Ken Russell’s 1971 period shocker The Devils has been named the favourite BFI DVD/Blu-ray following a poll of 6,500 voters. With the lure of a prize of 50 BFI DVD/Blu-rays of their choice, pollers voted via email or social media for their three favourite discs from the label.
With 672 votes, The Devils narrowly fended off Seven Samurai (1954), which came in second place with 667 votes. Akira Kurosawa’s action epic topped a strong showing for Japanese titles, with Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) also in the top five and Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla (1954) featuring at number nine.
Each title in the 300+ strong collection received at least one vote, with world cinema classics, UK archive compilations and long-lost favourites of British film and TV such as Ghost Stories at Christmas all proving popular.
F.W. Murnau’s gothic horror Nosferatu (1922) was the highest-voted silent film, while Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End (1970) was the most popular of the BFI’s Flipside releases, dedicated to rediscovering lost pockets of British cinema. The number one archive title was the GPO Film Unit’s Night Mail (1936), which rhythmically sets documentary footage of a London-Scotland mail train to a poem by W.H. Auden.
The winner – picked at random – was Giustina from London, who voted for Ken Russell’s The Devils, Jane Arden and Jack Bond’s Anti-Clock (1979) and Akira Kurosawa’s Drunken Angel (1948).
Top 5 BFI DVD/Blu-rays
1. The Devils
2. Seven Samurai
3. Nosferatu
4. Tokyo Story
5. La Belle et la Bête
The next five…
6. Ghost Stories at Christmas
7. Bande à part
8. L’Âge d’or
9. Godzilla
10. The Leopard
Archive top 5
1. Night Mail
2. The Great White Silence
3. The British Transport Films Collection
4. London: The Modern Babylon
5. Wonderful London
Flipside top 5
1. Deep End
2. The Bed Sitting Room
3. The Black Panther
4. Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush
5. Bronco Bullfrog
Silent top 5
1. Nosferatu
2. Man with a Movie Camera
3. Charlie Chaplin: The Mutual Films
4. A Cottage on Dartmoor
5. Underground