Beyond Sight & Sound: An Alternative Canon

by Cláudio Alves

Appearing on 77 ballots, Spike Jonze's HER was the most voted film.

Two years ago, Sight & Sound released the results of their polls, voted by critics and filmmakers, on the best pictures ever made. Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles topped the former, causing various reactions that ranged from ecstatic to outraged. In total, the 2100 participants voted for 4366 unique titles. And yet, much great cinema was left without a single vote. In response, Ángel González devised another project for They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, focusing on all those films the Sight & Sound voters ignored. A new list was devised based on the ballots of 839 critics and cinephiles. This time around, 4336 films received at least one vote - think of it as an alternative canon.

Nathaniel and I were among the lucky voters, with a few of our picks making the A-List of 1030 titles. Sometimes, our tastes even overlapped…

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Friday Awards Wrap-Up: BIFA, AFI, and more!

by Cláudio Alves

With the awards race heating up, there's much to discuss. Maybe too much. Da'Vine Joy Randolph is proving a sweeper in Best Supporting Actress, taking every single one of those awards so far. Her The Holdovers costar, Paul Giamatti, is also doing well for himself, somehow scoring better results than some of the supposed Oscar frontrunners. Then there's Lily Gladstone taking the lead in Best Actress, while Killers of the Flower Moon adds some more victories to go alongside its NYFCC wins. The Color Purple has struggled to make an impression, but that might be due to late screenings, while Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is making a good case for itself as a Best Picture contender. 

In any case, here's a small compendium of prizes and top ten announcements from this week, plus some additional commentary…

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Sight & Sound 2022 "All-Time" List

by Nathaniel R

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

The once a decade Sight & Sound poll of the "Greatest Films of All Time" is upon us, and there's a new winner. Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). The Belgian film jumped 35 spots from a decade ago to claim the top spot from Hitchcock's Vertigo which itself had pushed Citizen Kane from the top of the heap in an earlier poll. The list is getting extremely recent! A full forty percent of the top ten is now from the still newish 21st century... which seems extreme to us for an all time list given that there's nearlly 100 years of feature films before the year 2000! 

A few more notes after the jump and the top 50...

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