Every 10 years, Sight and Sound Magazine takes a poll to find out what films are the greatest ever made. The last poll was in 2012, and a big surprise was that Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo beat out Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.
Surprised me, too, because Notorious is my favorite Hitchcock film, followed by Shadow of a Doubt. That's not to say Vertigo isn't great; it's like a slow-building dream wrapped up in a nightmare and sprinkled with the heartbreaking perfection of Kim Novak and quiet decency of Jimmy Stewart...but it doesn't make a damn bit of sense. Which is not a complaint. Dreams never make sense once you've woken up.
I've seen 31 of the top 50 films, and would rank some of them differently -- I prefer Ozu's Late Spring to Tokyo Story, for example, and think The 400 Blows and La Dolce Vita belong much higher in the rankings -- but that's my opinion, and this is more of a fun exercise than anything else.
A short run-up to Oscar night.
Surprised me, too, because Notorious is my favorite Hitchcock film, followed by Shadow of a Doubt. That's not to say Vertigo isn't great; it's like a slow-building dream wrapped up in a nightmare and sprinkled with the heartbreaking perfection of Kim Novak and quiet decency of Jimmy Stewart...but it doesn't make a damn bit of sense. Which is not a complaint. Dreams never make sense once you've woken up.
I've seen 31 of the top 50 films, and would rank some of them differently -- I prefer Ozu's Late Spring to Tokyo Story, for example, and think The 400 Blows and La Dolce Vita belong much higher in the rankings -- but that's my opinion, and this is more of a fun exercise than anything else.
A short run-up to Oscar night.
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