Dave Tompkins :: DVD Library :: Other Lists :: Sight & Sound poll 2012


(text-only version)

1.  Vertigo (1958)

A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

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2.  Citizen Kane (1941)

Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.

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3.  Tokyo Story (1953)

An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city; but the children have little time for them.

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4.  Rules of the Game (1939)

Renoir's look at bourgeois life in France at the onset of World War II. An assorted cast of characters - the rich and their poor servants - meet up at a French chateau.

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5.  Sunrise (1927)

A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.

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6.  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Mankind finds a mysterious, obviously artificial, artifact buried on the moon and, with the intelligent computer HAL, sets off on a quest.

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7.  The Searchers (1956)

As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.

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8.  Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

A cameraman travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

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9.  The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

A chronicle of the trial of Jeanne d'Arc on charges of heresy, and the efforts of her ecclesiastical jurists to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions.

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10.  8 1/2 (1963)

A harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.

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11.  Battleship Potemkin (1925)

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resulting street demonstration which brought on a police massacre.

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12.  L'Atalante (1934)

When Juliette marries Jean, she comes to live on his ship, on board of which are, besides the two of them...

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13.  Breathless (1960)

A young car thief kills a policeman and tries to persuade a girl to hide in Italy with him.

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14.  Apocalypse Now (1979)

During the on-going Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade Green Beret who has set himself up as a God among a local tribe.

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15.  Late Spring (1949)

Noriko is 27 years old and still living with her widowed father. Everybody tries to talk her into marrying, but Noriko wants to stay taking care of her father.

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16.  Au hasard Balthazar (1966)

The story of a mistreated donkey and the people around him. A study on saintliness and a sister piece to Bresson's Mouchette.

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17.  The Seven Samurai (1954)

A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves.

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17.  Persona (1966)

A nurse is put in charge of an actress who can't talk and finds that the actress's persona is melding with hers.

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19.  The Mirror (1975)

A man in his forties is going to die and remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments but things that also tell the story of all the Russian nation...

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20.  Singin' in the Rain (1952)

A silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.

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21.  L'Avventura (1960)

A woman disappears during a Mediterranean boating trip. But during the search, her lover and her best friend become attracted to each other.

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21.  Contempt (1963)

Paul Javal is a writer who is hired to make a script for a new movie about Ulysses more commercial, which is to be directed by Fritz Lang and produced by Jeremy Prokosch...

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21.  The Godfather (1972)

The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.

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24.  Ordet (1955)

How do we understand faith and prayer, and what of miracles? August 1925 on a Danish farm. Patriarch Borgen has three sons: Mikkel...

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24.  In the Mood for Love (2000)

A man and a woman move in to neighboring Hong Kong apartments and form a bond when they both suspect their spouses of extra-marital activities.

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26.  Rashomon (1950)

A heinous crime and its aftermath are recalled from differing points of view.

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26.  Andrei Rublev (1966)

Andreiv Rublev charts the life of the great icon painter through a turbulent period of 15th Century Russian history...

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28.  Mulholland Dr. (2001)

After a car wreck on the winding Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesic, she and a perky Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.

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29.  Stalker (1979)

Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, an alien place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers. Over his wife's numerous objections...

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29.Shoah (1985)
31.  The Godfather: Part II (1974)

The early life & career of Vito Corleone in 1920's New York is portrayed while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on his crime syndicate stretching from Lake Tahoe, Nevada to pre-Revolution 1958 Cuba.

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31.  Taxi Driver (1976)

A mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran works as nighttime taxi driver in a city whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process.

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33.  The Bicycle Thief (1948)

A man and his son search for a stolen bicycle vital for his job.

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34.  The General (1926)

When Union spies steal an engineer's beloved locomotive, he pursues it single handedly and straight through enemy lines.

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35.  Metropolis (1927)

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

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35.  Psycho (1960)

A young woman steals $40,000 from her employer's client, and subsequently encounters a young motel proprietor too long under the domination of his mother.

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35.  Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

A lonely widowed housewife does her daily chores, takes care of her apartment where she lives with her teenage son, and turns the occasional trick to make ends meet.

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35.  Satantango (1994)

In a small dilapidated village in 1990s Hungary, life has come to a virtual standstill. The autumn rains have started...

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39.  The 400 Blows (1959)

Intensley touching story of a misunderstood young adolescent who left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.

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39.  La Dolce Vita (1960)

Journalist and man-about-town Marcello struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend...

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41.Journey to Italy (1954)
42.  Pather Panchali (1955)

Sometime in the early years of the century, a boy, Apu, is born to a poor Brahmin family in a village in Bengal...

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42.  Some Like It Hot (1959)

When two musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.

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42.  Gertrud (1964)

In the elegant world of artists and musicians, Gertrud ends her marriage to Gustav and takes a lover, the composer Erland Jansson

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42.  Pierrot le Fou (1965)

Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.

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42.  Playtime (1967)

Monsieur Hulot has to contact an American official in Paris, but he gets lost in the maze of modern architecture which is filled with the latest technical gadgets...

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42.  Close-Up (1990)

Pretending to be Mohsen Makhmalbaf making his next movie, Ali Sabzian enters the home of a well-to-do family in Teheran...

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48.  The Battle of Algiers (1966)

A surprisingly unbiased account of the bloodiest revolution in modern history.

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48.Histoire(s) du cinéma (1998)
50.  City Lights (1931)

The Tramp struggles to help a blind flower girl he has fallen in love with.

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50.  Ugetsu (1953)

In the beginning of the springtime in the period of the Japanese Civil Wars of the Sixteenth Century in Lake Biwa in the Province of Omi...

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50.  La Jetee (1962)

Time travel, still images, a past, present and future and the aftermath of World War III. The tale of a man...

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Count: 49 / 52