OFFICIAL: Citizen Kane is only the SECOND greatest film ever made...

Poor Orson Welles, turns out he has been beaten by ol' Alfred Hitchcock, specifically Vertigo.

Movie journal Sight and Sound, published by the BFI have released its 2012 list of the greatest films. It looks surprisingly like its other lists pun
blished every ten years.

However, Citizen Kane has finally been knocked off the top spot by Vertigo.

Film School Rejects has the complete list and where to see them. Have a watch, sit back and feel cultured.

Or you could go watch what you want and revel in being a populist.

Photo from here

In all seriousness, it can seem sometimes that lists like these can be detrimental to potential audiences. On the one hand we need to revere old classics and it can only be good thing for audiences to have these made available. On the other hand the thrill of new techniques and systems of filmmaking is not only engaging for the viewer but like everything, improvement comes from growth and adaptation. 

The problem is when you come down firmly on either side of this argument instead of finding a common ground. Not one film on the list was made in the last twenty years when arguably we have seen the greatest leap forward in filmmaking practises since the introduction of sound. There is nothing wrong with this in itself, and Sight and Sound regularly features modern films within its pages, but we need to keep in mind that the classics of tomorrow will be the films of today and their value, while not immediately quantifiable, should be kept in mind.

Whether you want to see it as an issue of high or low culture or amateur and academic critics, I feel that what this shows is that there is always a need to compartmentalise the culture we consume, to deem some 'worthy' and by that act deem the rest as somehow less. I for one think there is no such thing as a guilty pleasure, merely work that appeals to different facets of pleasure.

Fortunately for us the world is awash with list of the greatest and the best and they are as diverse as the film featured in them.