To quote film critic Roger Ebert "the best damned film list of them all".

Current RESULTS:

01. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) - A new winner
02. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
03. Tokyo Story (Yasujirô Ozu, 1953)
04. The Rules Of The Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
05. Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
06. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
07. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
08. Man With A Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
09. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
10. 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)

The top 50 list can be found at this link: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time (note: Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali is at #42)

DIRECTOR'S TOP 10 FILMS

01. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
02. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
03. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
04. 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
05. Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1980)
06. Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
07. The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
08. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
09. Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1974)
10. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)

Source: Sight & Sound (Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19078948)

My "select" take of the films that still ring fresh in memory of the Top 10 Greatest Films List.


01. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) - A new winner
02. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
-- Vertigo is Hitchcock's most personal film. In fact Jimmy Stewart's character eerily seems to mirror Hitchcock's own obsession with the perfect blonde. The shots in the film are the best in all of Hitchcock, and many are very symbolic (others seem subconsciously telling on Hitchcock's part). The plot also parallels the artists relationship with the art he creates, and with the world. Vertigo works on more levels than any American film, excluding, perhaps, Citizen Kane, Vertigo is the most hauntingly enigmatic film ever made on the North American continent. There is one scene that, if you think about it, no matter how many times you've seen the picture, will leave you positively puzzled. And honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. But, like Kane, it's also (to me, at least) an exhilarating cinematic experience in the best sense; the sort of movies that completely reinvigorates and revitalizes my love for movies.


04. The Rules Of The Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
-- It's one of the five best films of all time for sure, because of Jean Renoir's unmatched and extremely intricate ability to use both narrative form and sound and image in telling of humanity in constraint.


05. Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
-- Though I'd seen numerous silent films before this (most of the staples, in fact), Murnau's masterpiece is the film that sent me head over heels for the distinctively beautiful medium that is silent cinema. It's a mesmerizing movie for both the crushing sadness and sheer joy of its definitively archetypal storyline and its stunning mastery of cinematic expressionism. It's almost certainly one of the first American films to genuinely embrace the seemingly limitless possibilities of cinema, and still one of the very best.


06. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
-- Its supremely haunting ambiguity, its cosmic sense of prophetic suggestion, and its unforgettable, masterful unions of images with music never fail to leave me transfixed and in total awe. It's cinema as visual (and subliminally aural) philosophy.


07. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
-- I was mixed on it when I saw it years back, and I'm less so now. I do have a lot of the cliche complaints - some supporting characters are laughable at best, it definitely was a 1956 film in relation to race and generally Ford was a creator of traditional Westerns - which I have a harder time stomaching. I won't say it's a masterpiece to the level of Dead Man or McCabe & Mrs. Miller (my two favourite Westerns) - but the imagery here is incredibly strong, it's more morally ambiguous than it might seem at first glance and we wouldn't have Taxi Driver or Paris, Texas without it. I also am all for something that offers a few sly jabs as the stereotypical John Wayne character.


10. 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
-- Another extremely personal look at what exactly it means and entails to create art; it's like an amusement park ride through the carnivalesque house of mirrors that was the singular brain of Federico Fellini.

Vertigo is my favorite Hitchcock film and one of my favorite movies of all time. This is a really good book on the making of it.

I have this book, and it's a very insightful look into the aesthetics behind Vertigo and a greater realization of it's cinematic importance.

Same here;)

A Must-Read for Fans of Welles and Hitchcock!

This is a very interesting piece:
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/14/psycho.html