Film Obsessive
Earlier today, Sight and Sound announced the results of its eighth decennial critics’ poll selecting the 100 Greatest Films of All Time. And for the second consecutive time, a new title sits at the top spot.
In 2012, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles was one of just two of the list’s films directed by women, coming in at #36, well outside any contention for the title. Jeanne Dielman has now been voted—in the most highly regarded poll of its kind—the Greatest Film of All Time.
Released in 1975, Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman’s is a three-hour-plus character study of Jeanne (Delphine Seyrig), a single mother and prostitute, during the course of her daily routine. Long hailed as a landmark of feminist cinema, Jeanne Dielman was in the 2012 poll joined by only one other film directed by a female: Beau Travail, directed by Claire Denis, which came in at #78. In the new version of the poll, Beau Travail rose to #7.
Those two films join nine others directed by women in the Top 100. They include Akerman’s News from Home (#52) and two by Agnes Varda (Cleo from 5 to 7 at #14 and The Gleaners and I at #67) as well as Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid’s Meshes of the Afternoon (#16), Vera Chytilová’s Daisies #28), Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (#30), Barbara Loden’s Wanda (#48), Jane Campion’s The Piano (#50), and Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (#52).
The usurping of a top spot held previously by only three films—Bicycle Thieves (1952), Citizen Kane (1962-2002), and Vertigo (2012)—is perhaps the biggest surprise in the 2022 list. Kane and Vertigo remained highly regarded, at #2 and #3, respectively. Tokyo Story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Man with a Movie Camera, and Sunrise all remained in the Top Ten, where they were joined by several relative newcomers—Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love, David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr, Beau Travail—and the classic Hollywood musical Singin’ in the Rain.
In 2012, Mulholland Dr and In the Mood for Love were the only films from the 21st century listed in the Top 100; in 2022, both sit among the Top Ten. Their rise suggests how the Sight & Sound critics’ polls chart the ebb and flow of individual films’ critical reputations over time, evidencing both a general consistency of top-rated films and a degree of changing tastes as those films rise and fall in the rankings.
For the 2022 poll, nearly 1600 voters (double those polled in the prior poll) submitted their rankings. Their results and commentary are scheduled to appear in a double issue of Sight & Sound available to subscribers the following day and on newsstands December 5th.
The last poll, conducted in 2012, was the first in five decades in which Citizen Kane no longer sat atop the list; the 846 critics, scholars, curators, and programmers polled instead nominated Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo in its place.
In 2012, Kane fell to #2, followed by #3 Tokyo Story (1953, dir. Yasujirô Ozu), #4 La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game, 1939, dir. Jean Renoir), #5 Sunrise (1927, dir. F.W. Murnau), #6 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, dir. Stanley Kubrick), #7 The Searchers (1956, dir. John Ford), #8 Man with a Movie Camera (1929, dir. Dziga Vertov), #9 The Passion of Joan of Arc (1927, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer), and #10 8-1/2 (1963, dir. Federico Fellini).
Some took exception with the prior poll’s lack of inclusion of films directed by women and people of color, from traditionally underrepresented populations and countries and from recent decades, as was noted in our prior Film Obsessive article.
The 2022 poll includes not only a greater number of films directed by women, but also by Black filmmakers. While in 2012 Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki was the only such film, the 2022 list includes Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, Jordan Peele’s Get Out, and Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl.
What did you think of the 2022 poll results? Sound off in the comments, or check back next week for our Film Obsessive staff’s take on the new poll.
