The British magazine "Sight & Sound" recently released two lists of the greatest movies ever made, one list determined by 145 professional film critics, and the other voted on by 108 directors. Polled film critics include Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times; Richard Allen, co-editor of “Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays;” Aruna Vasudev, editor of “Frames of Mind: Reflections on Indian Cinema,” Mark Schilling, author of “Contemporary Japanese Film;” Ibrahim Fawal, biographer of Youssef Chahine and a novelist; and Todd McCarthy of “Variety,” just to name a few.
Participating directors include Michael Mann (“Heat,” “The Insider”), Norman Jewison (“Moonstruck,” “In the Heat of the Night”), Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction,” “Jackie Brown”), Bruce Beresford (“Driving Miss Daisy”), Sidney Lumet (“Network,” “Serpico”), Nicholas Meyer (“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”), George Sluizer (“The Vanishing”), Bernardo Bertolucci (“The Last Emperor”), John Waters (“Pink Flamingos,” “Pecker”), Roger Corman (the original “Little Shop of Horrors”), Joe Dante (“Gremlins,” “Piranha”), John Dahl (“Red Rock West”) Milos Forman (“Amadeus,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”), Guy Hamilton (“Goldfinger”), Sam Mendes (“American Beauty”), Scott Hicks (“Shine”), Terry Jones (“Monty Python and the Holy Grail”), Richard Lester (“A Hard Day’s Night”), Richard Linklater (“Waking Life,” “Dazed and Confused”), and Paul Schrader (“Light Sleeper,” and screenwriter for “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull”).
Directors M. Night Shymalan, Kevin Smith, Zhang Yimou, and Sir Steven Spielberg elected not to be part of the poll. Neither did Stanley Kubrick, on account of being dead.
But this is all old news by at least a couple weeks. Whenever these dubious lists hit us—be they the work of the American Film Institute, "Entertainment Weekly," or "TV Guide"—everyone whose favorite movie didn't make the cut is curious: was it a close race? How many more votes did "Gone With the Wind" or "Die Hard With a Vengeance" need to appear on the list? With 253 voters, about nine hundred movies were considered in the two "Sight & Sound" polls. Big winners like "Vertigo" garnered the votes of thirteen directors and a whopping forty-one critics, but only seventeen votes were needed to place in the Critics' Top Ten and twelve for the Directors'.
So, what about honorable mentions, runners-up, better-luck-next-decade? Which movies almost-almost-almost made it? Did any film garner the votes of sixteen critics and eleven directors? Here are several films that very nearly qualified.
One Man's Roof is Another Man's Ceiling Fan
Obviously films that appeared on one list but not the other stand the best chance of being runners-up. Stanley Kubrick's landmark "2001: A Space Odyssey," while appearing prominently on the Critics' List, missed the Directors' List by only one vote. Of some of the other films that appeared on the Critics' List but not the Directors,' "Tokyo Story" received nine director votes, "Singin' in the Rain" eight, and Eisenstein's silent masterpiece "Battleship Potemkin" took six.
Lagging the Critics' List by only two votes was "The Seven Samurai," followed by Kurosawa's other big contender "Rashomon," which missed by three. "The Bicycle Thief," which way back in 1952 was the only other film besides "Citizen Kane" to sit atop the "Sight & Sound" list, only received five votes from the critics, as did "Lawrence of Arabia."
Gone But Not Forgotten
Also receiving plenty of votes are previous members of the Top Ten. John Ford's "The Searchers" missed the Critics' List by two votes, while previous winners "The Passion of Joan of Arc," "L'Atalante," "L'avventura," "Jules et Jim," and Buster Keaton's "The General" all scored ten or more votes in one category or the other. Previous placeholders receiving six or more votes in at least one poll include "Pather Panchali" (the first of the Apu trilogy), "Ugetsu Monogatari," "Wild Strawberries," "The Magnificent Ambersons," "Andrei Roublev," "Ivan the Terrible," "La Strada," "City Lights" (which has one of the best endings of any movie ever) and, one of my favorite films of all time, "The Third Man" (also with one of the best endings I've ever seen).
