The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll 1952
British film magazine, Sight & Sound’s first decennial poll of the ten best films of all time by the world’s most eminent film critics began quietly in 1952 under the title of As the Critics Like It. It was undertaken in response to the poll of film directors taken at the Brussels Referendum of 1952.
It’s interesting that even then, in 1952, when the Cinema was still relatively young, that the critics were complaining about the difficulty of such a task. “What an awful idea,” “what a thing to ask,” “I feel simply broken,” “impossible,” “barbarous,” silly”. One critic claimed to have seen 5777 films. How does one whittle 5777 down to ten? It was also noted about the arbitrariness of the figure. One critic suggested 50, another 2½. Fifty some-years later the task is nigh impossible. With each passing year that figure of ten becomes increasingly irksome.
The Ten Best Films
01. Bicycle Thieves (de Sica, 1949): 25 votes
02. City Lights (Chaplin, 1930): 19 votes
= The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925): 19 votes
04. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925): 16 votes
05. Louisiana Story (Flaherty, 1947): 12 votes
= Intolerance (Griffith, 1916): 12 votes
07. Greed (von Stroheim, 1924): 11 votes
= Le jour se lève (Carne, 1939): 11 votes
= The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928): 11votes
10. Brief Encounter (Lean, 1945): 10 votes
= Le million (Clair, 1930): 10 votes
= La règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939): 10 votes
Main Runners-Up
11. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941): 9 votes
= La grande illusion (Renoir, 1937): 9 votes
= The Grapes of Wrath (Ford, 1940): 9 votes
14. The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (Donskoy, 1938): 8 votes
= Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin, 1947): 8 votes
= Que viva México (Eisenstein, 1931): 8 votes
17. Earth (Dovzhenko, 1929): 7 votes
= Zéro de conduite (Vigo, 1932): 7 votes
19. Broken Blossoms (Griffith, 1919): 6 votes
= Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (Bresson, 1945): 6 votes
= Hallelujah! (Vidor, 1929): 6 votes
Sight & Sound only printed 47 of the 63 critics’ lists, nevertheless further analysis proves interesting. 198 films were listed by these 47 critics. The earliest being The Assassination of the Duke de Guise (Calmettes & Le Bargy, 1908), and the latest The Quiet Man (Ford, 1952), one of three films released in 1952 that were included. These 198 films were produced in 13 different countries, they break down as follows:
USA – 81 films (199 votes)
France – 39 films (110 votes)
Germany – 23 films (36 votes)
UK – 19 films (35 votes)
Soviet Union – 13 films (42 votes)
Italy – 7 films (30 votes)
Sweden – 6 films (10 votes)
Mexico – 2 films (11 votes)
Canada – 2 films (2 votes)
Denmark – 1 film (3 votes)
Japan – 1 film (2 votes)
Austria – 1 film (1 vote)
Czechoslovakia – 1 film (1 vote)
Very Eurocentric indeed. Imagine a time when only one Asian film would be nominated.
The 198 films were made by 123 different directors.
The top ten by number of films:
1. Charles Chaplin – 13 films
2. John Ford – 8 films
3. Jean Renoir – 5 films
= René Clair – 5 films
5. Sergei M. Eisenstein – 4 films
= D.W. Griffith – 4 films
= Robert J. Flaherty – 4 films
= Marcel Carné – 4 films
= Erich von Stroheim – 4 films
= F.W. Murnau – 4 films
= Georg Wilhelm Pabst – 4 films
= Carol Reed – 4 films
= Fritz Lang – 4 films
The top ten by votes:
01. Charles Chaplin – 55 votes
02. Vittorio De Sica – 23 votes
03. Sergei M. Eisenstein – 22 votes
04. Jean Renoir – 21 votes
05. D.W. Griffith – 20 votes
06. Robert J. Flaherty – 19 votes
07. René Clair – 18 votes
08. John Ford – 17 votes
09. Marcel Carné – 16 votes
10. Carl Theodor Dreyer – 15 votes
The critics polled were mostly from UK, France and USA, with the odd one or two from Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Italy and Germany. It may be interesting to look at the top tens of the three main groups of critics.
UK
1. City Lights (Chaplin, 1930): 11 votes
2. Bicycle Thieves (de Sica, 1949): 7 votes
3. La règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939): 6 votes
4. Le jour se lève (Carne, 1939): 5 votes
= The Grapes of Wrath (Ford, 1940): 5 votes
= The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (Donskoy, 1938): 5 votes
= Earth (Dovzhenko, 1929): 5 votes
8. The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925): 4 votes
= Louisiana Story (Flaherty, 1947): 4 votes
= Greed (von Stroheim, 1924): 4 votes
= Zéro de conduite (Vigo, 1932): 4 votes
= Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941): 4 votes
= Los olvidados (Buñuel, 1950): 4 votes
= L’atalante (Vigo, 1934): 4 votes
= Orphée (Cocteau, 1950): 4 votes
= On the Town (Donen & Kelly, 1950): 4 votes
= All Quiet on the Western Front (Milestone, 1930)
France
1. Bicycle Thieves (de Sica, 1949): 6 votes
= The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925): 6 votes
3. Que viva México (Eisenstein, 1931): 5 votes
4. Louisiana Story (Flaherty, 1947): 4 votes
= Greed (von Stroheim, 1924): 4 votes
6. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925): 3 votes
= La règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939): 3 votes
= The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928): 3 votes
= Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin, 1947): 3 votes
= Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (Bresson, 1945): 3 votes
= Le million (Clair, 1930): 3 votes
= The Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915): 3 votes
= The River (Renoir, 1951): 3 votes
= Broken Blossoms (Griffith, 1919): 3 votes
= The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles, 1942): 3 votes
= Sunrise (Murnau, 1927): 3 votes
USA
1. Intolerance (Griffith, 1916): 4 votes
2. Bicycle Thieves (de Sica, 1949): 3 votes
= City Lights (Chaplin, 1930): 3 votes
= Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925): 3 votes
= À nous la liberté (Clair, 1931): 3 votes
6. Louisiana Story (Flaherty, 1947): 2 votes
= Greed (von Stroheim, 1924): 2 votes
= Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin, 1947): 2 votes
= L’âge d’or (Buñuel, 1930): 2 votes
= Day of Wrath (Dreyer, 1943): 2 votes
= The Wedding March (von Stroheim, 1928): 2 votes
About the Author
Iain Stott is a 32 year old aesthete from the north west of England.
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