Sight & Sound (ISSN 0037-4806) is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI).

Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today. Sight & Sound was published quarterly for most of its history until the early 1990s, apart from a brief run as a monthly publication in the early 1950s, but in 1991 it merged with another BFI publication, the Monthly Film Bulletin, and started to appear monthly. The journal was edited by Gavin Lambert from 1949 to 1955, and from 1956 to 1990 by Penelope Houston. The relaunch editor was Philip Dodd. It is currently edited by Nick James. The magazine reviews all film releases each month, including those with a limited (art house) release, as opposed to most film magazines which concentrate on those films with a general release. Sight and Sound features a full cast and crew credit list for each reviewed film.

Every decade, Sight & Sound asks an international group of film professionals to vote for their greatest film of all time. Critics are asked to provide a top ten list; in 1992, directors were invited to participate in a separate poll. The individual results are eclectic; in the 2002 poll, 885 different films received at least one mention from one voter. Even the top-of-the-list consensus has its limits. In 2002, both the critics and the directors selected Stanley Kubrick films in their top ten; however, the critics chose 2001: A Space Odyssey, while the directors preferred Dr. Strangelove. The Sight & Sound accolade has come to be regarded as one of the most important of the "greatest ever film" polls. 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."^[1] The first poll, in 1952, was topped by Bicycle Thieves. The five subsequent polls (1962–2002) were won by Citizen Kane (which finished 13th in 1952).^[2] Just two films have appeared in all six of the magazine's six decennial polls: The Battleship Potemkin and La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game).

Sight & Sound has in the past been the subject of criticism, notably from Raymond Durgnat, who often accused it of elitism, puritanism and upper-middle-class snobbery, although he did write for it in the 1950s, and again in the 1990s.^{[citation needed]}

Critics' Top Ten Poll[link]

1952[link]

01. Bicycle Thieves (25 mentions)

02. City Lights (19 mentions)

02. The Gold Rush (19 mentions)

04. The Battleship Potemkin (16 mentions)

05. Intolerance (12 mentions)

05. Louisiana Story (12 mentions)

07. Greed (11 mentions)

07. Le Jour se leve (11 mentions)

07. The Passion of Joan of Arc (11 mentions)

10. Brief Encounter (10 mentions)

10. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (10 mentions)

10. Le Million (10 mentions)

• Closest runners-up: Citizen Kane, La Grande Illusion, and The Grapes of Wrath (9 mentions apiece)

1962[link]

01. Citizen Kane (22 mentions)

02. L'avventura (20 mentions)

03. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (19 mentions)

04. Greed (17 mentions)

04. Ugetsu Monogatari (17 mentions)

06. The Battleship Potemkin (16 mentions)

07. Bicycle Thieves (16 mentions)

07. Ivan the Terrible (16 mentions)

09. La terra trema (14 mentions)

10. L'Atalante (13 mentions)

• Closest runners-up: Hiroshima Mon Amour, Pather Panchali and Zero de Conduite (11 mentions apiece)

1972[link]

01. Citizen Kane (32 mentions)

02. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (28 mentions)

03. The Battleship Potemkin (16 mentions)

04. 8½ (15 mentions)

05. L'avventura (12 mentions)

05. Persona (12 mentions)

07. The Passion of Joan of Arc (11 mentions)

08. The General (10 mentions)

08. The Magnificent Ambersons (10 mentions)

10. Ugetsu Monogatari (9 mentions)

10. Wild Strawberries (9 mentions)

• Closest runners-up: The Gold Rush, Hiroshima mon Amour, Ikiru, Ivan the Terrible, Pierrot le Fou, and Vertigo (8 mentions apiece)

1982[link]

01. Citizen Kane (45 mentions)

02. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (31 mentions)

03. Seven Samurai (15 mentions)

04. Singin' in the Rain (15 mentions)

05. 8½ (14 mentions)

06. The Battleship Potemkin (13 mentions)

07. L'avventura (12 mentions)

07. The Magnificent Ambersons (12 mentions)

07. Vertigo (12 mentions)

10. The General (11 mentions)

10. The Searchers (11 mentions)

• Closest runners-up: 2001: A Space Odyssey and Andrei Rublev (10 mentions apiece)

1992[link]

01. Citizen Kane (43 mentions)

02. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (32 mentions)

03. Tokyo Story (22 mentions)

04. Vertigo (18 mentions)

05. The Searchers (17 mentions)

06. L'Atalante (15 mentions)

06. The Passion of Joan of Arc (15 mentions)

06. Pather Panchali (15 mentions)

06. The Battleship Potemkin (15 mentions)

10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (14 mentions)

• Closest runners-up: Bicycle Thieves and Singin' in the Rain (10 mentions apiece)

2002[link]

01. Citizen Kane (46 mentions)

02. Vertigo (41 mentions)

03. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (30 mentions)

04. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (23 mentions)

05. Tokyo Story (22 mentions)

06. 2001: A Space Odyssey (21 mentions)

07. The Battleship Potemkin (19 mentions)

07. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (19 mentions)

09. 8½ (18 mentions)

10. Singin' in the Rain (17 mentions)

• Closest runners-up: The Seven Samurai and The Searchers (15 mentions apiece)

2012[link]

A new rule was imposed for this ballot: related films that are considered part of a larger whole (e.g. "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II", Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors trilogy" and "Dekalog", or Satyajit Ray's "Apu trilogy") were to be treated as separate films for voting purposes.

Directors' Top Ten Poll[link]

1992[link]

01. Citizen Kane

02. 8½

03. Raging Bull

04. La Strada

05. L'Atalante

06. The Godfather

06. Modern Times

06. Vertigo

09. The Godfather Part II

10. The Passion of Joan of Arc

10. Rashomon

10. Seven Samurai

2002[link]

01. Citizen Kane

02. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II

03. 8½

04. Lawrence of Arabia

05. Dr. Strangelove

06. Bicycle Thieves

06. Raging Bull

06. Vertigo

09. Rashomon

09. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game)

09. Seven Samurai

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Pam Cook and Philip Dodd (eds): Women and Film. A Sight and Sound Reader, London: Scarlet Press, 1994, 287 p.
• Jacqueline Louviot: Le regard de Sight and Sound sur le cinéma britannique des années 50 et 60 (What Sight and Sound Saw: Sight and Sound on British Cinema during the Fifties and Sixties), French doctoral thesis, University of Strasbourg II, 1997, 980 p.
• David Wilson (ed): Sight and Sound. A Fiftieth Anniversary Selection, London: Faber and Faber in association with BFI Publishing, 1982, 327 p.

External links[link]

• Sight & Sound website