Now the September issue of Sight & Sound has hit the news stands, film buffs everywhere are now able to pour and get worked-up over their Greatest Films Poll 2012. The savvy marketers and promoters that the BFI are, it was common knowledge that Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane had been usurped by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo prior to publication. Perhaps what is most exciting though, is that the poll is all available online, allowing you to see where all the critics, academics and filmmakers casted their votes.
Will Brooker, the author of our new book Hunting the Dark Knight: Twenty-first Century Batman, was one academic invited to list his favourite films, which we have lovingly, and painstakingly, reproduced for you (in 332 characters and alphabetical order) below:
Blade Runner, 1982, Ridley Scott
The Breakfast Club, 1985, John Hughes
Breathless, 1960, Jean-Luc Goddard
Man With a Movie Camera, 1929, Dziga Vertov
Rope, 1948, Alfred Hitchcock
The Searchers, 1956, John Ford
Star Wars, 1977, George Lucas
Touch of Evil, 1958, Orson Welles
Tron, 1982, Steven Lisberger
West Side Story, 1961, Robert Wise/Jerome Robbins
It would be a lie to suggest Will’s selection created a controversy online, but it did draw this response from @mousterpiece on Twitter: ‘the guy who put Tron on his list also put on Breakfast Club, which is an equally baffling choice.’ I can report that the two did indeed settle their differences later.
Preferring Rope to Vertigo because it ‘is more theatrical than Hitchcock’s other great pictures’, Will’s list does throw a few curve balls, not least because there’s no Batman, but here in the office we’re admiring the variety and love any excuse to sing a Leonard Bernstein number.
To read what Will said about all his choices visit the Sight & Sound website, and if you think Will’s picks are slightly out of the ordinary then I suggest you check out Diane Negra’s list. ■
