CITIZEN KANE
I have no idea whether CITIZEN KANE is the single greatest film ever made, but there is no film that is obviously better. We can talk about Ella Fitzgerald vs. Billie Holiday or Babe Ruth vs. Ted Williams, but it's CITIZEN KANE vs. everything else. Welles' THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS used to do very well in S&S polling but I think TOUCH OF EVIL is probably a better regarded film now. VERTIGO
Throughout the hundreds of ballots, and all the historical S&S polls, there's a powerful "right director, wrong film" trend. I've come to think of Hitchcock as the single greatest film director so I have no objection to Hitchcock being second on this list. But VERTIGO is, though admirably personal and demented, clearly too flawed to be considered Hitchcock's best movie, let alone the second greatest film ever made. Five or ten Hitchcock movies are arguably better than VERTIGO. PSYCHO is inarguably better than VERTIGO. The second most cited Hitchcock film in S&S polling was NORTH BY NORTHWEST, so neither of the top two Hitchcock picks is among his most sublime films.
RULES OF THE GAME
A fine film but how can anyone think it's the third greatest film ever made?
THE GODFATHER 1 & 2
S&S cheated by combining all votes for 1 & 2. Why did they think they could do that? It misses the entire point of a list of films! The GODFATHER movies were not shot as one film then cut up into two. They're two different movies made at different times. THE GODFATHER is a superb bestseller adaptation and among the greatest classic old-school movies. GODFATHER 2 contains some remarkable drop-dead brilliant sequences but it barely functions as a film and it may not have even been the best movie Coppola made that year! (THE CONVERSATION is a helluva picture.) Interesting Note: Three of the directors represented in this top 10 filmed versions of Dracula or movies so similar to DRACULA that Bram Stoker's widow pitched a fit; Coppola, Murnau and Dryer.
TOKYO STORY
Good movie. THE SEVEN SAMURAI and RASHOMON used to be the stock Japanese entries, but they may have been hurt by Kurosawa vote-splitting. Or perhaps they're both too popular now, and have thus faded in esteem. Or perhaps it's part of a broad critical reassessment. Kurosawa is closely connected to John Ford and that particular narrative axis has faded. In 1982 Ford's THE SEARCHERS made this list, and SEVEN SAMURAI was number three. In 1992 THE SEARCHERS had crept up to 5th. Now there's no Ford or Kurosawa on the critics list.
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
Kubrick belongs in this slot but this is another instance of right director, wrong film. Does anyone actually consider 2001 Kubrick's best film? 2001 is a wonderful series of scenes but it's not really a coherent movie. The HAL sequence is superb but the beginning and end leave much to be desired. LOLITA, DR. STRANGELOVE and THE SHINING are comparable artistic achievements that have the added attraction of being coherent movies.
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN
Eisenstein's immense contribution to film technique is irrelevant to the total quality of BATTLESHIP as a film. I don't see how it can be a top ten item.
SUNRISE
This 1927 American film directed by F. W. Murnau is an interesting choice. It has never been on this list before, but people talk about SUNRISE all the time now. It just shows what being restored can do for an old movie. I'm fascinated by the grandeur international film achieved in the late 1920s. Technical directors always get more credit than "actor's directors," which is probably why Murnau did much better throughout the ballots than Pabst.
8 1/2
A wonderful film but an annoying choice because it's about film-making. Critics and directors both love movies abut film-making, but I'm willing go out on a limb here and suggest that the highest calling of film is probably not stories about film-making. 8 1/2 became an all-time great faster than any other film. According to S&S polling this 1963 film was the 4th greatest film of all time by 1972, and 5th best in 1982.
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
A great musical certainly belongs in the top ten somewhere but is this the greatest musical ever made? Well, it's one of them so I have no major complaint. It's hard for musicals to be a great films because they are containers for musical sequences that function as short films. If we are considering the artistic quality of individual musical numbers then Busby Berkley would belong on this list. Taken by themselves the PETTIN' IN THE PARK number from GOLD-DIGGERS OF 1933 and the LULLABY OF BROADWAY sequence from GOLD-DIGGERS OF 1935 are surely among the greatest short films ever made. Like 8 1/2, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN probably gains from being about film-making. I don't know what the greatest musical is, but GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES is one of Howard Hawks' best films, which is saying something.