Greatest movie of all time?

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo Dethrones Citizen Kane as the Greatest Movie of All-Time reads the headline of a story. Much as I enjoyed watching Jimmy Stewart in Anatomy of a murder last weekend, and much as I like Kim Novak (I lo-oh-ve Kim Novack), I don't know about that.

Move over, Orson Welles. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo has been named as the greatest film of all time by more than 800 international film critics and experts. The poll, carried out every 10 years by Sight & Sound, a magazine published by the British Film Institute, picked Hitchcock’s psychological drama as the best film ever made. For the past 50 years, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane held the top spot, but this year, critics picked Hitchcock’s masterpiece over Citizen Kane, which has been relegated to second place.

I'll have to think on it.

BBC News also notes that Vertigo was Hitchcock’s most personal film in which he tackles “one of his recurring themes — love as a fetish that degrades women and deranges men.”

Hitchcock does have a reputation as a sexual bully. Funny how film people, critics and civilians, overlook the foibles (sexual and otherwise) of film makers (A certain Allen, Woody, is whom I am thinking of in this regard).

Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story was named as the third greatest film followed by Jean Renoir’s La Règle Du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) and F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The list of the top 50 greatest films, compiled by Sight & Sound, can be found here.

I saw several Ozu films early last year (From reading The elegance of the hedgehog, I became aware of this Japanese film maker. Luckily, the library where I work owns 3 of Ozu's films on DVD), and I agree that he made great films.

Time has it own 100 greatest films list.

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