Well.... many of you know about Sight and Sound's once-a-decade top ten films survey. Results from the 2002 poll were discussed here: http://dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread....hreadid=228420


The latest Sight and Sound has a poll of the top ten films since 1978 (votes from UK Critics only).

Results:

Films
1 Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)
2 Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese)
3 Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman)
4 Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese)
5 Blue Velvet (David Lynch)
6 Do The Right Thing (Spike Lee)
7 Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
8 Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai)
9 Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies)
10= Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone)
10= A One and a Two... (Edward Yang)


Directors
1 Martin Scorsese
2 Krzysztof Kieslowski
3 Wong Kar-Wai
4 Abbas Kiarostami
5 Michael Mann
6 David Lynch
7 Pedro Almodovar
8 Francis Ford Coppola
9= Spike Lee
9= Ingmar Bergman



Of note:
Kieslowski does not have a film in the top ten because critics split on: Dekalog, Three Colours Blue, Three Colours Red, A Short Film About Killing, and The Double Life of Veronique

Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood For Love just missed the top 10

Kiarostami voters split on: Close-Up, Through the Olive Trees, The Wind Will Carry Us, 10, and A Taste of Cherry

Top vote getters for Mann's films were: Heat, Manhunter


Wow.... Kieslowski gets 2nd on top directors list but doesn't have a film in the top 10... what breadth! I can't wait for the Colors Trilogy coming to R1 next March.





All in the December issue of Sight and Sound, which appeared in my mailbox rather early.

I saw this poll a few weeks ago, and as I was then, I'm struck but the overwhelming "Hollywood-ness" of the films. Knowing the director's list makes a difference, but somehow I like better the Cinemateque Toronto "Best of the 90's" list, which had four Kiarostami films in the top 10...

Complete press release frm earlier this month in this thread:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...ghlight=survey

this was posted before, but no one wanted to discuss it.

This is what I said:I'd also like to add that Do The Right Thing, while certainly a good movie, doesn't belong anywhere near that list.

I agree that Apocalypse Now is easily the best movie from 1978 to present. The rest of the titles on that list probably wouldn't make my top 10 though. I would have to get The Deer Hunter, Being There, The Elephant Man, Amadeus, Brazil, and Pulp Fiction in there somehow.

I just realized that there's a thread already, but I did do a title search for "Sight and Sound" though- I just didn't know that the original thread title had only Apocalypse Now in it. But I did bring in some other info (related to the directors) though. I also made the mistake of stating that the survey was for movies from 1978 to present, but it was actually from 1976 to present... the earliest movie from the top 10 results was from 1978.


Anyway, I actually don't like Apocalypse Now that much.... though I've only seen it once.

Only 50 UK critics were surveyed, and I'm assuming that the survey was the same format as the one they used for the 10 ten greatest films ever- list ten films, and list ten directors. The writer of the article suggested that if the European critics had been involved too, the results would look different (inclusion of Godard, for example). Really though, if S&S is going to do something like this... they might as well do it on a scale as big as their once-a-decade survey... i.e. survey critics and directors from around the world.

Wow. Of all the American films on the list, I would say that Do the Right Thing is the only one that absolutely belongs, no question. Raging Bull, maybe, and the others, no way...

i would have to disagree. although some of the films were made in Hollywood (LA overall, really) by LA-based studios... when people generally talk about "Hollywoody" films, they are talking about big, brainless, plotless lumps of... take XXX or Austin Powers, for example. although I love Austin Powers, it adds nothing new to the cinematic lexicon... oo, i used the word "lexicon"... *shiver* nor does XXX. Reign of Fire. a majority of what has been made in the past two and a half decades, really. but all of the films on that list are complex, character-driven pieces (of those that i have seen)... so i would not say that they are full of "Hollywood-ness".

come to think of it.. i don't think any of those, except for maybe Blade Runner and Apocalypse Now, had a "Hollywood-size" budget.

i guess what this boils down to is semantics. you define "Hollywood-ness" one way, i another. and so it goes...

as for the list at hand, i haven't seen all of the films in the top ten, but from those i have i'd say it's pretty good. although, Pulp Fiction probably belongs on there - not necessarily for being an outstanding movie (which it is), but more for it's reinvention of cinematic vocabulary. (geezus.. i think i've become a cinesnob.. i'm shutting up now.)
-di doctor-

I've only seen five on that list, and I really like Apocalypse Now and Goodfellas and Raging Bull. Do The Right Thing is interesting, but not a great film in any way. And Once Upon a Time in America is just an awful mess.

Just MHO.

Shawshank and Amadeus would have been nice inclusions, and maybe a few more non-R-rated films.

Did you see the original 4-hour version, or the hacked up version originally released in america? (Both were available on vhs) The short version is indeed a mess, but I think the actual movie is quite good (even if not quite deserving it's place on that top 10 list)

And maybe some more films with no smoking or blasphemy

4-hour version. And I've seen bits and parts of the shorter version on AMC, but I can't imagine liking hte hacked up version better than the 4-hour pipe-dream version.