Peter Howell: French arthouse classic unseats Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ as the best movie of all time, according to influential film poll

The greatest movie ever made was written and directed by a woman, says a poll of more than 1,600 international film critics that is being called a “seismic” jolt to cinema appreciation.

It’s Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles,” a rarely seen 1975 neorealist classic about the daily affairs of a Brussels homemaker, played by Delphine Seyrig, who works as a part-time prostitute. Belgian filmmaker Akerman was just 25 when she made it.

“Jeanne Dielman” tops the 2022 edition of “The Greatest Films of All Time,” a survey of critics (plus a separate one of directors) conducted every 10 years by the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound magazine. Listing 100 films in all, it’s the most respected and influential of movie polls and arguably of greater interest to cineastes than the annual bestowing of the Oscar for Best Picture.

It’s the first time in the poll’s 70-year history that a film by a female filmmaker has taken the top spot in a traditionally male-dominated survey. Besides being a boost to women filmmakers and a discussion prompt as to what constitutes a great film, the poll can also be read as a collective critical poke in the eye to the increasing dominance of blockbuster superhero fare at movie theatres, which gobble up screens at the expense of small art house films.

This has certainly been the fate of “Jeanne Dielman” over the past 47 years. Running nearly 31/2 hours and with a defiantly meditative pace, it’s the polar opposite of a popcorn movie and one not often screened by theatres — although it is now available on streaming services.

Yet it managed to topple the 2012 Sight and Sound poll champion, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” which drops to second place. “Vertigo” had earlier dethroned Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” from its 50-year penthouse reign; “Kane” now stands at No. 3.

Following in order after “Kane” are the other films in the 2022 Sight and Sound all-time Top 10: “Tokyo Story,” “In the Mood for Love,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Beau Travail,” “Mulholland Drive,” “Man With a Movie Camera” and “Singin’ in the Rain.” (Boldfaced titles are new Top 10 entries, as is “Jeanne Dielman”; see list at end.)

“The top of the poll list has been stable for decades, so this is a seismic shift in critical opinion,” Sight and Sound editor Mike Williams told the Star via email. “It is invigorating to see that voters are rethinking what it means for a film to be considered ‘the greatest,’ outside of what has previously been considered in the canon.”

Laura Mulvey, a professor of film studies at Birkbeck, University of London, hailed “Jeanne Dielman” as “the extraordinarily daring cinema of a great woman director” and agreed that its No. 1 poll ranking will shake up cinematic thinking.

“One might say that it felt as though there was a before and an after ‘Jeanne Dielman,’ just as there had once been a before and after ‘Citizen Kane,’” she said in a press release.

“Jeanne Dielman” is considered a landmark of feminist cinema for its depiction of female work, but Akerman herself resisted labels: “When people ask me if I am a feminist filmmaker, I reply I am a woman and I also make films,” she famously said.

The No. 9 poll placement for the 1999 military drama “Beau Travail” represents another plus for women. It’s directed and co-written by France’s Claire Denis, 76, a veteran filmmaker who, like the late Akerman (who died by suicide in 2015 at age 65), has struggled for recognition in a male-dominated movie industry.

“Jeanne Dielman” and “Beau Travail” were the only two female-directed films in the entire 100 list of the 2012 Sight and Sound poll, where they respectively ranked in 36th and 78th places. Now they’re the only two female-directed films ever to make the Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time Top 10.

Akerman haș another movie in the new Sight and Sound poll: “News From Home” (1976), set in New York and based on a series of letters from her mother. There are a total of 11 films directed by women in the 2022 poll, including two by the late French filmmaker Agnès Varda, who was honoured this year at Cannes with a theatre named for her: “Cléo From 5 to 7” (1962) ranked in 14th place and “The Gleaners and I” (2000) ranked 67th.

These women and others made tremendous leaps to reach the 2022 heights and so did filmmakers of colour. There was just one movie by a Black director in the 2012 poll: Djibril Diop Mambéty’s “Touki Bouki,” ranked at number 93.

Now there are 11, including Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” (24th place), Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” (95th) and, in a tie for 60th place, Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning “Moonlight” and Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust.”

“Do the Right Thing,” Lee’s acclaimed 1989 Brooklyn neighbourhood drama, which controversially didn’t receive Oscar nominations for Best Picture or Best Director, is the highest-ranked film by a Black filmmaker in this year’s Sight and Sound poll. Its ranking at 24th place is impressive, considering it didn’t even make the Top 100 last time.

The improved poll standings for both women and filmmakers of colour come as no surprise for Williams and his team. They nearly doubled the number of poll participants, from 846 in 2012 to a record 1,600-plus for 2022, along with making a greater effort to include women and people of colour.

“We reached out to a diverse audience as much as possible, including seeking advice on how to expand our reach to under-represented groups, to contribute to the poll in addition to the more traditional voting base,” Williams.

The critics’ poll includes an unspecified number of academics, distributors, writers, curators, archivists and programmers, many of whom also review movies in the course of their work.

Since 1992, Sight and Sound has also run a concurrent directors’ poll of all-time greatest films. This year’s list, with a record 480 contributors, is topped by Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic “2001: A Space Odyssey,” dethroning 2012 champ “Tokyo Story.” The directors also found love this year for “Jeanne Dielman,” ranking it in fourth place, behind “2001,” “Citizen Kane” and “The Godfather.”

Almost as shocking as some of the placements on the Sight and Sound 2022 list are some of the films dropped from this year’s Top 100. They include such traditional critical favourites as “The Godfather Part II,” “Raging Bull,” “Nashville,” “Chinatown,” “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Un Chien Andalou.”

It shows you how fickle critical taste can be, especially when you greatly expand the roster of critics.

Sight and Sound’s 10 Greatest Films of All Time, 2022 critics’ list:

1. “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” (Chantal Akerman, 1975)

2. “Vertigo” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)

3. “Citizen Kane” (Orson Welles, 1941)

4. “Tokyo Story” (Ozu Yasujiro, 1953)

5. “In the Mood for Love” (Wong Kar Wai, 2000)

6. “2001: A Space Odyssey” (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

7. “Beau Travail” (Claire Denis, 1999)

8. “Mulholland Drive” (David Lynch, 2001)

9. “Man With a Movie Camera” (Dziga Vertov, 1929)

10. “Singin’ in the Rain” (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952)

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