In just a few hours, The British Film Institute's Sight & Sound Magazine will release its decennial Top 100 Greatest Films of All Time list, as decided by hundreds of film-watching professionals. The first list, published in 1952, declared Vittorio de Sica's recent neo-realistic masterpiece Bicycle Thieves (1948) as the greatest film ever made. This top spot was promptly taken by Citizen Kane (1941), which ranked as number one until 2012, when it was replaced by Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1957). 'Greatest Films' lists are tricky. There is first the ambiguity of the term "greatest" or "best", being of course wholly subjective and a matter of imperfect opinion. One's film education is largely determined by what those before you deemed worthy of praise and consumption, in which the cinematic canon is created and bound. Still, the existence of these lists can serve as a great starting point for budding film-lovers by which to orient themselves in an infinite ocean of cinema.
Regretfully, it would appear that my invitation to cast my vote for the poll was lost in the mail, thus my opinion has no impact on the list's final result. Still, I have thought about my hypothetical answer carefully, attempting to recognize the validity of my own opinion as an amateur film historian/professional film lover, while trying to maintain an objective distance from the films themselves as an unbiased critic. Without further ado, here's where I'm at:
Honourable Mentions: Apocalypse Now, Brief Encounter, Cléo from 5 to 7, Come and See, The Magnificent Ambersons, Mulholland Drive, The Night of the Hunter, Nosferatu, Yojimbo
10. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
9. The Cranes are Flying (1957)
8. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
7. Paths of Glory (1955)
6. Badlands (1973)
5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
4. Paris, Texas (1984)
3. The Red Shoes (1948)
2. Tokyo Story (1953)
1. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
