Sight and Sound 2022 Critics' Poll Names Jeanne Dielman Greatest Film Ever Made
Chantal Akerman's 1975 film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, achieved the top position in the 2022 Sight and Sound critics poll, marking the first time a female director's work has led the British Film Institute's decennial list. This year's poll recorded 1,639 participants, the highest number ever, resulting in the most significant reshuffling since 1952. Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo dropped to second place, while Orson Welles' Citizen Kane came in third. Akerman's film, starring Delphine Seyrig, improved from its 36th position in 2012; Akerman passed away in 2015. The top 10 also featured Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story at fourth and Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love at fifth. The next poll will occur in 2032.
Key facts
- Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles ranked first in the 2022 Sight and Sound critics poll, the first film by a woman director to top the list
- The 2022 poll drew 1,639 voters, a far larger and more internationally varied group than earlier editions
- Jeanne Dielman climbed from 36th place in 2012 to first; Akerman died in 2015, seven years before the result was announced
- Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, the 2012 winner, placed second, and Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, first from 1962 to 2002, placed third
- The top 10 spans seven decades, from Dziga Vertov's 1929 Man with a Movie Camera to David Lynch's 2001 Mulholland Drive
- The Sight and Sound poll has been published once a decade since 1952 by the British Film Institute's magazine
- The 2022 edition produced the largest reordering in the poll's history
- The next Sight and Sound critics poll is due in 2032
Entities
Artists
- Chantal Akerman
- Delphine Seyrig
- Alfred Hitchcock
- James Stewart
- Kim Novak
- Pierre Boileau
- Thomas Narcejac
- Robert Burks
- Saul Bass
- Bernard Herrmann
- Orson Welles
- Herman J. Mankiewicz
- Gregg Toland
- William Randolph Hearst
- Yasujiro Ozu
- Chishu Ryu
- Chieko Higashiyama
- Setsuko Hara
- Kogo Noda
- Wim Wenders
- Hou Hsiao-hsien
- Wong Kar-wai
- Tony Leung
- Maggie Cheung
- Christopher Doyle
- Mark Lee Ping-bin
- Shigeru Umebayashi
- Seijun Suzuki
- Nat King Cole
- Barry Jenkins
- Stanley Kubrick
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Douglas Trumbull
- Douglas Rain
- Martin Balsam
- Alex North
- Johann Strauss II
- Richard Strauss
- György Ligeti
- Claire Denis
- Denis Lavant
- Bernardo Montet
- Agnès Godard
- Benjamin Britten
- Jim Jarmusch
- David Lynch
- Naomi Watts
- Laura Harring
- Rebekah Del Rio
- Roy Orbison
- Joel Coen
- Dziga Vertov
- Mikhail Kaufman
- Elizaveta Svilova
- Gene Kelly
- Stanley Donen
- Donald O'Connor
- Arthur Freed
- Nacio Herb Brown
- Betty Comden
- Adolph Green
- Debbie Reynolds
- Jean Hagen
- Herman Melville
- Agnès Varda
- Julie Dash
- Jane Campion
- Barbara Loden
- Céline Sciamma
- Maya Deren
- Babette Mangolte
- Grégoire Colin
- Michel Subor
- Corinne Marchand
- Michel Legrand
- Jean-Luc Godard
- Anna Karina
- Chris Marker
- Alain Resnais
- JR
- Noémie Merlant
- Adèle Haenel
- Claire Mathon
- Arthur Jafa
- Beyoncé
- Angela Bassett
- Holly Hunter
- Sam Neill
- Harvey Keitel
- Anna Paquin
- Michael Nyman
- Elia Kazan
- Nathalie Léger
- Kelly Reichardt
- Natalia Akerman
- Sandrine Bonnaire
- Alexander Hammid
- Teiji Ito
- Chen Kaige
- Arthur Miller
Institutions
- Sight and Sound
- British Film Institute
- Quartz
- RKO Pictures
- Shochiku
- ABC
- StudioCanal
- MGM
- Cannes Film Festival
- Academy Awards
- Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
- Sundance Film Festival
- Venice Film Festival
- Library of Congress
- National Film Registry
- Museum of Modern Art
- Creative Film Foundation
- Guggenheim Fellowship
- César Awards
- Tony Awards
Locations
- Brussels
- Belgium
- San Francisco
- Tokyo
- Japan
- Onomichi
- Atami
- Hong Kong
- Djibouti
- Cameroon
- Africa
- Moscow
- Kyiv
- Odesa
- Soviet Union
- Los Angeles
- United States
- Britain
- France
- Horn of Africa
- Marseille
- Paris
- Parc Montsouris
- Brittany
- Milan
- Italy
- South Carolina
- Georgia
- Sea Islands
- New Zealand
- Wellington
- Auckland
- Australia
- Pennsylvania
- New York City
- Manhattan
- Staten Island