WHERE'S TOMMY BOY ON THAT LIST? - For those of you looking for something to do this weekend, write down all the films you've never seen from these lists -- or maybe never even heard of -- then get down to your best local video store or library and prepare to join the cultural elite. (No, I'm not including myself in this group since I, too, have my own list to compile.)

The British film magazine Sight & Sound just announced the results of its Critics' and Directors' Top Ten Polls for 2002. As their Web site explains:

"In 1952 Sight & Sound polled the world’s leading film critics to compile a list of the best films of all time. The magazine has repeated this poll every ten years, to show which films stand the test of time in the face of shifting critical opinion. In 1992 we added a poll of directors asking them for their personal choices."

For the 2002 edition, 108 filmmakers and 145 critics from around the world participated in the voting.

Critics Top Ten Poll 2002
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
Kane has been #1 on every Critics' poll except the first -- Bicycle Thieves was #1 in '52 -- and has topped both Directors' polls.
2. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
3. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (Renoir)
4. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
5. Tokyo Story (Ozu)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
7. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
7. Sunrise (Murnau)
9. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
10. Singin' In the Rain (Kelly, Donen)

Films that dropped off the list from 1992:
The Searchers (Ford)
L'Atalante (Vigo)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
Pather Panchali (S. Ray)

The Directors' Poll, which actually lists 11 movies, shares 5 with the Critics'...
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
3. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
6. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
9. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (Renoir)

...but adds...
4. Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
5. Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick)
6. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
6. Raging Bull (Scorsese)

...and two Kurosawa films, Rashomon and Seven Samurai, which both tied for 9th with Rules of the Game.

Films that dropped off the list from 1992:
La strada (Fellini)
L'Atalante (Vigo)
Modern Times (Chaplin)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)

In evaluating the two lists, I have to side with the directors. I refuse to hail Vertigo as the 2nd greatest film of all-time, especially when the two Godfather movies are 4th. I also love the inclusion of the two Kurosawa films; De Sica's heartbreaking neorealist masterpiece Bicycle Thieves (aka The Bicycle Thief); and Kubrick's nuclear war farce Dr. Strangelove over his groundbreaking but cumbersome 2001: A Space Odyssey. Most importantly, the directors rightfully include Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980), the youngest film on either list.

For the complete results of both polls with comments, click here. You can also check past poll results, see which critics and directors participated and how they voted, and compare their lists of the best directors of all-time.

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