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Everybody plays the game of selecting his or her ten favourite films, but the results can be interesting only when a historical perspective is attempted. The British Film Institute has now organised four polls of international critics, in 1952, 1962, 1972 and 1982, and the findings are given below, together with the number of votes cast for each film. It does seem that even critics are unable to make absolute judgements, and that some of the earlier selections at least were merely fashionable.
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1952
Bicycle Thieves 25
City Lights 19
The Gold Rush 19
The Battleship Potemkin 16
Intolerance 12
Louisiana Story 12
Greed 11
Le Jour Se Lève 11
The Passion of Joan of Arc 11
Brief Encounter 10
Le Million 10
La Règle du Jeu 10 |
1962
Citizen Kane 22
L’Avventura 20
La Règle du Jeu 19
Greed 17
Ugetsu Monogatari 17
Battleship Potemkin 16
Bicycle Thieves 16
Ivan the Terrible 16
La Terra Trema 14
L’Atalante 13 |
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1972
Citizen Kane 32
La Règle du Jeu 28
Battleship Potemkin 16
Eight and a Half 15
L’Avventura 15
Persona 12
The Passion of Joan of Arc 11
The General 10
The Magnificent Ambersons 10
Ugetsu Monogatari 9
Wild Strawberries 9 |
1982
Citizen Kane 45
La Règle du Jeu 31
Seven Samurai 15
Singin’ in the Rain 15
Eight and a Half 14
The Battleship Potemkin 13
L’Avventura 12
The Magnificent Ambersons 12
Vertigo 12
The General 11
The Searchers 11 |
Thus the only films to appear in all four lists are The Battleship Potemkin and La Règle du Jeu; and some titles, such as Louisiana Story, La Terra Trema and Vertigo (unseen for many years)* are momentary aberrations.
I suppose it is only fair for the compiler to produce his own list. Out of many hundreds of favourites, I suppose the following have come to be the films I can watch and re-watch very frequently with most pleasure and renewed application:
Citizen Kane
Trouble in Paradise
The Bride of Frankenstein
Le Million
A Matter of Life and Death
Lost Horizon (1937)
Sons of the Desert
The Philadelphia Story
The Maltese Falcon
The Lady Vanishes
The trouble is that even looking at the list makes me feel guilty about the ones I have had to leave out: The 39 Steps (1935), Oh Mr Porter, Gaslight (1940), Singin’ in the Rain, To Be or Not to Be (1942), Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931), Orphée, Les Enfants du Paradis, The Old Dark House, Way Out West, All That Money Can Buy, Casablanca, The General, Miracle in Milan**, The Magnificent Ambersons...
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