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Sight and Sound Greatest Films Poll 101 - 250

Meet the elite: hand-picked highlights from the 2022 Sight and Sound 250 Greatest Films of All Time Poll.

Once every ten years, Sight and Sound magazine asks the most respected names in the business for a census of cinema’s best. The 2022 poll brings shock and delight, as seen in this selection from the definitive list.

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Wings of DesireWings of Desire

Fantasy1987128 minsDirector: Wim Wenders

In director Wim Wenders' (Paris, Texas) most metaphysical work, a guardian angel desires nothing more than to be human. Presented in a stunning new restoration.

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The Colour of PomegranatesThe Colour of Pomegranates

Animation & Artists Moving Image196880 minsDirector: Sergei Paradjanov

The film that Martin Scorsese compared to ‘opening a door and walking into another dimension, where time has stopped and beauty has been unleashed’.

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L'ArgentL'Argent

Crime198384 minsDirector: Robert Bresson

Bresson’s superb final film and Cannes winner is a Tolstoy adaptation relating how a prank with a forged bank note leads to tragedy.

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A Touch of ZenA Touch of Zen

Action and Adventure1971179 minsDirector: King Hu

King Hu's epic swordplay saga combines ghost story, martial arts mastery and Buddhist mythology to stunning, hypnotic effect.

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Wild StrawberriesWild Strawberries

Drama195788 minsDirector: Ingmar Bergman

Victor Sjöström is magnificent as the crabby professor taking a nostalgic road trip with his daughter-in-law, in Ingmar Bergman's elegiac masterpiece.

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The Seventh SealThe Seventh Seal

Fantasy195796 minsDirector: Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman’s best-known film is a brilliant allegorical drama starring Max von Sydow as a knight trying to elude his own death.

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PickpocketPickpocket

Drama195976 minsDirector: Robert Bresson

Bresson’s hugely influential study of a petty thief in late 50s Paris is one of his most widely acclaimed films.

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Un Chien AndalouUn Chien Andalou

Animation & Artists Moving Image192816 minsSilentDirector: Luis Buñuel

A scabrous study of desire, the subconscious and anti-clericalism - Buñuel and Dalí’s provocative first film is a classic of Surrealist cinema.

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Aguirre, Wrath of GodAguirre, Wrath of God

Historical drama197294 minsDirector: Werner Herzog

This early masterpiece from Werner Herzog stars Klaus Kinski as a power-crazed explorer in sixteenth-century South America who leads a band of conquistadors through the Amazon in search of El Dorado.

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Paris, TexasParis, Texas

Drama1984145 minsDirector: Wim Wenders

The late, great Harry Dean Stanton's finest role came as the near-mute Travis, on a journey across America to reunite his family, in Wim Wenders' moving tale of loss and redemption.

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Les Enfants du paradisLes Enfants du paradis

Drama1945190 minsDirector: Marcel Carné

Marcel Carné's masterpiece of French cinema portrays the theatrical milieu of Paris' 'Boulevard du Crime'.

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An Autumn AfternoonAn Autumn Afternoon

Drama1962113 minsDirector: Yasujirō Ozu

Yasujiro Ozu's elegiac final film charts the inevitable eclipse of older generations by irreverent youth.

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NosferatuNosferatu

Horror192289 minsSilentDirector: F.W. Murnau

This influential Dracula adaptation contains some of the most famous images of expressionist film, and remains shocking and stylish after 100 years.

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SuspiriaSuspiria

Horror1977101 minsDirector: Dario Argento

Dario Argento’s phantasmagoric gothic nightmare blends operatic violence, disorienting dream logic and hyper-real visuals to create a horror classic.

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Distant Voices, Still LivesDistant Voices, Still Lives

Biopic198884 minsDirector: Terence Davies

Terence Davies' debut feature is a remarkable evocation of working-class family life in the 40s and 50s and a visionary exploration of memory.

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PaisàPaisà

War1946126 minsDirector: Roberto Rossellini

Roberto Rossellini’s ambitious and enormously moving follow-up to his breakthrough Rome, Open City.

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CrashCrash

Drama1996100 minsDirector: David Cronenberg

Technology and sexuality meet in head-on collision in David Cronenberg’s controversial adaptation of writer J.G. Ballard’s hugely transgressive 1973 novel, starring James Spader and Holly Hunter.

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The Green RayThe Green Ray

Drama198699 minsDirector: Eric Rohmer

Eric Rohmer's masterpiece about a woman chasing romance and adventure during a long, hot summer.

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Cries and WhispersCries and Whispers

Drama197291 minsDirector: Ingmar Bergman

A dying woman (Harriet Andersson) is attended to in her rural mansion by her sisters, in Ingmar Bergman's vivid examination of the human soul.

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Fanny and AlexanderFanny and Alexander

Drama1982311 minsDirector: Ingmar Bergman

Bergman’s magisterial and sumptuous portrait of a 20th-century Swedish family, presented in its full-length TV version.

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IkiruIkiru

Drama1952143 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa

A bureaucrat’s life finds new meaning in Kurosawa’s classic original, the source for Bill Nighy’s brilliant drama, Living.

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Memories of UnderdevelopmentMemories of Underdevelopment

Drama196899 minsDirector: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

A mesmerising and complex character study of alienation amid tumultuous social change, from one of Cuba’s greatest directors, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

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