Sight and Sound presents the Greatest Films of All Time

Once a decade, Sight and Sound conducts the world’s biggest poll of filmmakers and critics to produce a list of the ‘Greatest Films of All Time’. The results, first published in 1952, are a bellwether for international film culture and pored over by cinephiles on every continent. 

When Chantal Akerman’s seminal 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles was announced as our most recent number one, #sightandsoundpoll trended globally for days as the world’s media excitedly made sense of the story. The impact on film culture was huge, with cinemas, film societies, publishers and distributors responding with screenings, seasons, releases and events to explore this seismic shift in the canon. 

More than 1,600 critics, programmers, curators, academics and archivists voted for 3,800 different films in our critics’ poll. Almost 600 filmmakers voted for 1,700 different films in our directors’ poll. This is, without doubt, the most comprehensive and expertly curated list of great films ever compiled. 

In this special issue we reproduce the 2022 top 100 in full alongside introductions to every poll from 1952 to today, mapping the evolution of the poll and the critical position Sight and Sound holds at the centre of film discourse. 

Whether you’re coming to these lists for the first time or dipping back in for another hit, please enjoy them and most of all watch as many of the films as you can. Roll on 2032… 

—Mike Williams, Editor in chief, Sight and Sound

From its origins in a 1952 critical experiment, Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time poll has grown in scope and reputation over eight editions to become the foremost embodiment of a cinematic canon. Here, we present each decade’s introduction and results.

Vittorio De Sica’s working-class drama ran away with our maiden poll, beating two Chaplin films tied for second.

Orson Welles’ dazzling labyrinth and Antonioni’s L’avventura blaze a trail for modernist riddles, while two Eisensteins and Ugetsu Monogatari point to the east.

Citizen Kane holds its top spot, joined by Welles’ second feature, while Fellini, Antonioni and two Bergmans represent arthouse Europe.

Still little change with seven holdovers from the 1972 top ten, though Vertigo and The Searchers make their entrances.

We invite film directors to contrast their lists with our critics, who dig deeper into the past, with only 2001: A Space Odyssey made later than the 1950s.

Half a century on, amid widening access to cinema history, Citizen Kane remained unshakeable atop our poll. In this introduction, Ian Christie considered the importance, methods and contested merits of our canon.

After 50 years of Kane supremacy, our poll found a new top film after we widened our invitation list – receiving votes for more than 2,000 films from 846 critics, curators and scholars. Nick James introduced our workings.

The eighth edition of our critics’ poll is by far our largest and most diverse, with 1,639 voters nominating nearly 4,000 films – not least a first-ever female-directed number one. Our top 100 also welcomes nine titles from the new century, writes Thomas Flew.

We list the 100 greatest films of all time, as selected by critics – each entry complemented by voters’ comments.

For the first time in 70 years the Sight and Sound poll has been topped by a film directed by a woman – and one that takes a consciously, radically feminist approach to cinema. Things will never be the same. By Laura Mulvey.

We list the 50 greatest films of all time, as selected by filmmakers, and list over 100 individual ballots. Introduction by Arjun Sajip.