Sight & Sound

[colinr0380]

Again, there is nothing wrong with the canon as a starting point, and frankly a lot of the ballots we’ve seen for SS show a lack of baseline and look where that got us

It depends on how you define "baseline", though. My own personal baseline was "which films had the biggest impact on me", which is why there was a 60% overlap between my 2012 and 2022 lists because it contained some unbudgeable constants. John Carpenter's list is being praised for including lots of Howard Hawks films, but it's pretty clear that he was using a very similar methodology - those films had a very similar impact on him, most likely at the same kind of age - but they didn't have the same impact on me because I didn't watch them in a similar context.

They also have a clear and definite influence on Carpenter's work too (especially in the way that many of Hawks'/Carpenter's best films are about gangs of tenuously connected people forced together through circumstance and pitted against nebulous groups of foes that often results in big siege scenes). It would be strange if there were no Hawks in his list, much as if Paul Schrader did not put Pickpocket on his!

[ford]

The same is easily true for Lee. White men had more of a chance to be great, and Lee had more of a chance to see them at a formative age. There may be other biases at play, who knows. But I wouldn’t discount the cultural one.

That's what I meant, not really centered on Lee but on the industry and who/which movies are more usually considered great and thus have more chances to end up in such a list.
I do think that the canon is self-perpetuating in some ways, and that lists like this are part of what helps doing so.

This being written, I don't think that one have to have an agenda or be an "intellectual" or setting willingly a quota to include movies made by people that aren't white and/or male.

I dunno. Non-Americans? That’s easy. There have been countless great movies made by non Americans.

But personally I struggle to think of even 15 movies by female directors (not, however, female screenwriters) which I can say I truly and devoutly love — “desert island” picks, etc. That’s not because women can’t direct great movies. It’s because it’s an art form inextricable from a massive industrial apparatus setup in the early 20th century which excluded women for all the same reasons they were historically excluded from leading other massive industrial apparatuses.

Pretending this isn’t the case — that the vast bulk of great cinema is somehow not the product of affluent 20th century societies and everything that comes with that — is an exercise in 2020s magical thinking.

[The Curious Sofa]

I count myself lucky then that I can think of way more than 15 movies by female directors which I truly love.

[tenia]

But we're not talking about 15 movies, just 6 or 7. Variety's list has 5, S&S 11 (but from 9 different female directors), and I don't think those included movies have been perceived as not deserving to be there along the other movies.

That's my issue with the quota/agenda argument : it makes these movies being ab-normal, because normality is pushing forward white males movies, and the canon being formed from these movies. While it makes sense historically to do so (both on the industry but also the lower visibility of non white non male movies) (and that's most likely the case with Lee's list, and I'm fine with it), we're now having a much wider knowledge of all the non white non male movies that exist and I do think that these can sincerely be appreciated just like any other movies, because there aren't regular movies made by white males on a side and the other stuff, there, that can't appear in such lists just because they are very good movies just like all these very good movies but can only be there for sociopolitical contextual reasons.

These are, to me, all just very good movies. This one happens to be directed by a woman ? Oh ok. Still just a very good movie (like, say, Cléo de 5 à 7).

I'm also not talking of non-American but non white. Even the Asian inclusions in such lists are clearly coming from a Western POV. That explains why not many people seem bothered by In The Mood For Love being that high in the S&S poll but throw in a Sembène or a Mambéty or a Lee in there and here you go "it's a PC quota".

Which, I insist, isn't the same of saying such lists are products of decades of how the industry was working. What I'm pointing at is the "it's a PC quota" argument, which uneases me a lot by its implications.

[rde]

But we're not talking about 15 movies, just 6 or 7. Variety's list has 5, S&S 11 (but from 9 different female directors), and I don't think those included movies have been perceived as not deserving to be there along the other movies.

That's my issue with the quota/agenda argument : it makes these movies being ab-normal, because normality is pushing forward white males movies, and the canon being formed from these movies. While it makes sense historically to do so (both on the industry but also the lower visibility of non white non male movies) (and that's most likely the case with Lee's list, and I'm fine with it), we're now having a much wider knowledge of all the non white non male movies that exist and I do think that these can sincerely be appreciated just like any other movies, because there aren't regular movies made by white males on a side and the other stuff, there, that can't appear in such lists just because they are very good movies just like all these very good movies but can only be there for sociopolitical contextual reasons.

These are, to me, all just very good movies. This one happens to be directed by a woman ? Oh ok. Still just a very good movie (like, say, Cléo de 5 à 7).

I'm also not talking of non-American but non white. Even the Asian inclusions in such lists are clearly coming from a Western POV. That explains why not many people seem bothered by In The Mood For Love being that high in the S&S poll but throw in a Sembène or a Mambéty or a Lee in there and here you go "it's a PC quota".

Which, I insist, isn't the same of saying such lists are products of decades of how the industry was working. What I'm pointing at is the "it's a PC quota" argument, which uneases me a lot by its implications.

A top 100 is a brutally narrow filter. Let's say there were 100,000 films directed over the last 125 years. That means 1,000 were omitted for every 1 film that's chosen. Best is very different from good or even great.

And re:MrSausage's point above: what percentage of all films do you reckon were directed by men since cinema began? 99%? So they had almost 100 times as many chances as women to make a masterpiece. Given those odds, it's very surprising that 10% or even 6% of the list is women; it would be possible for the list to have no women and for nothing to be amiss. Statistics are crude, yes, but they're a reasonable starting point. And it's very unlikely that 10% of a list can be drawn from 1% of films without some outside influence — let alone 80% of a ballot, as one critics had it.

It's also clear that some critics imposed a quota system on themselves... and Sight & Sound brought up identity in its defense of every debatable new inclusion. What else are we supposed to think? When the critics mention identity, it's a good thing; when people who don't think watching movies is activism mention identity (or just point out that the critics brought it up first), it's suspicious?

Your reasons for picking those movies might be apolitical, but everyone else's weren't necessarily so pure. A good movie can be chosen for the wrong reasons. Can we agree on that? I appreciate that you said 'they're just good movies' rather than 'is it really so bad group x got x spots?' since the latter argument doesn't even bother to defend the movies themselves.

Great art is universal; you don't need a certain identity to engage with it. So all this talk of identity is wrongheaded and detrimental. But it's asking too much of us not to point out when other people are acting under a predictable motivation...

[tolbs1010]

What irks this white male most about both the S&S and Variety lists is seeing The Apartment and Some Like It Hot make it on each. Two of the stalest pictures in the classic Hollywood canon and yet they continue to crop up, with fairly high placement, on these types of lists. Sunset Boulevard is the correct choice and sufficient quota for that old white man, Billy Wilder.

[rde]

What irks this white male most about both the S&S and Variety lists is seeing The Apartment and Some Like It Hot make it on each. Two of the stalest pictures in the classic Hollywood canon and yet they continue to crop up, with fairly high placement, on these types of lists. Sunset Boulevard is the correct choice and sufficient quota for that old white man, Billy Wilder.

Yea, fair. Though would you agree that films about Hollywood seem to get an undeserved boost in the eyes of critics?

I'm not a fan of Frank Capra personally, with all the others to choose from. With all the focus on the new additions, we forgot about the rest of the list, which deserves a good going over too. Too many by certain directors or right director but wrong film.

Though if you haven't seen it, One, Two, Three is awesome, even if it's not great. Oh, and The Stand-In (1937) is a fresh and zany if not great picture about Hollywood.

[tolbs1010]

Great art is universal; you don't need a certain identity to engage with it. So all this talk of identity is wrongheaded and detrimental.

Bingo.

Though would you agree that films about Hollywood seem to get an undeserved boost in the eyes of critics?

Debatable.

Though if you haven't seen it, One, Two, Three is awesome, even if it's not great. Oh, and The Stand-In (1937) is a fresh and zany if not great picture about Hollywood.

The former has its moments but I don't really like it. I'll check out the latter. I have never warmed to Wilder, in general.

[tenia]

A top 100 is a brutally narrow filter. Let's say there were 100,000 films directed over the last 125 years. That means 1,000 were omitted for every 1 film that's chosen. Best is very different from good or even great.

And re:MrSausage's point above: what percentage of all films do you reckon were directed by men since cinema began? 99%? So they had almost 100 times as many chances as women to make a masterpiece. Given those odds, it's very surprising that 10% or even 6% of the list is women; it would be possible for the list to have no women and for nothing to be amiss. Statistics are crude, yes, but they're a reasonable starting point.

But statistically, as you write, this is more a game of how much isn't in it than how much is, and as it is, ponderated weight compared to the overall cinema isn't exact. For instance, what is the weight of USSR movies within all movies ? Bergman ? Fellini ? Godard ? Yet, here they are vastly overperforming in such polls, so I totally get your point about some lists clearly stemming from conscious choices, but I don't think they're more different than Brazilian specialists putting only Brazilian movies, and I also think that since the S&S poll is coming from more than 1600, it'd require a lot of coordination to favor only the few same movies (somebody already wrote above how widening the panel is the worst way of rigging a poll), but still, you actually don't need, within a top 100, lots of "best" movies to overperform in the list. If, say, 99% of all movies have been directed by men, it means having just 2 movies directed by women is already enough. It looks like Jeanne Dielman would be here. I'd add Cléo de 5 à 7, which to me definitely would belong here. And here you go, you're already proving stats wrong. Precisely because, as you write, a top 100 list is brutally narrow, and because millions of movies are narrowed so much down, than so is the granularity of the representativity of the result. Varda has 2 movies in the top : it's statistically insane.
But actually, by such methodology, it's not, since we don't need 15 best movies by women to beat the odds, just 2 or 3.

There is just 1 single short movie in the S&S poll, and it's co-directed by a woman : what were the odds for that ? But it only needs one to beat them. And does Meshes of the Afternoon not belong there ? I don't think so.

[domino harvey]

We are never going to receive a hotter take than “The Apartment is stale,” so everyone please refrain from doing more of this kind of thing

[Mr Sausage]

I’m…not loving that my lukewarm defence of Lee’s specific list has been co-opted into supporting arguments against identity politics that I don’t want associated with me at all.

I like tenia’s post right above; it makes good points. Contra the attempt at statistical reasoning by some, minority populations can still outperform majority ones, eg. Jewish authors or female novelists (of the five greatest ever novelists, three are handily women).

Also, the point of “quotas” (I dislike the word), in the charitable interpretation, is to account for such things as cultural or other biases that can skew one’s choices in a way one might be unhappy with. Do I really like men’s films way better than women’s, or do I just have a tendency to give them more consideration? Does the fact that all these lists and books and such favour male filmmakers influence my own ideas of their weight and importance? That’s a question each individual will have to ask themselves and deal with how they see fit.

And there’s also the fact that, being more conscious now of how many female filmmakers and filmmakers of colour they haven’t seen, critics could be going more out of their way to see or rewatch these films and filmmakers, or are giving them greater consideration than they used to, when it seemed less urgent. That alone can change the contours of the list without any judicious selecting, cynical or otherwise, needing to happen.

But suspicion and blanket dismissal like I’m seeing here and elsewhere is itself motivated by identity politics. No critic of the S&S list is acting a-politically. And their film choices don’t represent some a-political ivory tower either.

[tolbs1010]

We are never going to receive a hotter take than “The Apartment is stale,” so everyone please refrain from doing more of this kind of thing

Some of us like it hot, dh.

[rde]

A top 100 is a brutally narrow filter. Let's say there were 100,000 films directed over the last 125 years. That means 1,000 were omitted for every 1 film that's chosen. Best is very different from good or even great.

And re:MrSausage's point above: what percentage of all films do you reckon were directed by men since cinema began? 99%? So they had almost 100 times as many chances as women to make a masterpiece. Given those odds, it's very surprising that 10% or even 6% of the list is women; it would be possible for the list to have no women and for nothing to be amiss. Statistics are crude, yes, but they're a reasonable starting point.

But statistically, as you write, this is more a game of how much isn't in it than how much is, and as it is, ponderated weight compared to the overall cinema isn't exact. For instance, what is the weight of USSR movies within all movies ? Bergman ? Fellini ? Godard ? Yet, here they are vastly overperforming in such polls, so I totally get your point about some lists clearly stemming from conscious choices, but I don't think they're more different than Brazilian specialists putting only Brazilian movies, and I also think that since the S&S poll is coming from more than 1600, it'd require a lot of coordination to favor only the few same movies (somebody already wrote above how widening the panel is the worst way of rigging a poll), but still, you actually don't need, within a top 100, lots of "best" movies to overperform in the list. If, say, 99% of all movies have been directed by men, it means having just 2 movies directed by women is already enough. It looks like Jeanne Dielman would be here. I'd add Cléo de 5 à 7, which to me definitely would belong here. And here you go, you're already proving stats wrong. Precisely because, as you write, a top 100 list is brutally narrow, and because millions of movies are narrowed so much down, than so is the granularity of the representativity of the result. Varda has 2 movies in the top : it's statistically insane.
But actually, by such methodology, it's not, since we don't need 15 best movies by women to beat the odds, just 2 or 3.

There is just 1 single short movie in the S&S poll, and it's co-directed by a woman : what were the odds for that ? But it only needs one to beat them. And does Meshes of the Afternoon not belong there ? I don't think so.

Statistics is a starting point, but then talent takes over. Men got a hundred chances to produce a great director, while women had one; but once Bergman was established, the odds were good that he would produce Persona and later Scenes from a Marriage.

Stats go out the window once you focus on a single director, is what I'm saying. A similar thing can happen for countries through movements, perhaps, when geniuses get together (the Cahier du Cinéma gang, Raoul Coutard, etc). Talent concentrates and amplifies itself.

I can't fully account for differences between countries. Some countries are just better at making movies? The miracle of artistry in Russia under Soviet censorship is, well, a miracle. But persecution and suffering have always been good for art. The Poles and the Czechs also punch well above their weight.

Anyway, probabilities remain a good guide when first looking for irregularities — and everybody spotted the same irregularities, while ignoring others. I think that's telling.

You and I agree that national skews on individual ballots are reasonable and even informative. A Brazilian is going to know his home country best.

But why is hardly anybody arguing about the inclusion/lack of films by nation or continent? Because nation is not a popular identitarian category. Where is the anger over no Latin American films? And who would oppose if more were added?

Yet lots of critics see the world in terms of race, sex, sexuality, and their choices follow those beliefs to a tee.

Also many of the new choices have origins that are more 'organized' or traceable than others. Meshes of the Afternoon is a Film Studies 101 pick (though less political than most). Academics are pretty predictable in their politics, and they talk, and many more academics were invited to vote this time. They must have made up the majority of new voters. So it's just not true that widening the poll is a bad way to rig it.

There is something to be said for variety, just not for getting there by quota or professional hive mind.

[ford]

The former has its moments but I don't really like it. I'll check out the latter. I have never warmed to Wilder, in general.

If you’ve never warmed to Wilder I strongly doubt ONE, TWO, THREE is gonna kindle any flames.

[ford]

But we're not talking about 15 movies, just 6 or 7. Variety's list has 5, S&S 11 (but from 9 different female directors), and I don't think those included movies have been perceived as not deserving to be there along the other movies.

That's my issue with the quota/agenda argument : it makes these movies being ab-normal, because normality is pushing forward white males movies, and the canon being formed from these movies. While it makes sense historically to do so (both on the industry but also the lower visibility of non white non male movies) (and that's most likely the case with Lee's list, and I'm fine with it), we're now having a much wider knowledge of all the non white non male movies that exist and I do think that these can sincerely be appreciated just like any other movies, because there aren't regular movies made by white males on a side and the other stuff, there, that can't appear in such lists just because they are very good movies just like all these very good movies but can only be there for sociopolitical contextual reasons.

These are, to me, all just very good movies. This one happens to be directed by a woman ? Oh ok. Still just a very good movie (like, say, Cléo de 5 à 7).

I'm also not talking of non-American but non white. Even the Asian inclusions in such lists are clearly coming from a Western POV. That explains why not many people seem bothered by In The Mood For Love being that high in the S&S poll but throw in a Sembène or a Mambéty or a Lee in there and here you go "it's a PC quota".

Which, I insist, isn't the same of saying such lists are products of decades of how the industry was working. What I'm pointing at is the "it's a PC quota" argument, which uneases me a lot by its implications.

A top 100 is a brutally narrow filter. Let's say there were 100,000 films directed over the last 125 years. That means 1,000 were omitted for every 1 film that's chosen. Best is very different from good or even great.

And re:MrSausage's point above: what percentage of all films do you reckon were directed by men since cinema began? 99%? So they had almost 100 times as many chances as women to make a masterpiece. Given those odds, it's very surprising that 10% or even 6% of the list is women; it would be possible for the list to have no women and for nothing to be amiss. Statistics are crude, yes, but they're a reasonable starting point. And it's very unlikely that 10% of a list can be drawn from 1% of films without some outside influence — let alone 80% of a ballot, as one critics had it.

It's also clear that some critics imposed a quota system on themselves... and Sight & Sound brought up identity in its defense of every debatable new inclusion. What else are we supposed to think? When the critics mention identity, it's a good thing; when people who don't think watching movies is activism mention identity (or just point out that the critics brought it up first), it's suspicious?

Your reasons for picking those movies might be apolitical, but everyone else's weren't necessarily so pure. A good movie can be chosen for the wrong reasons. Can we agree on that? I appreciate that you said 'they're just good movies' rather than 'is it really so bad group x got x spots?' since the latter argument doesn't even bother to defend the movies themselves.

Great art is universal; you don't need a certain identity to engage with it. So all this talk of identity is wrongheaded and detrimental. But it's asking too much of us not to point out when other people are acting under a predictable motivation...

Co-signed.

By the way, it’s definitely a chicken or the egg question, but just like with publishing and journalism, Im thinking it’s not a coincidence that film world is celebrating identitarian quotas/the awokening as profit margins begin to slide. I fear it’s a sign that the motion picture’s days of being the number one popular art form are over.

[returninguser]

Does anyone know if the individual critics lists can be found or will be released somewhere? Tbh I was looking more forward to them than the main list or the directors lists.

[MichaelB]

January, I gather, via the BFI website.

[yoloswegmaster]

Empire magazine have created their own best movies of all time list that combines what the readers and critics picked.

Spoiler

Get ready to witness the most IMDb top 250/film bro list ever created.

[mhofmann]

Empire magazine have created their own best movies of all time list that combines what the readers and critics picked.

Spoiler

Get ready to witness the most IMDb top 250/film bro list ever created.

I haven't created a histogram yet (and probably won't) which decades/years/countries are represented here, but I scrolled through the list and... ouch.

[tenia]

What a nightmare.

[therewillbeblus]

It's about time Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade moved ahead of Citizen Kane, so much more important film

[soundchaser]

It's honestly not as bad as I was expecting until the Top 10. But then I'm sure we all have our populist favorites we'd like to see up there.

(Yet again, I have thoughts about the general perception of musicals these days...)

[ford]

It's about time Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade moved ahead of Citizen Kane, so much more important film

lol Return of the Jedi is on there.

[therewillbeblus]

It's about time Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade moved ahead of Citizen Kane, so much more important film

lol Return of the Jedi is on there.

Hey, Return of the Jedi is pretty good (well, it has a perfect first act that rivals anything else in the series, and we don't talk about the rest)

[soundchaser]

It's about time Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade moved ahead of Citizen Kane, so much more important film

lol Return of the Jedi is on there.

Hey, Return of the Jedi is pretty good (well, it has a perfect first act that rivals anything else in the series, and we don't talk about the rest)

Spoiler

It's always been my favorite of the originals.