Sight and Sound Directors’ Poll: Greatest Films of All Time
60 Episodes
Alongside its legendary once-a-decade critics’ poll, “Sight and Sound” magazine conducts a parallel survey of filmmakers to produce a collective list of the 100 greatest films of all time. 2022’s edition polled 480 directors, producing a selection that includes many surprises not present on the critics’ list, such as COME AND SEE, ERASERHEAD, and LA CIÉNAGA.
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2:17:06Episode 1
Tokyo Story
Episode 1
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1953 • Japan
Starring Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko HaraA profoundly stirring evocation of elemental humanity and universal heartbreak, TOKYO STORY is the crowning achievement of the unparalleled Yasujiro Ozu. The film, which follows an aging couple’s journe...
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Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Episode 2
Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1975 • Belgium
Starring Delphine Seyrig, Jan DecorteA singular work in film history, Chantal Akerman’s JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES meticulously details, with a sense of impending doom, the daily routine of a middle-aged widow, whose chores ...
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8½
Episode 3
Directed by Federico Fellini • 1963 • Italy
Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (Otto e mezzo) turns one man's artistic crisis into a grand e...
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Mirror
Episode 4
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1974 • Soviet Union
Starring Margarita Terekhova, Filipp Yankovskiy, Ignat DaniltsevA subtly ravishing passage through the halls of time and memory, this sublime reflection on twentieth-century Russian history by Andrei Tarkovsky (STALKER) is as much a poem compos...
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Persona
Episode 5
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1966 • Sweden
Starring Liv Ullmann, Bibi AnderssonBy the midsixties, Ingmar Bergman had already conjured many of the cinema’s most unforgettable images. But with the radical PERSONA, he attained new levels of visual poetry. In the first of a series of legendary perf...
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1:39:06Episode 6
In the Mood for Love
Episode 6
Directed by Wong Kar Wai • 2000 • Hong Kong
Starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung Man-yukHong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery abo...
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Close-up
Episode 7
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1990 • Iran
Starring Hossein Sabzian, Abolfazi Ahankhah, Mahrokh AhankhahInternationally revered Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami has created some of the most inventive and transcendent cinema of the past thirty years, and CLOSE-UP is his most radical, brilliant...
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1:33:22Episode 8
Beau travail
Episode 8
Directed by Claire Denis • 1999 • France
Starring Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Grégoire ColinWith her ravishingly sensual take on Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd, Sailor,” Claire Denis firmly established herself as one of the great visual tone poets of our time. Amid the azure waters and sunbaked ...
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3:27:01Episode 9
Seven Samurai
Episode 9
Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1954 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko TsushimaOne of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, SEVEN SAMURAI (SHICHININ NO SAMURAI) tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to pro...
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1:30:45Episode 10
Breathless
Episode 10
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard • France • 1960
Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel BoulangerThere was before BREATHLESS, and there was after BREATHLESS. Jean-Luc Godard burst onto the film scene in 1960 with this jazzy, free-form, and sexy homage to the American film genres that inspi...
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Stalker
Episode 11
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1979 • Soviet Union
Starring Alisa Freindlikh, Aleksandr Kaidnovsky, Anatoly SolonitsynAndrei Tarkovsky’s final Soviet feature is a metaphysical journey through an enigmatic postapocalyptic landscape, and a rarefied cinematic experience like no other. A hired gui...
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2:27:02Episode 12
A Woman Under the Influence
Episode 12
Directed by John Cassavetes • 1974 • United States
Starring Gena Rowlands, Peter FalkThis uncompromising portrait of domestic turmoil details the emotional breakdown of a suburban housewife and her family’s struggle to save her from herself. Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk give unforgettably harro...
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Rashomon
Episode 13
Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1950 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki MoriA riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice, RASHOMON is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. Four people give different accou...
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1:29:23Episode 14
Bicycle Thieves
Episode 14
Directed by Vittorio De Sica • 1948 • Italy
Starring Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella CarellHailed around the world as one of the greatest movies ever made, the Academy Award-winning BICYCLE THIEVES, directed by Vittorio De Sica, defined an era in cinema. In poverty-stricken postwar ...
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2:01:37Episode 15
The Battle of Algiers
Episode 15
Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo • 1966 • Algeria, Italy
Starring Brahim Haggiag, Jean Martin, Saadi YacefOne of the most influential political films in history, THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, by Gillo Pontecorvo, vividly re-creates a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from the o...
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2:05:52Episode 16
Pather Panchali
Episode 16
Directed by Satyajit Ray • 1955 • India
Starring Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Karuna BanerjeeWith the release in 1955 of Satyajit Ray’s debut, PATHER PANCHALI, an eloquent and important new cinematic voice made itself heard all over the world. A depiction of rural Bengali life in a style insp...
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3:03:12Episode 17
Andrei Rublev
Episode 17
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1966 • Soviet Union
Starring Anatoly Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Grinko
Tracing the life of a renowned icon painter, the second feature by Andrei Tarkovsky vividly conjures the murky world of medieval Russia. This dreamlike and remarkably tactile film follow... -
Ordet
Episode 18
Directed by Carl Th. Dreyer • 1955 • Denmark
Starring Henrik Malberg, Emil Hass Christensen, Cay KristiansenA farmer’s family is torn apart by faith, sanctity, and love—one child believes he’s Jesus Christ, a second proclaims himself agnostic, and the third falls in love with a fundamentalist’s...
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1:21:12Episode 19
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Episode 19
Directed by Carl Th. Dreyer • 1928 • France
Starring Renée Falconetti, Eugène Silvain, André BerleySpiritual rapture and institutional hypocrisy come to stark, vivid life in one of the most transcendent masterpieces of the silent era. Chronicling the trial of Joan of Arc in the hours leading up...
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1:40:00Episode 20
The 400 Blows
Episode 20
Directed by François Truffaut • 1959 • France
Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert RémyFrançois Truffaut’s first feature is also his most personal. Told through the eyes of Truffaut’s cinematic counterpart, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), THE 400 BLOWS sensitively re-creates t...
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La Jetée
Episode 21
Directed by Chris Marker • 1963 • France
Chris Marker, filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor, and now videographer and digital multimedia artist, has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory, and the rapid advancement ...
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1:35:50Episode 22
Au hasard Balthazar
Episode 22
Directed by Robert Bresson • 1966 • France
Starring Anne Wiazemsky, Walter Green, François LafargeA profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema, Robert Bresson’s AU HASARD BALTHAZAR follows the donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some ...
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La strada
Episode 23
Directed by Federico Fellini • 1954 • Italy
Starring Giulietta Masina, Anthony Quinn, Richard BasehartWith this breakthrough film, Federico Fellini launched both himself and his wife and collaborator Giulietta Masina to international stardom, breaking with the neorealism of his early career in ...
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1:47:59Episode 24
The Rules of the Game
Episode 24
Directed by Jean Renoir • 1939 • France
Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu), by Jean Renoir, is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis' country château lays bare some ugly tr...