List of films voted the best


The following films have been voted the best in national and international surveys of critics and the public.
Some surveys focus on all films, while others focus on a particular genre or country. Voting systems differ, and some surveys suffer from biases such as self-selection or skewed demographics, while others may be susceptible to forms of interference such as vote stacking.

Critics and filmmakers

''Sight and Sound''

Every decade, starting in 1952, the British film magazine Sight and Sound asks an international group of film critics to vote for the greatest film of all time. Since 1992, they have invited directors to vote in a separate poll. Sixty-three critics participated in 1952, 70 critics in 1962, 89 critics in 1972, 122 critics in 1982, 132 critics and 101 directors in 1992, 145 critics and 108 directors in 2002, 846 critics and 358 directors in 2012, and 1639 critics and 480 directors in 2022.
This poll is regarded as one of the most important "greatest ever film" lists. The American critic Roger Ebert described it as "by far the most respected of the countless polls of great movies—the only one most serious movie people take seriously".
  • Bicycle Thieves topped the first poll in 1952 with 25 votes.
  • Citizen Kane stood at number 1 for five consecutive polls, with 22 votes in 1962, 32 votes in 1972, 45 votes in 1982, 43 votes in 1992, and 46 votes in 2002. It also topped the first two directors' polls, with 30 votes in 1992 and 42 votes in 2002.
  • Vertigo topped the critics' poll in 2012 with 191 votes, dethroning Citizen Kane.
  • Tokyo Story topped the directors' poll in 2012 with 48 votes, also dethroning Citizen Kane.
  • Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles topped the critics' poll in 2022.
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey topped the directors' poll in 2022.

    Other polls

  • Battleship Potemkin was ranked number 1 with 32 votes when the Festival Mondial du Film et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique asked 63 film professionals around the world, mostly directors, to vote for the best films of the half-century in 1951. It was also ranked number 1 when the Brussels World's Fair polled 117 experts from 26 countries in 1958.
  • Citizen Kane was ranked number 1 with 48 votes when French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma asked 78 French critics and historians to vote for the best films in 2007. It was also ranked number 1 with 48 votes when Chinese website Cinephilia.net asked 135 Chinese-speaking critics, scholars, curators, and cultural workers to vote for the best films in 2012. It was ranked number 1 with 49 votes when Spanish film magazine ' asked 150 Spanish film experts to vote for the best films in 1999.
  • Seven Samurai was voted the greatest foreign-language film in BBC's 2018 poll of 209 critics in 43 countries.
  • Vertigo was ranked number 1 with 39 votes when German film magazine ' asked 174 critics and filmmakers to vote for their favorite films in 2007. It was also ranked number 1 with 25 votes when Iranian film magazine Film asked 92 Iranian critics to vote for the best films in 2009. It topped also the Télérama poll in 2018.
  • 8½ was voted the best foreign sound film with 21 votes in a 1964 poll of 50 Swedish film professionals organized by Swedish film magazine . It was also ranked number 1 when the asked 279 Polish film professionals to vote for the best films in 2015.
  • Gone with the Wind was selected as the greatest film of the past half-century in a 1950 poll conducted by Variety of more than 200 professionals who worked in the film industry for over 25 years.
  • The Godfather was ranked number 1 when Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo asked 114 Japanese critics and film professionals to vote for the best foreign films in 2009. It was also voted the greatest film in a Hollywood Reporter poll of 2120 industry members, including every studio, agency, publicity firm and production house in Hollywood in 2014.
  • Boyz n the Hood topped the "Top Black Films of All Times" poll from the November 1998 edition of Ebony magazine.
  • The Piano was voted the best film made by a female director in a 2019 BBC poll of 368 film experts from 84 countries.

    Audience polls

  • Gone with the Wind was voted the favorite film of Americans in a poll of 2,279 adults taken by Harris Interactive in 2008, and again in a follow-up poll of 2,276 adults in 2014.
  • Roman Holiday was voted the best foreign film of all time in a 1990 poll of about a million people organized by Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
  • The Godfather was voted number 1 by Entertainment Weeklys readers in 1999 and voted as number 1 in a Time Out readers' poll in 1998. The film was voted the "Greatest Movie of All Time" in September 2008 by 10,000 readers of Empire magazine, 150 people from the movie business, and 50 film critics. It also topped Empires June 2017 poll of 20,000 readers.
  • The Empire Strikes Back was voted the best film of all time by over 250,000 readers of the Empire film magazine in 2015.
  • Himala won the 2008 CNN Asia Pacific Screen Awards Viewers Choice as "Best Asia-Pacific Film of All Time".
  • The Shawshank Redemption was voted the greatest film of all time by Empire readers in "The 201 Greatest Movies of All Time" poll taken in March 2006.
  • Titanic was voted the greatest hit of all time in a poll of 6,000 movie fans conducted by English-language newspaper China Daily in March 2008.
  • Shiri was voted the favorite film of South Koreans with 11,918 votes in a 2002 online poll of 54,013 people conducted by South Korean movie channel Orion Cinema Network.
  • The Lord of the Rings trilogy —despite being a series of three films—was voted the favorite "film" of Australians in an audience poll for the Australian television special My Favourite Film in 2005. It was also voted the best film in a poll of 120,000 German voters for the TV special Die besten Filme aller Zeiten in 2004.

    Genres or media

Action

  • Mad Max 2 was voted the greatest action film of all time in a readers' poll by American magazine Rolling Stone in 2015.
  • Die Hard was voted the best action film of all time with 21 votes in a 2014 poll of 50 directors, actors, critics, and experts conducted by Time Out New York.

    Animation (shorts and features)

  • Pinocchio was voted the best animated movie ever made in a 2014 poll of animators, filmmakers, critics, journalists, and experts conducted by Time Out.
  • What's Opera, Doc?, a Bugs Bunny cartoon, was selected as the greatest animated short film of all time by 1,000 animation professionals in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons.
  • Hedgehog in the Fog was ranked number 1 in a poll at the 2003 Laputa Animation Festival where 140 animators from around the world voted for the best animated films of all time.
  • Tale of Tales was ranked number 1 with 17 votes in a poll at the Olympiad of Animation in 1984 where an international panel of 35 journalists, scholars, festival directors, and animation programmers voted for the best animated films. It was also ranked number 1 in a poll organized by the Channel 4 animation magazine Dope Sheet in 1997, as well as a poll organized by the Zagreb International Animation Festival, which announced the results in 2002.
  • Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was the highest-ranking film in a 2006 poll of the greatest animations conducted at the Japan Media Arts Festival, voted by 80,000 attendees.
  • Castle in the Sky was voted first place in a 2008 animation audience poll conducted by Oricon in Japan.
  • Toy Story was voted number 1 on the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time" list by the Online Film Critics Society. Voters chose from a reminder list of more than 350 films. It also topped a poll of 4,000 film fans for "greatest animated film of all time" in 2009, when it was re-released in 3D.

    Christmas

  • It's a Wonderful Life was voted the greatest Christmas film by an audience poll conducted by Axios and SurveyMonkey in 2018.
  • Die Hard was voted the greatest Christmas movie by British film magazine Empire readers in 2015.

    Comedy

  • Some Like It Hot was voted the best comedy film of all time in a poll of 253 film critics from 52 countries conducted by the BBC in 2017.
  • Blazing Saddles was voted the funniest movie of all time in a 2014 readers' poll by American magazine Rolling Stone.
  • Monty Python's Life of Brian was voted the greatest comedy of all time in a poll of over 22,000 people conducted by the British TV network Channel 4 in 2006. It was also voted the greatest comedy film in polls conducted by British film magazine Total Film in 2000, and British newspaper The Guardian in 2007.
  • Airplane! was voted the best comedy film of all time in a 2012 readers' poll by British magazine Empire.
  • This Is Spinal Tap was voted the best comedy movie of all time in a poll of over 70 stand-up comedians, actors, writers, and directors conducted by Time Out London in 2016.

    Disaster

  • The Poseidon Adventure was voted best disaster movie in a poll of 500 members of the UCI Cinemas staff in May 2004.

    Documentary

  • Man with a Movie Camera was voted the greatest documentary film of all time with 125 votes in a 2014 Sight and Sound poll of 238 critics, curators, and academics and 103 filmmakers.
  • Hoop Dreams was ranked as the greatest documentary of all time by the International Documentary Association in 2007. Voters selected from a list of over 700 films.
  • Bowling for Columbine heads the list of 20 all-time favorite non-fiction films selected by members of the IDA in 2002.