'Vertigo' dethrones 'Citizen Kane' as the 'greatest film of all time'

The British Film Institute's prestigious Sight & Sound magazine has announced its revised list of the Greatest Films of All Time poll.

Often cited as one of the few film lists that genuinely matter, this time there's a shock: Alfred Hitchcock’s 'Vertigo' has ended the 50-year reign of Orson Welles’ mighty 'Citizen Kane', winner of the once-a-decade poll since 1962 and now in second place.

846 film experts were consulted in the poll, placing Yasujiro Ozu’s 'Tokyo Story' 3rd and Jean Renoir’s 'La Règle du jeu' ('The Rules of the Game') 4th.

Two new (or rather really quite old) films which jumped into the top 10 are silent - Dziga Vertov’s 'Man With a Movie Camera' at no.8, the first documentary to make the Top Ten since 1952, and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' in 9th place.

The list seldom chooses contemporary cinema. Indeed, the most recent film in the Top Ten is Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi dream classic '2001: A Space Odyssey' from 1968 in 6th place.

In a separate poll, 358 film directors from all over the world, including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola (who has three films in the Top 50), Woody Allen and Mike Leigh, voted Ozu’s 'Tokyo Story' the Greatest Film of All Time, again knocking 'Citizen Kane' off the top spot to share the no.2 position with Kubrick’s '2001: A Space Odyssey'. 'Vertigo', while it topped the other list, was here voted 7th place.

1958's 'Vertigo' was initially dismissed by many critics but has since become a true Hitchcock classic and a milestone in a career full of them ('North by Northwest', 'Psycho', 'Notorious').

Actress Kim Novak said in a recent interview with the BFI that "I remember when I played it I felt absolutely stripped naked. I felt so vulnerable. He knew exactly what he wanted. The façade was everything to him (Hitchcock)...He was obsessed with the look. It was as if he was Jimmy Stewart, making sure that she was dressed exactly the way Madeleine was. He was playing the part of Jimmy Stewart"

The Critics’ Top Ten Greatest Films of All Time are:  

1.     Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
2.     Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
3.     Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
4.     La Règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939)
5.     Sunrise: a Song for Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)
6.     2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
7.     The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
8.     Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
9.     The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1927)
10.     8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)

The Directors’ Top Ten Greatest Films of All Time are:          

  1. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
=2.  2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
=2.  Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
  4.  8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
  5.  Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
  6. Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
=7. The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
=7. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
  9. Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1974)
10. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)

Nick James, Editor, Sight and Sound magazine said "This result reflects changes in the culture of film criticism. The new cinephilia seems to be not so much about films that strive to be great art, such as Citizen Kane, and that use cinema’s entire arsenal of effects to make a grand statement, but more about works that have personal meaning to the critic.

"Vertigo is the ultimate critics’ film because it is a dreamlike film about people who are not sure who they are but who are busy reconstructing themselves and each other to fit a kind of cinema ideal of the ideal soul mate. In that sense it’s a makeover film full of spellbinding moments of awful poignancy that show how foolish, tender and cruel we can be when we're in love."
 

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