Films considered the greatest ever

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Note: This article does not include films that had the highest box office receipts. For this information see: List of highest-grossing films and List of highest-grossing films throughout history.

While it is impossible to determine objectively the greatest film of all time, it is possible to list films considered the greatest ever by a sizeable populace of the film-watching community. The criterion for inclusion in this article is that the film is considered the "greatest" in a quantitative survey – be it a critics' poll, popular poll, or awards. Many of these measures focus on American films, but those considered the greatest within their respective countries are included at the end.

[edit] In polls of critics and filmmakers

Orson Welles' Citizen Kane has been consistently voted number one in the Sight and Sound poll of film critics in each of the last five polls starting with the 1962 poll (the survey is carried out once every ten years). A separate poll of established film directors in the same magazine, held for the first time in 1992, also has placed Citizen Kane at the top. Influential critic Roger Ebert says that "The Sight and Sound poll is generally considered the most authoritative of all 'best film' lists". He also considers Citizen Kane the best film ever. The film was selected as number one in a Village Voice critics' poll, number one in a Time Out critics' poll in 1995 and listed as the greatest American film ever by the American Film Institute in 1998.
La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) by director Jean Renoir was named best film by the French film magazine Positif in 1991. It also holds the number two spot in the Village Voice poll. Along with The Battleship Potemkin, it is one of only two films to have appeared in every one of Sight and Sound's six decennial polls.
The Searchers is the film most often mentioned in a poll of the favorite films of directors by German language Steadycam magazine. [1]
The Battleship Potemkin was voted best film ever by a panel of experts at the 1958 World's Fair.^{[citation needed]}
Ladri di Biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) was voted top film in a Sight & Sound magazine poll in 1952. Other than Citizen Kane, Bicycle Thieves is the only film to ever top the Sight and Sound poll.

[edit] In audience polls

The Godfather has long stood atop IMDb's list of the top 250 films. It was also voted number one by Entertainment Weekly readers and number one in a Time Out Readers' poll in 1995.
The Godfather Part II was voted best ever by TV Guide readers in 1998.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy was voted the most popular film of all time by an audience poll for the Australian television special My Favourite Film. Its first film, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), was the pick of readers in a poll by Empire magazine in November 2004. It is the only trilogy to have all 3 pictures in the Top 25 of the IMDb's top 250 films.
Casablanca (1942) is widely cited as the greatest film of all time and was voted as such by readers of the Los Angeles Daily News in 1997. It is also regarded the "best Hollywood movie of all time" by the influential Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide. On April 7, 2006, the Writer's Guild of America declared Casablanca's screenplay the best ever written.
Star Wars (1977) was chosen by readers of Empire magazine in November 2001 and by voters in a Channel 4/FilmFour poll [2]. It was voted number one in the Australian television special 20 to 1: Magnificent Movies.
The Shawshank Redemption is listed as the #2 entry on the IMDb list. It is the highest rated film on Yahoo! Movies by Yahoo! users and was voted the best film never to have won "Best Picture" in a 2005 BBC poll. [3] In January 2006 Empire magazine readers named it the best film ever.
Goodfellas was voted the greatest film of all time in 2005 by Total Film.
According to the IMDB Top 250, as of March 31, 2007, the top 10 films are:

Rank	Film	Year	Rating
1	The Godfather	1972	9.1
2	The Shawshank Redemption	1994	9.1
3	The Godfather: Part II	1974	8.9
4	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly	1966	8.8
5	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	2003	8.8
6	Pulp Fiction	1994	8.8
7	Casablanca	1942	8.8
8	Schindler's List	1993	8.8
9	Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back	1980	8.8
10	Seven Samurai	1954	8.7

[edit] Academy Awards

Ever since their inception in 1928, the Academy Awards (the Oscars) have been seen as the most significant of the film award ceremonies, though it should be noted that dominance is dependent upon the competition in film that year as well as a film's own merits. The first film to dominate an Oscars ceremony was Frank Capra's It Happened One Night in 1935. It was the first film to win five awards. Moreover it won the "Oscar grand slam" by winning Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay—a feat that has been repeated only twice more, by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1976 and by The Silence of the Lambs in 1991.

In 1939, Gone with the Wind was nominated for 13 awards and two special citations. It won eight of the Awards to beat It Happened One Night's record. All About Eve (1950) broke the nominations record with 14, and won in six categories.

Gigi was the film to break Gone with the Wind's record, winning in all nine of its nominated categories at the ceremony for films made in 1958. However, its moment at the top was short-lived, as the epic Ben-Hur went on to win 11 Oscars from 12 nominations the following year.

Ben-Hur's eleven Oscars remains the record. This achievement in turn has been equalled twice—by Titanic in 1997 with 11 awards from 14 nominations, and by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which won in all 11 of its nominated categories in 2003 in the greatest 'sweep' in the history of the Academy Awards, despite not having been nominated in any of the four acting categories.

[edit] In particular genres

[edit] Animation

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) appeared at #49 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American movies (compiled in 1998), higher than any other animated film.
Tale of Tales (Сказка сказок) (1979) - Yuriy Norshteyn's short film was voted by a large international jury to be the greatest animated film of all time at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympiad of Animation and the 2002 Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films. [4] [5]
Akira (1988) was chosen as the top anime ever by Anime Insider in fall 2001.
Beauty and the Beast (1991), is the only fully-animated movie (computerized or not) to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It has also been nominated for a total of six Oscars, more than any other animated film. It was also the first animated movie to win the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical.
Toy Story (1995) was voted #1 on the Top 100 Animated Features of All Time by the Online Film Critics Society (list published March 2003).^[1] Toy Story was also the first animated movie to be nominated for a Best Screenplay award at the Oscars.
Spirited Away (2002) was voted best animated movie by IMDb users. It was the first anime film to win an Academy Award.

[edit] Comedy

It Happened One Night (1934) is the only comedy (and one of only three movies) to win Best Leading Actor, Best Leading Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards.
Some Like It Hot (1959) was listed Best Comedy by the American Film Institute in June 2000.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is listed as the highest rated Comedy title by the IMDb and was #3 on AFI's "100 Years...100 Laughs". It was also the highest-rated comedy on the 2002 Sight and Sound Director's Poll.
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) was voted the greatest comedy ever by viewers of Channel 4 in 2005.[6] It also was rated #1 comedy of all time from a poll conducted by TotalFilm Magazine.
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) was voted #1 on the Bravo list of funniest movies of all time, and was #36 on AFI's "100 Years...100 Laughs".
The Graduate (1967) is ranked #7 on AFI's "100 years...100 Movies", higher than any other comedy on the list.

[edit] Concert

The Last Waltz (1978), Martin Scorsese's chronicling of The Band's farewell concert on Thanksgiving Day in 1976. Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune calls it "The greatest rock concert movie ever made -- and maybe the best rock movie, period." Terry Lawson of the Detroit Free Press comments that "This is one of the great movie experiences." [7] The review at Total Film comments "In what is rightly considered the greatest concert film ever shot . . ." [8]. Rolling Stone dubbed it the greatest film about music ever made.
Stop Making Sense (1984) Film critic James Berardinelli wrote that Jonathan Demme's capturing of the Talking Heads in concert was "the best concert film to date when it first came out, and nothing in the past decade-and-a-half has come close to toppling it from that position." Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle had similar praise: "Has there ever been a live concert film as vibrant or as brilliantly realized? I don't think so."

[edit] Crime

The Godfather is the #1 ranked film in any genre, let alone crime films, in IMDb's top 250. It was nominated for 11 Oscars and won 3. The Godfather Part 2 is ranked #3.
On the Waterfront won 8 Oscars, the most of any film in this genre, and was nominated for 4 others.

[edit] Disaster

The Poseidon Adventure (1972) was voted best disaster movie in a consumer poll commissioned by UCI cinemas in May 2004.
Titanic (1997) Titanic tied the record of 11 Academy Awards (from 14 nominations) and was also spectacularly popular.

[edit] Documentary

Man with a Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov's classic experimental silent, was the highest rated documentary on the 2002 Sight and Sound critic's poll, and made TIME Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies list.
Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore's controversial documentary relating gun control and the culture of fear in the United States, heads the list of 20 all-time favorite non-fiction films selected by members of the International Documentary Association (IDA). [9]
The Sorrow and the Pity (Le Chagrin et la pitié) by Marcel Ophüls about the French resistance and the Nazis during World War II is the highest rated documentary at the IMDb.
Seven Up! was voted as the greatest ever documentary in a Channel 4 poll of the 50 Greatest Documentaries in 2005.

[edit] Epic

Lawrence of Arabia Voted best epic by readers of Total Film in May 2004. It won 7 academy awards including Best Picture for 1962 and ranks #5 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies. In addition, Peter O'Toole's performance as T.E. Lawrence was ranked number one in Premiere magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.
Ben-Hur (1959)- Collected 11 academy awards, matched by Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. (See Academy Award sections above).

[edit] Fantasy

Victor Fleming's acclaimed 1939 film The Wizard of Oz appears on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies at position number six, the highest of spot for a fantasy film.
Peter Jackson's highly acclaimed The Lord of the Rings film trilogy earned 17 Oscars with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King becoming the first fantasy film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. (See audience polls and Academy Awards sections above)

[edit] Film noir

Sunset Boulevard was voted the best film noir of all-time by IMDb. It was also ranked the highest on American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American movies at #12
The Third Man was voted the greatest British film of all time by the British Film Institute.

[edit] Horror/thriller

Psycho: the Alfred Hitchcock classic was voted the best horror film by IMDb users. Tops AFI’s list of the 100 most thrilling American films.
The Silence of the Lambs: the only movie classified as horror to ever win the "Best Picture" Oscar. One of only 3 movies to win the top 5 Oscars. Is at #2 in the list of best horror films, as voted by IMDb voters, and at #5 in the AFI’s list of the 100 most thrilling American films. Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Dr. Hannibal Lecter tops the AFI's list of the greatest villains of all time.
Halloween: Voted best horror film of all time by readers of SFX magazine in June 2004.
The Exorcist: Voted scariest movie of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

[edit] Musical

Lage Raho Munnabhai is the highest rated musical on IMDb and the only Indian movie to hold a #1 spot.
Singin' in the Rain is the second highest rated movie musical at the IMDb, and the highest musical in the IMDb Top 250. It is also the highest ranked musical at the 2002 Sight and Sound poll.
The Wizard of Oz is the highest ranked musical on AFI's list of the 100 best American films. (see also: Fantasy)
Grease was voted the greatest musical by viewers of Channel 4 in 2003.
West Side Story is the winner of the most Academy Awards of any movie musical (10).
Mary Poppins (1964) and Chicago (2002) share the record for the most Academy Award nominations for a musical (13).

[edit] Propaganda

Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl's documentary film glorifying Hitler and the 1934 Nazi Party Convention, in Nuremberg is widely perceived, renowned, and reviled as the best propaganda film ever [10], although Riefenstahl asserted she intended it only as a documentary.
The Battleship Potemkin (see Films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers above.)

[edit] Romance

Casablanca is the highest ranked romance film at the IMDB. It is also the top film on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions list, which ranks films in which there is "a romantic bond between two or more characters, whose actions and/or intentions provide the heart of the film’s narrative".

[edit] Science fiction

2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick. The highest ranked science fiction film (#11) on the Village Voice 100 Best films of the 20th century list. Also the only Science Fiction film to make the Sight and Sound Top Ten Poll. [11]
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) is the highest-rated sci-fi film on the IMDb. It topped the 2006 Total Film top 100 film poll[12].
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) - With six wins, it holds the record for the most Academy Awards for a science fiction film.
Brazil - On many all-time lists, this Terry Gilliam film was called "the finest science fiction movie ever made" [13] by science fiction author Harlan Ellison.
Blade Runner - Voted the best science fiction film by a panel of scientists assembled by the British newspaper The Guardian in 2004. [14]
Serenity - was voted number one in SFX magazine's reader's poll of 2007. There were 3,000 respondees [15].

[edit] Sport

Raging Bull - is ranked the highest sport film on IMDB.

[edit] War

Schindler's List is the number one film on IMDb's list of top rated war titles. The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze) is number two.
The English Patient won nine Academy Awards from 12 nominations, the most wins of any war film. From Here to Eternity and Gone with the Wind each won eight Academy Awards from 13 nominations, and tie for the most nominations of any war film.
In 2005 Saving Private Ryan was voted as the greatest ever war film in a Channel 4 poll of the 100 Greatest ever war films.

[edit] Western

The Searchers was voted the greatest Western of all time by Entertainment Weekly. (See also: films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers above).
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is listed as Best Western by the IMDb's list of Top Rated "Western" Titles. Once Upon a Time in the West is listed second. Both films appear on the Time magazine poll. Also both were directed by Sergio Leone.
Dances with Wolves was nominated for 11 Oscars and won seven, a record for westerns. It is one of the three westerns that have ever won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Unforgiven, and Cimarron are the other two.

[edit] In particular countries

[edit] Argentina

See also: Cinema of Argentina

The Official Story was voted the top film of the 25 Top Best Argentina made movies.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Australia

See also: Cinema of Australia

Mad Max: voted the best Australian film ever by the Australian Film Institute. Nominated for four Australian Film Institute Awards.
Picnic at Hanging Rock: voted No. 1 of the Top 10 best-ever Australian films at 1995 centenary of Australian cinema[16]
Gallipoli: voted No. 1 on 20 to 1: Great Aussie Films
Babe (1996) is tied with Shine (1997) for the most nominations (6) and most victories (1) for an Australian made film at the Academy Awards.

[edit] Bosnia

No Man's Land: is the only Bosnian film to win an Oscar for best foreign movie.

[edit] Brazil

See also: Cinema of Brazil

Central Station (Central do Brasil in Portuguese). According to one internet poll,^[2] Academy Award-nominated Central Station is the second best Brazilian film of all-time with 18,13% of the votes, behind only City of God.

City of God (Cidade de Deus in Portuguese). Academy Award-nominated City of God is the highest ranking Brazilian film featured in Time's list of the 100 best movies of all-time.^[3] It is also the highest ranked (#18) in Internet Movie Database's top 250 list.

Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (English: God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun, also known as Black God, White Devil). An example of Brazilian cinema movement known as Cinema Novo, is considered by many critics to be the best Brazilian movie of all time.^[4] It was also named the best Brazilian film from a poll conducted by the Brazilian film magazine Contracampo (no. 27).^[5]

O Pagador de Promessas (English: Keeper of Promises, also known as The Given Word and The Promise). O Pagador de Promessas became the first Brazilian film ever to be nominated for an Academy Award (in the category for Best Foreign Language Film). It also became the only Brazilian film to win a Palme d'Or at the Cannes International Film Festival (Black Orpheus won both Palme d'Or and Best Foreign Language Oscar, but was considered a French production). In one internet poll, it ranks at #10 with an 8.9 grade,^[6] while at another it ranks at #8 with 3,13% of the votes.^[7] It currently has a 9.0 rating at the Internet Movie Database, with 60.2% of the 250 users giving the movie a 10 rating. Only 2.4% of the voters gave the film a 1.0 rate^[8]

[edit] Canada

See also: Cinema of Canada

Mon oncle Antoine: A poll of critics at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and again at the 1993 and 2004 festivals named this the greatest Canadian film of all time.
Jésus de Montréal: Ranked second on the All Time TIFF list since its release, and a winner of 12 Genie Awards.
Un Zoo la Nuit: Winner of the most Genie Awards with 13.

[edit] China

See also: Cinema of China

Spring in a Small Town (小城之春): This 1948 film was voted the best Chinese film ever made by Hong Kong Film Awards Association in 2005. A Better Tomorrow (英雄本色) (1986) came in second.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for Best Picture, as well as winning four other Academy Awards, a record for any Chinese film.

[edit] Finland

See also: Cinema of Finland

The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon Sotilas in Finnish), received seven "Jussi" (Finnish Oscar) statuettes [17].

[edit] France

See also: Cinema of France

Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise): Voted "Best French Film of the Century" in a poll of 600 French critics and professionals in the late 1990s.
La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game): see films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers

[edit] Germany

See also: Cinema of Germany

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's silent film Nosferatu is regarded by acclaimed German director Werner Herzog as the greatest German movie of all time. [18]
Downfall (Der Untergang) – This German World War II epic which depicts the final days of the Third Reich in Adolf Hitler's bunker, is currently the highest rated German film in the IMDB top 250 films (rated by users). M, Fritz Lang's 1931 classic crime film is a close second [19].

[edit] India

See also: Cinema of India

See also: Lists of Indian films

Pather Panchali (1955) is the first film of director Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy (1955-1959). It appeared on Sight and Sound Critics' Top Ten Poll (ranked #9 in 1992). It was ranked the top Indian film in a 2002 popularity poll by the British Film Institute (BFI) conducted on the World Wide Web.
Sholay was ranked number one The Apu Trilogy was number two in the BFI critics' poll of best Indian and South Asian films[20].
The Apu Trilogy, Nayakan and Pyaasa are the only three Indian films listed in the "All-Time 100 Best Films", as rated by TIME magazine.
Gandhi (1982), an Anglo-Indian production, received eight awards and eleven nominations at the Academy Awards.

[edit] Ireland

The Commitments (1991) was voted the best Irish film of all time in a 2005 Jameson Whiskey poll of 10,000 Irish people, with My Left Foot coming second. 24

[edit] Italy

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) (1966) is the highest-ranked non-American film on the IMDB Top 250, let alone Italian film, where it is listed as the 4th best film ever.
Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thief) (See: Films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers section above.)
8½ – Director Federico Fellini's 1963 film about filmmaking was the highest rated Italian film in the 2002 Sight & Sound poll of the best films of all time.

[edit] Japan

See also: Cinema of Japan

Rashomon (羅生門): This 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa was the first Japanese film to gain world-wide acclaim. The highest-ranked Japanese film (#10) on the Village Voice list of 100 Best Films of the 20th Century. It was also the highest-ranked Japanese film on the Sight and Sound 2002 Directors' Top Ten Poll.
Tokyo Story (東京物語 Tokyo Monogatari), 1953. This film by Yasujiro Ozu about an aging couple as they journey from their rural village to visit their two married children in postwar Tokyo was declared the greatest film ever by Halliwell's Film Guide in 2005 25. It was also the highest-ranked Japanese film on the Sight and Sound 2002 Critics' Top Ten Poll. (As well as the only non-Kurosawa Japanese film in any of its polls.)
Seven Samurai (七人の侍 Shichinin no samurai), 1954: Also by Kurosawa, this period adventure film is frequently cited as the greatest Japanese film ever; it is ranked #10 in the IMDB Top 250 (as of March 2007).
Akira Kurosawa's Ran is listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die as being one of the ten best films ever.

[edit] The Netherlands

See also: Cinema of the Netherlands

Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange - 1977 - Paul Verhoeven): Voted best Dutch film ever made in a 2006 internet poll by online film magazine Filmwereld.nl.
Turks Fruit (Turkish Delight - 1973 - Paul Verhoeven): Voted best Dutch film of the 20th century at the 1999 Netherlands Film Festival.

[edit] Norway

See also: Cinema of Norway

Flåklypa Grand Prix (Pinchcliffe Grand Prix - 1975 - Ivo Caprino): The people's choice for "Best Norwegian Film of the Century" during the 2005 Bergen International Film Festival.^[9]
Ni Liv (Nine Lives - 1957 - Arne Skouen): The critics' choice for "Best Norwegian Film of the Century" during the 2005 Bergen International Film Festival.

[edit] Russia

See also: Cinema of Russia and Soviet Union

Броненосец Потёмкин (Battleship Potemkin) see: Films acclaimed by critics and filmakers above.

[edit] Sweden

See also: Cinema of Sweden

The Emigrants (Utvandrarna): Jan Troell's naturalist masterwork was the first Scandinavian film to receive Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, and it is often cited in Sweden as the greatest Swedish film of all-time.^{[citation needed]}
Persona: voted "Best Picture" by US National Society of Film Critics. This film by acclaimed director Ingmar Bergman also reached the highest position (#5) of any Swedish film on Sight & Sound's 1972 list of greatest films of all time.
The Seventh Seal: also directed by Ingmar Bergman, is the highest rated Swedish film on the IMDB.
Sällskapsresan (The Charter Trip) was voted in the TV program "Folktoppen" as the funniest Swedish film ever made.

[edit] Thailand

See also: Cinema of Thailand

Tropical Malady (Thai: สัตว์ประหลาด or Sud pralad), winner of a jury prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, is the first Thai film to win a prize at any of the "A festivals". It was also the first Thai film to be in the main competition at Cannes.^[10]

[edit] United Kingdom

See also: Cinema of the United Kingdom

Lawrence of Arabia: voted "best British film of all time" in August of 2004 by a London Sunday Telegraph poll of Britain's leading filmmakers. (See also: Epic above).
The Third Man: Voted best British film ever by members of the British Film Institute in 1999.
Get Carter: Named best British film by Total Film in 2004.

[edit] United States

See also: Cinema of the United States

Citizen Kane: voted the best American film ever by the American Film Institute. (See also: Films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers section above).
See also: Casablanca, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Goodfellas, Star Wars, and The Shawshank Redemption in the Films acclaimed in audience polls section above.
See also: Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in the Films that have received the most Academy Awards section above.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

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