joon-ho	2019	NEW	NEW
=90	Yi Yi	Edward Yang	1999	96	+6
=90	Ugetsu Monogatari	Kenji Mizoguchi	1953	51	-39
=90	The Leopard	Luchino Visconti	1963	57	-33
=90	Madame de…	Max Ophuls	1953	101	+11
=95	A Man Escaped	Robert Bresson	1956	72	-23
=95	Once upon a Time in the West	Sergio Leone	1968	80	-15
=95	Tropical Malady	Apichatpong Weerasethakul	2004	130	+35
=95	Black Girl	Ousmane Sembene	1965	NEW	NEW
=95	The General	Buster Keaton	1926	35	-60
=95	Get Out	Jordan Peele	2017	NEW	NEW

Quite a few surprises there. Some entrants we all expected, like Parasite. Jeanne Dielman is a surprising number 1. I expected 2001 to take 1st.

Shame Chantal Akerman isn’t around to see her achievements.

New Entrants To Sight and Sound 250

Place	Film	Director	Year
30th	Portrait of a Lady on Fire	Celine Sciamma	2019
52nd	News from Home	Chantal Akerman	1976
60th	Moonlight	Barry Jenkins	2016
60th	Daughters of the Dust	Julie Dash	1991
67th	The Gleaners and I	Agnes Varda	2000
90th	Parasite	Bong Joon-ho	2019
95th	Black Girl	Ousmane Sembene	1966
95th	Get Out	Jordan Peele	2017

Movement From S&S 2012 250 to S&S 2022 100

Movement	Film	Director	Year
+11	Madame de…	Max Ophuls	1953
+35	Tropical Malady	Apichatpong Weerasethakul	2004
+54	The Red Shoes	Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger	1948
+60	Chungking Express	Wong Kar Wai	1994
+61	Celine and Julie Go Boating	Jacques Rivette	1974
+68	The Shining	Stanley Kubrick	1980
+87	The Apartment	Billy Wilder	1960
+89	Meshes of the Afternoon	Maya Deren & Alexander Hackenschmied	1943
+92	My Neighbour Totoro	Hayao Miyazaki	1988
+104	Do The Right Thing	Spike Lee	1989
+113	GoodFellas	Martin Scorsese	1990
+143	Spirited Away	Hayao Miyazaki	2000
+176	Wanda	Barbara Loden	1970
+180	Killer of Sheep	Charles Burnett	1977
+183	Daisies	Vera Chytilova	1966
+185	The Piano	Jane Campion	1993
+200	Cleo from 9 to 5	Agnes Varda	1962

Thoughts

• Unsurprisingly, most of the movers seem to be newer films slowly establishing themselves as the new canon. Some are weird though
• I’m surprised Wanda beat every John Cassavettes film, although Wanda is a good film
• I expected at least one Coen Brothers film to appear on the list.

Top 10 Largest Falls Within Top 100

Movement	Film	Director	Year
-60	The General	Buster Keaton	1926
-51	L’avventura	Michelangelo Antonioni	1960
-43	Battleship Potemkin	Sergei Eisenstein	1926
-42	Satantango	Bela Tarr	1994
-41	Pierrot le fou	Jean-Luc Godard	1965
-40	Andrei Rublev	Andrei Tarkovsky	1966
-39	Ugetsu Monogatari	Kenji Mizoguchi	1953
-36	Histoire(s) du Cinema	Jean-Luc Godard	1988 – 1998
-33	The Leopard	Luchino Visconti	1963
-31	Contempt	Jean-Luc Godard	1963

Thoughts

• We all knew some old favourites would be out, but some are surprising.
• Godard has taken a beating.
  • You would have thought his passing would have helped him if anything, but perhaps the ballots were already in.
• Did the General fall because of its confederate protagonist?
  • The other Keaton film, Sherlock Jr, rose while The General fell. Perhaps people simply chose a different Keaton film to back.
• Surprisingly, most fallers in the list seem to be art Foreign-language films.
• Battleship Potemkin from 4th in 1952 to 54th in 2022. That’s only 50 places down in 70 years.

Top 10 Largest Rises Within Top 100

Movement	Film	Director	Year
+72	Beau travail	Claire Denis	1999
+47	Fear Eats The Soul	Rainer Werner Fassbinder	1974
+41	Night of the Hunter	Charles Laughton	1955
+37	Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles	Chantal Akerman	1975
+32	Touki Bouki	Djibril Diop Mambety	1973
+27	Close-Up	Abbas Kiarostami	1990
+25	Imitation of Life	Douglas Sirk	1959
+23	Playtime	Jacques Tati	1967
+22	Casablanca	Michael Curtiz	1942
+21	In The Mood For Love	Wong Kar Wai	2000

All the Films that Fell Out of the Top 100

Sight and Sound 2012 Place	Film	Director	Year
32nd	The Godfather: Part II	Francis Ford Coppola	1974
47th	Gertrud	Carl Th. Dreyer	1965
55th	Raging Bull	Martin Scorsese	1980
58th	Touch of Evil	Orson Welles	1958
61st	Mother and the Whore	Jean Eustache	1973
63rd	Wild Strawberries	Ingmar Bergman	1957
67th	Pickpocket	Robert Bresson	1959
68th	Rio Bravo	Howard Hawks	1959
74th	L’Eclisse	Michelangelo Antonioni	1962
75th	Children of Paradise	Marcel Carne	1945
76th	Grand Illusion	Jean Renoir	1937
77th	Nashville	Robert Altman	1975
78th	Chinatown	Roman Polanski	1974
81st	The Magnificent Ambersons	Orson Welles	1942
82nd	Lawrence of Arabia	David Lean	1962
84th	Fanny and Alexander	Ingmar Bergman	1982
86th	The Colour of Pomegranates	Sergei Parajanov	1969
87th	Greed	Erich von Stroheim	1924
89th	The Wild Bunch	Sam Peckinpah	1969
90th	A Day in the Country	Jean Renoir	1946
91st	Aguirre, the Wrath of God	Werner Herzog	1972
93rd	The Seventh Seal	Ingmar Bergman	1957
94th	Un Chien Andalou	Luis Bunuel	1929
95th	Intolerance	D.W. Griffith	1916
97th	Life and Death of Colonel Blimp	Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger	1943

Thoughts

• The Godfather Part II not appearing on the list feels like an administrative error.
• Raging Bull’s fall is perplexing.
• Ingmar Bergman seems to have lost out big, as have  Bresson, Renoir and Welles.
• No Howard Hawks?
• Children of Paradise?
• Controversial opinion, but I prefer Grand Illusion to Le Regle du jeu
• It feels like New Hollywood as a whole has been beaten – No Nashville, Chinatown, etc
• Would have expected a Bunuel film on this list. Even just one.