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Wide Screen‘Vertigo’ ousts ‘Citizen Kane’ as greatest movie of all time
Move over, Orson Welles! There's a new kid on the block by the name of Alfred Hitchcock.
In their once-per-decade poll of international film critics, the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine picked a new greatest movie of all time: Alfred Hitchcock's psychological thriller "Vertigo." The film ousted Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" for the top spot, ending the latter film's decades-long reign as the greatest movie ever. More than 800 film critics and academics took part in Sight & Sound's poll, which has taken place every ten years since 1952.
The 1958 Hitchcock film tells the story of retired police detective John Ferguson (James Stewart), who is hired on as a private detective to investigate the strange behaviour of his friend's wife (Kim Novak). S&S editor Nick James said that "Vertigo's" triumph over "Kane" in the poll "reflects changes in the culture of film criticism," citing the film's "spelling binding moments of awful poignancy" as the reason for so many critics choosing it over "Citizen Kane."
Welles' virtuoso 1941 opus "Citizen Kane" took the second spot on Sight & Sound's list. Primarily a stage and radio actor before the film's release, Welles wrote, directed, and starred in the movie. Beginning with the main character on his deathbed, the film chronicles the tumultuous life of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane through flashbacks and anecdotes from the people who knew him. Long considered a masterwork, Welles' "Kane" has been praised over the years for being one of the first movies to truly use the cinematic medium to its fullest.
"Vertigo" and "Citizen Kane" are both incredible movies, and "Kane" slipping to No. 2 on the list is hardly a slight against its quality. When you're dealing with films and filmmakers of this calibre, ranking them is an almost futile exercise. Every film on Sight & Sound's greatest movies Top 10 list is worth seeing. If you're looking to expand your movie horizons, the list below is a great starting point.
The critics' picks for the Top 10 greatest films of all time:
"Vertigo" (Hitchcock, 1958)
"Citizen Kane" (Welles, 1941)
"Tokyo Story" (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
"La Règle du jeu" (Jean Renoir, 1939)
"Sunrise: a Song for Two Humans" (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
"2001: A Space Odyssey" (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
"The Searchers" (John Ford, 1956)
"Man with a Movie Camera" (Vertov, 1929)
"The Passion of Joan of Arc" (Dreyer, 1927)
"8 ½" (Federico Fellini, 1963)
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