A list of the top 100 movies of all time is a great excuse to fight

Sight & Sound has released its latest list of the 100 greatest films of all time. The top 10 votes of more than 1,600 film critics. Academics, programmers. curators.archivists worldwide voted for the list. And as you might imagine from a description of the exercise, it’s leaves plenty of room for both appreciation and disagreement.

As with every previous version of the list, Sight & Sounds 2022 top 100 is stacked front to back with great films, even if there are a few inclusions that seem a little baffling if we’re limiting ourselves to just 100 movies.

The most significant change is undoubtedly the addition of the number one movie. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Chantal Akerman’s masterful slice-of-life drama. There have been either one or both of the six most recent lists. Vertigo Or Citizen KaneThe top spot in the rankings is (Kane was the top dog for five consecutive decades), and those two movies don’t fall far this year, slotting in directly behind Jeanne Dielman. As every year, there will be many more changes.

Of course, ultimately the only real result of a list this comprehensive is to point out how many of the greatest movies ever aren’t included. A list such as this is bound to have flaws and biases. But that’s the fun of a list claiming such authority: it’s exceedingly fun to argue with!

So, in the spirit of list making and its inevitable and intended results, here’s the top 20 movie’s from Sight & Sounds 2022 list (you can find the rest of the top 100, along with the slightly better directors poll list, on the Sight and Sound website):

1. Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, Chantal Akerman)
2. Vertigo(1958, Alfred Hitchcock).
3. Citizen Kane(1941), Orson Welles
4. Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujirō Ozu)
5. Love in the Mood(2000, Wong Kar wai)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
7. Beau travail (1998, Claire Denis)
8. Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch)
9. The Man With a Video Camera (1929, Dziga Vertov)
10. Singin’ in the Rain (1951, Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen)
11. Sunrise: Two Humans Sing a SongF.W. Murnau)
12. The Godfather(1972 Francis Ford Coppola).
13. La Règle du jeu (1939, Jean Renoir)
14. Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962, Agnès Varda)
15. The Searchers (1956 John Ford).
16. Meshes for the Afternoon (1943, Maya Deren Alexander Hackenschmied)
17. Close-up (1989, Abbas Kiarostami)
18. Persona (1966, Ingmar Bergman)
19. Apocalypse Now(1979 Francis Ford Coppola).
20. Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa)