Sight and Sound 10 best films from 1962

In 1962, Sight and Sound asked a group of film critics to submit their choices for the ten best films of all time. This is a selection from those lists.

Henri Agel
1.....Sunrise (F W Murnau)
2.....Broken Blossoms (D W Griffith)
3.....City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
4.....Greed (Erich von Stroheim)
5.....L'Atalante (Jean Vigo)
6.....The Childhood of Maxim Gorki (Mark Donskoi)
7.....Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica)
8.....Madame de. . . (Max Ophuls)
9.....The Golden Coach (Jean Renoir)
10....Voyage en Italie (Roberto Rossellini)

Jean Douchet
1.....The Empress Yang Kwei Fei (Kenji Mizoguchi)
2.....The Tiger of Eschnanpur (Fritz Lang)
3.....Tabu (F W Murnau)
4.....Exodus (Otto Preminger)
5.....Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)
6.....The Naked and the Dead (Raoul Walsh)
7.....Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
8.....The General (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman)
9.....Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray)
10....A Star is Born (George Cukor)


Lotte Eisner
1.....The Idiot (Akira Kurosawa)
2.....Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
3.....Nazarin (Luis Bunuel)
4.....Ivan the Terrible -- color sequence part II (Sergei Eisenstein)
5.....Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
6.....Fires on the Plain (Kon Ichikawa)
7.....Greed (Erich von Stroheim)
8.....Sunrise (F W Murnau)
9.....Partie de campagne (Jean Renoir)
10...Zéro de conduite (Jean Vigo)
Lotte Eisner comments: "I do not believe in your formula of ten best films -- The ones I give you are the ones I can see over and over again."

Curtis Harrington
1.....Greed (Erich von Stroheim)
2.....Zéro de conduite (Jean Vigo)
3.....La Règle de jeu (Jean Renoir)
4.....The Devil is a Woman (Josef von Sternberg)
5.....Dura Lex (Lev Kuleshov)
6.....Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa)
8.....I Vitelloni (Federico Fellini)
9.....Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
10...L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)

Penelope Houston
(alphabetical)
L'Année dernière à Marienbad (Alain Resnais)
L'Atalante (Jean Vigo)
L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
The General (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman)
The Maltese Falcon (John Huston)
October (Sergei Eisenstein)
La Règle de jeu (Jean Renoir)
La Terra Trema (Luchino Visconti)

Arthur Knight
1.....The Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica)
2.....Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
3.....City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
4.....Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais)
5.....Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa)
6.....The Last Laugh (F W Murnau)
7.....Moana (Robert J Flaherty)
8.....The Apu trilogy (Satyajit Ray)
9.....Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein)
10...La Strada (Federico Fellini)

André S Labarthe
(no special order)
Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton)
L'Age d'or (Luis Bunuel)
Freaks (Tod Browning)
La Pyramide humaine (Jean Rouch)
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger)
Bebé mange sa soupe (Louis Lumière)
Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade)
Labarthe comments: "I have deliberately not spoken titles that will be written by everyone and anyone (Griffith, Stroheim, Murnau, Dreyer, Renoir, Rossellini, Hitchcock, Welles, Chaplin, and a few others ) preferring to cite films less likely to be so written. It is obvious that in 9 daysthis list will be very pronouncedly different from what it is today. Happily." (my translation)

Gavin Lambert
1..... L'Age d'or (Luis Bunuel)
2.....El (Luis Bunuel)
3.....Nazarin (Luis Bunuel)
4.....Zéro de conduite (Jean Vigo)
5.....Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (Edward F Cline)
6.....Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
7.....Modern Times (Charles Chaplin)
8.....Moana (Robert J Flaherty)
9.....The Loves of Jennie Ney (G W Pabst)
10...Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming)

Dwight MacDonald
1.....The Birth of a Nation (D W Griffith)
2.....Intolerance (D W Griffith)
3.....October (Sergei Eisenstein)
4.....Sherlock Jr (Buster Keaton)
5.....The Gorki trilogy (Mark Donskoy)
6.....The Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir)
7.....Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
8.....Les Enfants du paradis (Marcel Carné)
9.....Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais)
10,,,L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
MacDonald comments: "What no Chaplin, no Stroheim, no Dovchenko, no Pudovkin, no Clair, no Pabst, no Murnau, no De Sica, no Rossellini, no Visconti, no Fellini, no Ford, no Wellman, no Flaherty. Well, it's your idea."

Louis Marcorelles
1.....Poem of the Sea (Alexander Dovchenko, Julia Solntseva)
2.....A Woman is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)
3.....Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
4.....Greed (Erich von Stroheim)
5.....The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl T Dreyer)
6.....It Happened One Night (Frank Capra)
7.....Mr Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra)
8.....Stella Dallas (King Vidor)
9.....Limelight (Charles Chaplin)
10...We Are the Lambeth Boys (Karel Reisz)

Jonathan Mekas
1.....Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein)
2.....Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
3.....The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin)
4.....Greed (Erich von Stroheim)
5.....Intolerance (D W Griffith)
6.....Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
7.....Lola Montès (Max Ophuls)
8.....Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty)
9.....Le sang d'un poete (Jean Cocteau)
10...Zèro de conduite (Jean Vigo)

Luc Moullet
1.....Voyage en Italie (Roberto Rossellini)
2.....Sunrise (F W Murnau)
3.....One Exciting Night (D W Griffith)
4.....La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir)
5.....Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
6.....Rebel without a Cause (Nicholas Ray)
7.....The Thing from Another Planet (Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks)
8.....The Merry Widow (Erich von Stroheim)
9.....Charlotte et son Jules (Jean-Luc Godard)
10...Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)

Karel Reisz
1.....L'Atalante (Jean Vigo)
2.....City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
3.....Earth (Alexander Dovchenko)
4.....Listen to Britian (Humphrey Jennings/Herbert McAllister)
5.....Los Olvidados (Luis Bunuel)
6.....The Palm Beach Story (Preston Sturges)
7.....Wagonmaster (John Ford)
8.....L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
9.....Due soldi di speranza (Renato Castellani)
10...La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir)

Jacques Rivette
1.....The Life of Oharu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
2.....Germany Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini)
3.....True Heart Susie (D W Griffith)
4.....Sunrise (F W Murnau)
5.....The River (Jean Renoir)
6.....Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
7.....L'Atalante (Jean Vigo)
8.....Day of Wrath (Carl Theodore Dreyer)
9.....Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
10...Mr Arkadin (Orson Welles)

David Robinson
1.....Viridiana (Luis Bunuel)
2.....La Terra Trema (Luchino Visconti)
3.....City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
4.....The Apu trilogy (Satyajit Ray)
5.....The Gorki trilogy (Mark Donskoy)
6.....Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
7.....Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu)
8.....The Wedding March (Erich von Stroheim)
9.....Les Quatre Cents Coups (François Truffaut)
10...Anthology of the works of W C Fields (various)
supporting program: Le Mélomane (Georges Méliès)
David Robinson comments: "I would not attempt or presume to choose the ten best: all I can do is to name the films which I would choose to console a solitary exile. Can I cheat by choosing, one, a trilogy, two, an incomplete trilogy, and three, a nonexistent anthology."

Eric Rohmer
(chronological)
True heart Susie (D W Griffith)
The General (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman)
Sunrise (F W Murnau)
Le Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir)
Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
Voyage en Italie (Roberto Rossellini)
Red River (Howard Hawks)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
La Pyramide humaine (Jean Rouch)
Eric Rohmer comments: "These are those films which, as I see it, should cinema disappear, would give the most exact idea of its best successes, amidst its highest ambitions."

Richard Roud
1.....Last Year in Mareinbad (Alain Resnais)
2.....L'Atalante (Jean Vigo)
3.....Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
4.....Cronaca di un amore (Michelangelo Antonioni)
5.....Le Dames du Bois du Boulogne (Robert Bresson)
6.....Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais)
7.....La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni)
8.....Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
9.....La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir)
10...Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu)

Georges Sadoul
1.....Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein)
2.....Modern Times (Charles Chaplin)
3.....Toni (Jean Renoir)
4.....Mother (Vsevolod Pudovkin)
5.....Earth (Alexander Dovchenko)
6.....Le Million (René Clair)
7.....Greed (Ercih von Stroheim)
8.....Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica)
9.....Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
10...Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais)

For some lists from Sight and Sound in 1952 click here