There is going to be another international Sight & Sound poll for greatest film of all time. Personally, I loved looking deeply into the results from 2012’s poll. The magazine was generous enough to archive all films that received votes as well as every voters’ list. Someone at Letterboxd put the movies up in this list.
This year, they have pledged to cast an even wider net for votes. Something like 5,000 voters’ lists will be recorded. I don’t care too much about the top ten, but the shifting results for the top 200 are neat. I think it’s fascinating to trawl around different voters and sample their tastes. Everyone has a different approach to how they select their top ten. I remember finding a Kazakh writer who included mostly central Asian films on their list. That was cool.
In anticipation, I created my own top ten list comprised only of films that didn’t receive a single vote in 2012.
It’s here now! I’m actually late in posting this. There are a lot of cool shifts to it compared to previous lists, most noticeably in the prominence of work from women. I’m especially happy to see Daisies,The Gleaners and I,Yi Yi and Daughters of the Dust on it. Richard Brody had a good summary of the thing.
There’s the critics poll and the directors poll. I think teens trying to get into cinema at large would have a pretty good time perusing it all. I am disappointed that I can’t look at all the votes like I could in 2012. That’s where things get really interesting.
individual votes should be dropping in january.
the print mag includes a lot of the individual director choices - khalik allah picking belly is the most notable choice.
chris petit went with ted 2,
ss rajamouli had a pretty charming selection of stuff.
tsai picked his own movie (goodbye dragon inn), but i would totally believe that’s a typo and he actually picked dragon inn. good choice either way.
