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BFI: 2012 Director's top 100 films

Also: BFI: 2012 Critics top 250 films

Once a decade Sight & Sound asks critics to select the Greatest Films of All Time. We’re proud that, thanks to its longevity and critical reach, this poll has come to be regarded as the most trusted guide there is to the canon of cinema greats, not to mention a barometer of changing critical tastes. Famously, Citizen Kane topped our poll every decade from 1962 to 2002…

For our 2012 edition, riding on the back of an increasingly globalised movie culture, we made a concerted push to take the poll truly worldwide – extending invitations to over 1,000 critics, programmers, academics, distributors, writers and other cinephiles, and receiving 846 top-ten lists from correspondents in…

Block or Report
  • Tokyo Story

    1

  • 2001: A Space Odyssey

    2

  • Citizen Kane

    3

  • 8½

    4

  • Taxi Driver

    5

  • Apocalypse Now

    6

  • Vertigo

    7

  • The Godfather

    8

  • Mirror

    9

  • Bicycle Thieves

    10

  • Breathless

    11

  • Raging Bull

    12

  • Persona

    13

  • The 400 Blows

    14

  • Andrei Rublev

    15

  • Fanny and Alexander

    16

  • Seven Samurai

    17

  • Rashomon

    18

  • Barry Lyndon

    19

  • Ordet

    20

  • Au Hasard Balthazar

    21

  • Modern Times

    22

  • L'Atalante

    23

  • Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

    24

  • The Rules of the Game

    25

  • Touch of Evil

    26

  • The Night of the Hunter

    27

  • The Battle of Algiers

    28

  • La Strada

    29

  • Stalker

    30

  • City Lights

    31

  • L'Avventura

    32

  • Amarcord

    33

  • The Gospel According to St. Matthew

    34

  • The Godfather: Part II

    35

  • Come and See

    36

  • Close-Up

    37

  • Some Like It Hot

    38

  • La Dolce Vita

    39

  • The Passion of Joan of Arc

    40

  • PlayTime

    41

  • A Man Escaped

    42

  • Viridiana

    43

  • Once Upon a Time in the West

    44

  • Contempt

    45

  • The Apartment

    46

  • Hour of the Wolf

    47

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

    48

  • The Searchers

    49

  • Psycho

    50

  • Man with a Movie Camera

    51

  • Shoah

    52

  • Lawrence of Arabia

    53

  • L'Eclisse

    54

  • Pickpocket

    55

  • Pather Panchali

    56

  • Rear Window

    57

  • GoodFellas

    58

  • Blow-Up

    59

  • The Conformist

    60

  • Aguirre, the Wrath of God

    61

  • Gertrud

    62

  • A Woman Under the Influence

    63

  • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

    64

  • Blue Velvet

    65

  • Grand Illusion

    66

  • Badlands

    67

  • Blade Runner

    68

  • Sunset Boulevard

    69

  • Ugetsu

    70

  • Singin' in the Rain

    71

  • In the Mood for Love

    72

  • Journey to Italy

    73

  • Vivre Sa Vie

    74

  • The Seventh Seal

    75

  • Caché

    76

  • Battleship Potemkin

    77

  • M

    78

  • There Will Be Blood

    79

  • The Shining

    80

  • The General

    81

  • Mulholland Drive

    82

  • A Clockwork Orange

    83

  • Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

    84

  • Kes

    85

  • Husbands

    86

  • The Wild Bunch

    87

  • Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

    88

  • Jaws

    89

  • The Young and the Damned

    90

  • Pierrot le Fou

    91

  • Un Chien Andalou

    92

  • Chinatown

    93

  • The Mother and the Whore

    94

  • Beau Travail

    95

  • Opening Night

    96

  • The Gold Rush

    97

  • Zero for Conduct

    98

  • The Deer Hunter

    99

  • L'Argent

    100