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Sight & Sound 2012: 'Vertigo' Unseats 'Citizen Kane' As Greatest Movie Ever

Do you agree or disagree? When made, I agree Citizen Cane was way ahead of it's time in production quality, but the story bored me to tears. Overall, I think Vertigo is better...but the best movie? Maybe amongst old movies. Otherwise, I wouldn't put it that high. I'm not sure what movie I'd consider the best though. It's hard not to be biased and include movies that are personal favorites, you know? To me, "best" movie should be good in several areas...production, direction, acting, plot, etc. With all the movies that have come out since Citizen Cane and Vertigo, I wouldn't consider these best anymore.

Edit: I don't remember liking Citizen Kane and I know I never saw Vertigo. I will have to dig them up again now.

However, after taking a look at their top 10 list and noticing that half of the 10 were made on or before 1941 and the rest are from the 50s and 60s, I do question the objectivity of the critics who took part in the voting. One could easily make fun of the trends of modern blockbusters but surely the industry has not been so completely stagnant for 44 years. But who am I to argue with 846 'experts'.

My top ten would be predominantly (maybe entirely) from the last 44 years, but that's because I'm of a younger generation and have not yet, despite good intentions, seen many of the older classics. I do like Hitchcock films generally but have not seen Vertigo.

it's mostly a matter of taste.

i would not see Citizen Kane a second time, whatever the "experts" say about it; Vertigo is far better.

one of the best movies i've seen and seen again is Bergman's Cries and Whispers. Everything about it is excellent and it's filmed as a suite of work of art tableaux.

My favorite film of all time is usually whichever Pixar one I saw last. Except for Cars 2, which stunk, and Brave, which was sort of lame after just the one viewing so far. I'll have to see it again to see if it provides confirmation that Pixar's magic reign ended sometime in 2010.

No, not the best movie ever, and not even best among old movies, but I'm not a Hitchcock fan.

I can't believe that no one has mentioned Porky's II as of yet.

Maybe not Porky's, but I wouldn't be above listing a sequel as a best movie.

What Murph said.

The list strikes me as international film intelligentsia congratulating themselves for being so much cooler than the rabble who actually pay the money that allow good films to be made.

I've always loved Vertigo. But the notion that NONE of the top ten films of all time have been made in the last 44 years AND that half of them were made before 1941 is just ludicrous.

Again, I suppose few will agree what qualities constitute "best", but it seems pretty clear that audio fidelity, video fidelity, special effects, and many other factors are simply not even part of the equation on this list.

I think Godfather II is the best movie of all time.

There is no best movie.

Okay...I thought of one, but I'm HIGHLY biased! One of the best movies ever is Fargo. There is SO much of this movie that is awesome. I'm not one to watch movies over and over again, but this one is an exception.

Netflix is sending me "Grand Illusion" a 1937 French film by Jean Renoir. It came highly recommended by a friend, so I'm giving it a shot. It didn't make the top 50 list, though.

just like me, i watch Fargo at least twice a year, same as No country for an old man.
Fargo makes me laugh as if it was a comedy.
in a way, it is.

As far as I'm concerned, "Life is Beautiful" is one of the best movies ever.

My favorite Coen brothers movie is O Brother Where Art Thou. Genius.

I also really appreciate The Princess Bride, Bull Durham, and Pulp Fiction.

There tends to be an unnatural reverence for old movies. I believe the art of acting is much more refined now than 50-60 years ago. Filming and editing techniques are vastly superior. While I'm not a huge fan of CGI and gimmicky special effects, they offer the potential to do things that just weren't possible years ago.

I couldn't pick a movie that is the 'greatest of all time'. Some of my favorite movies are silly mindless comedies, like Airplane and Hot Shots. Nobody would ever mistake these for classics.

Mine too! One of my favorite all time movies is Weekend at Bernie's...makes me laugh every time!

LOL! If you're an old guy, like me, there is nothing unnatural about the reverence we feel for old movies. It is completely understandable that younger folk would not "get it."

I would agree, in general that the art of acting is more refined now. However, there are a lot of exceptions to the rule. John Barrymore's performance in "A Bill of Divorcement" (1932) is a stellar example. He plays a man who has just escaped from a mental asylum, claiming he has recovered. About half way through the movie I kept asking myself "well, is he insane or isn't he." I finally dawned on me that that was the way he was playing the role, leaving you in doubt as to his actual mental state. Marvelous performance; dated movie.

Spencer Tracy, in just about every role he played, is another MAJOR exception. His acting style is so natural it is easy to overlook, and thus underestimate, his talent.

Filming and editing techniques are much advanced today. Unfortunately, that has led to a lot of movies long in special effects but short in plot.

I have a great deal of difficulty identifying with many of today's "comedies." I am weary of toilet and bodily function humor. When I was 13, I found that stuff hilarious. I am no longer 13. Like many, some of my favorite movies are "silly, mindless comedies. However, many of them ARE considered classics. "Bringing Up Baby" (1938) "His Girl Friday" (1940), and My Man Godfrey" (1936) among them. These movies have genuine wit. Today's comedies have humor but, IMHO, not a lot of wit.

YMMV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To quote Roger Ebert on this exact topic, "For years people have been telling me they just don’t see what’s so great about “Citizen Kane.” Now they tell me they just don’t see what’s so great about “Vertigo.” My answer remains the same: “You’re insufficiently evolved as a moviegoer.” Or, more simply, “You’re wrong.”"

How ironic. His profession is entirely subjective, and he doesn't understand the subjectivity of other people.

There is such a thing as appreciating something as art. When you are sufficiently evolved (as a moviegoer) to see it, it's kind of painful to see others who can't be bothered to even try.

I feel the same way about beer, which is also an entirely subjective arena.

Okay,certainly not the best movie of all time, but one of my favorites is The Rookie with Dennis Quaid. Nothing special with regards to sound or cinematography. Hell, the acting isn't even that great. But the story gets me every time.

Now you're talkin'!!!!! For me, it's all about what, in a movie, speaks to ME. There are plenty of not-so-good movies that, for whatever reason, touch me, delight me, tickle me, intrigue me. Though I have no idea how one is chosen to make the decision, I am content to leave it to others to decide what is "art." All that concerns me is what pleases me.

Before the existence of movies, TV, radio, books, even before there was writing, from the time language in some form came into existence, there has been the continuing desire - "tell me a story." For me, that's what movies are all about.

The Godfather
Godfather II
High Anxiety
Jaws

Hear hear!
All we can do is share some of our favourites (correct spelling in this hemisphere)

Still Crazy
Lord of the Rings
Star Wars IV - a new hope
Serenity
Field of Dreams
Master and Commander

Shane

"Art is the conformism of subjectivity."
A quote by....me, so I am the one to flame if you disagree.

Technically, that should read, "Popular art is the conformism of subjectivity" but that sentence has no ring to it.

The exception is for the individual artist. To the artist, art is whatever they want it to be. The paintings I did in my teen years will never be considered by those who claim to be "refined enough to appreciate art," but to me, they are my own artworks.

Nor for Best acting, etc. They just stick out in my mind as the most enjoyable when viewed for the first time.

Comedy: A Blast from the Past.
Sci-Fi: Forbidden Planet / 2001 A Space Odyssey
Fantasy: The Wizard of OZ. / Harry Potter
Horror: Poltergeist / Alien
Musical: The Sound of Music.
Western: New World.
Misc: Apocalypto.
Real life: Apollo 13 / Titanic
Drama: Shawshank Redemption
Animation: How to Train your Dragon / My Neighbor Totoro
War: Patton / U571
Mystery: Blue Velvet

Fargo
A Serious Man
True Grit

To Kill a Mockingbird

My guilty pleasure is Crocodile Dundee.

these are the old "jewels" in my collection:

7 Samurai (full length); (http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Seven-Samurai-Blu-ray/7737/#Review);
Amadeus (director's cut);
Divorce Italian Style (Mastroianni);
The Ladykillers (1955) (Mackendrick)
The Manchurian Candidate.
Das Boot (orig. uncut version / complete tv series);
The Man who would be King (John huston);
Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources (Claude berri).

Everyone should see Divorce Italian Style and
The Ladykillers. Excellent comedies.

some more jewels in my collection!

La Strada (Fellini)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston)
Nosferatu (Murnau)
Seventh Seal/The Virgin Spring (Bergman)
The Train (Frankenheimer)
Inherit the Wind (Kramer)
Forbidden Games (Clément)
L'Armée des Ombres/Army of Shadows (Manchevski):
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Army-of-Shadows-Blu-ray/17068/
The Exorcist (Friedkin)
Mr. Hulot's vacation (Tati)

J.B. I, too, very much enjoyed 1955's The Ladykillers. In a similar vein, if you have not seen it, I think you would very much enjoy "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1951).

I saw it a couple of time, a long time ago; i should see it again as it's a bit foggy in my mind after all those years. thanks.

WOW! Now you guys are starting to hit some of my favs.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston) - Easy to see why Huston's father, Walter, won the best supporting Oscar for his performance.

The Train (Frankenheimer) - Amazing, one camera take of Lancaster running on a structure over the tracks, sliding down a ladder, then jumping on a train. All done by Lancaster himself.

Inherit the Wind (Kramer) - Spencer Tracy. Nuff said.

Mr. Hulot's Holiday (Tati) - A master of mime comedy.

To Kill A Mockingbird - A nearly perfect movie. One of the best features was the narration by Nelle Harper Lee, the book's author, herself. Brilliant touch that worked beautifully.

The Man Who Would Be King - Saw this a theater when it first came out (1975). Wasn't expecting much but ended up blown away by a great story and the usual excellent performances by Caine and Connery.

Cool! I was JUST going to ask what your favorite movies are, Jack! Anyhow, I'm glad it came down to NOT trying to figure out the greatest movie of all time, but our personal favorites.

quote: "Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston) - Easy to see why Huston's father, Walter, won the best supporting Oscar for his performance."

i remember reading that the director had to ask his father to water down his interpretation because he was stealing the show from the main actor. it's true that Walter's part in the movie is extraordinary.

Great story. All I can say is, if Walter watered down his performance, I can't imagine what it was like BEFORE he watered it down.

I thought Bogart's performance was great too. Even Tim Holt, who I don't think of as a great actor, did a wonderful job with his role. Just a great job by everybody.

Mary, I have too many favorites to try to list. I am a movie junkie.

There's where most people's confusion lies, as that is not the case. You're confusing the subjective opinion of liking or not liking any one film, with the objective ability to determine if that one film is "good" or not.

I might love Crank 2 (I do), but that doesn't make it a great movie. Objectively it's terrible.

I don't think Murph is confused.

I agree that "liking" something is not necessarily the same as determining its "quality". I'm going to disagree that determination of artistic goodness is an objective pursuit, though.

I suppose it would be an interesting exercise to attempt to determine not only the objective factors necessary for "quality", but also their thresholds. But I just don't have that kind of time.

Hear, hear. It's an impossible task, especially with a term as broad as "best." Too many variables, too much of it open to interpretation. In the end, I think the emotional resonance is the most important aspect of any art, and that's where it really does come down to choosing favorites, regardless of technical merits. Not that I know anything. There's probably art out there that's specifically designed to have zero emotional impact. Michael Bay?

Hear hear, again!!!!

Look! We have a scientific study for The Formula For a Perfect Movie. There's even a graph! Seriously, I'd like to know more about this study. We aren't given hardly any info except it suggests it has to do with our attention spans.

A couple of interesting points:

In a new study, professor James Cutting found that the more recent the blockbuster, the more closely the length of its shots followed that same fluctuation.

...but just because movies are increasingly pleasing to our subconscious minds doesn't mean that we will necessarily like them more: the Star Wars prequels strictly followed the formula.

I totally agree that attention span has nothing to do with liking the movie. Sometimes I think a huge dislike of a movie is what holds my attention...it's so bad, I can't stop watching!

Very interesting, Mary!

But it looks like the basic population of the research deals with "popular" movies, not with "good" movies. The subsequent quantitative analysis isn't necessarily testing the same premise. All we have is that the attention-span-sensitive editing seems to be a contributing factor to commercial success.

See, by specifying the population BEFORE developing the criteria, the study utterly fails to provide an objective basis for analysis of a given movie.

Night of the Hunter (did anyone pick this one yet?)
Cape Fear (Robert Mitchum, black and white)
Casablanca (What?!? There's gambling in this casino?!?)
Robot Monster
The Thing (1952 version)
Breaking the Sound Barrier (David Lean 1952, "Mach point 9, buffeting!")

The Man with X-Ray Eyes, Ray Milland. "If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out"

"Princess Bride," thanks medic8r for reminding me. That is a classic!

I need to rewatch that.

yeah, i got "Night of the Hunter"; excellent!

JB, I see you have Das Boot. At least it had a happy ending.

i can't understand what you mean by "it had a happy ending".
can you?

Nazi submarine destroyed.

that line of thinking does not sit well with the aim of the movie which is not about the "good guys" vs the "bad guys", but about what wars do to people and some of the things they must do in order to survive. i guess you haven't seen the movie.

if you look at the crew "before" and "after", you can very well see the destructive effect and the horrors that wars bring on us, and that, because some very sick people can gain access to commanding positions.

Here's the beginning of a critique of the movie which is very informative as to it's purpose:

"In Das Boot, it matters not which uniform the men wear. Traditional historic and cinematic antagonists become the heroic protagonists because they're painted as real human beings, caught up in a situation where, it seems, they fight more to survive than they do for an ideal they may or may not hold true. Das Boot is superficially a World War II Submarine picture, but it is at its center a far greater picture that deals in the human condition under the greatest of stresses, at times when all those symbols they wear and the allegiances they pledge become only tertiary background elements in a much larger picture and puzzle. As such, it is perhaps the ultimate War film, for it portrays war as devastating not just to materials and the physical bodies of men, but damaging to their very essences, too, at a level where, indeed, basic humanity and the struggle to survive reigns supreme over any and all external elements that might shape, but rarely ever completely destroy, the deepest and most human of all traits that are shared across borders, uniforms, and time."

the whole review is here: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Das-Boot-Blu-ray/20919/#Review

Yes, JB, a German made movie which shows how the poor Nazi submariners were just some regular sausage eating folks like the rest of us. War, was portrayed as some external, irrational force which befell those poor saps.

I see it differently. Nazi Germany. buoyed by theories of race superiority, and a political theory of will to power, where races compete to the genocidal death, and Aryan destiny was to triumph or lose to the lesser races, like Jews and Slavs, unleashed hell on the world. Unlimited submarine warfare sent tens of thousands of seamen to the depths.

Those noble unter Wasser, deutscher U-Bootkrieg submariners, who fought for their nation but hated Nazis is baloney. Enthusiastic Nazis until the allies rolled them back. I am not aware of any notable moral struggles among Nazis when it came to machine gunning survivors in the water, slamming torpedoes into ocean liners, hospital ships, or using Jewish and Slavic slave labor in the protected concrete u-boat pens, so excuse me if the point of the movie missed its mark with me.

I saw it as an attempt to portray the hunters as victims of other hunters and isn't it all the same and terrible. We are all victims of war. But it was National Socialist Germany that started a war of conquest and extermination. May all National Socialists rot in hell.

Sorry if this offends the new multicultural Euro conceit which no longer even refers to the war as World War II but rather the European Civil War.

No. Doesn't work for me JB.

Yes, I believe it was a P-47 Thunderbolt which strafed the U Boat and its crew to the end they earned.

I think the Thunderbolt was an extremely successful aircraft. It doesn't get the attention that it deserves.

I agree Mr. Lampshade, P47, heavy, powerful, fast, surprisingly maneuverable.

No, you are thinking of Das Booty.

Das is varichte funny

I've posted this before, but it's worth a mention again - The Commitments. Great story, and absolutely dynamite soundtrack. Easily my favorite. (Played very very loudly)

Others I have enjoyed:
Walk the Line
The Breakfast Club
(Do you see a musical pattern here?)
Eddie and the Cruisers
Shooter (Mark Wahlberg)
Runaway Jury

Ok, Runaway Jury got me thinking about "trial" movies:

A Time to Kill
A Few Good Men
My Cousin Vinny

Cool thread! I don't know that it is possible to pick a top 10 ever in movies. Each era has its greats.

Here is a list of movies that have stood out to me:

Gone with the Wind - to me the grand daddy of movies ahead of their time
Dr. Zhivago
Das Boot
AI - Best SciFi movie I have seen
Lord of the Rings
Sophies Choice
Modern Times - gotta include Chaplin in the list somewhere
African Queen
Long Day's Jouney Into Night - Hepburn was amazing in this movie
Days of Wine and Roses - One of Jack Lemon's best performances
Kiss of the Spicer Woman

African Queen, classic.

My Cousin Vinny, every once in a while before a trial, I watch it. The Best and briefest movie cross-examination ever.

'Aliens' - always one of my favourites.

There are 2 versions on Blu-Ray - try the 1990 full length version. My daughter & I watched it tonight - the first time that we had seen the long version that James Cameron originally wanted to show; however, it was deemed to be too long (2 hrs 34 mins) by the higher ups.

Excellent video quality & the sound track is tremendous. As always, the story line was superb & suspenseful. The long version built more background to the story at the front end than the theatrical release. A better version overall IMHO.

During the ending credits I turned the volume down from -10 Db to -20 Db. It's a good thing that I did as a short THX animated demo appeared & almost blew us out of the room. Be careful - it could be a sub destroyer if played too loud. I've got to watch that part again when my wife isn't trying to sleep, ha!

TAM

That there is funny!