Poll: Ebert's Ten Greatest Films of All Time (2012 version)
Every 10 years, Roger Ebert made a list of his personal Ten Greatest Films of All Time. The iconic film critic had strong opinions about which films deserved a thumbs up. In 2012, a year before he died, he updated his list for the last time and made a kind of Top 10 testament. Which of Ebert's final Top 10 of all time gets your vote? Discuss the list here See also: Ten Greatest Films of All Time (1992 version)
Vote:
-
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
A great visionary leap, unsurpassed in its vision of man and the universe. It was a statement that came at a time which now looks something like the peak of humanity's technological optimism. -
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
One of the great haunting visions of the cinema. Of modern filmmakers, Werner Herzog is the most visionary and the most obsessed with great themes. -
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Apocalypse Now is a film which still causes real, not figurative, chills to run along my spine, and it is certainly the bravest and most ambitious fruit of Coppola's genius. -
Citizen Kane (1941)
Few films are more complex, or show more breathtaking skill at moving from one level to another. I say it is very deep indeed, because it illustrates the way that human happiness and pain is not found in big ideas but in the little victories or defeats of childhood. -
La Dolce Vita (1960)
Fellini's 1960 film has grown passé in some circles, I'm afraid, but I love it more than ever. Simply look at Fellini's ballet of movement and sound, the graceful way he choreographs the camera, the way the actors move. He never made a more 'Felliniesque' film, or a better one. -
The General (1926)
Keaton's films have such a graceful perfection, such a meshing of story, character and episode, that they unfold like music. Although they're filled with gags, you can rarely catch Keaton writing a scene around a gag; instead, the laughs emerge from the situation; he was 'the still, small, suffering center of the hysteria of slapstick'. -
Raging Bull (1980)
It is the most painful and heartrending portrait of jealousy in the cinema - an 'Othello' for our times. It's the best film I've seen about the low self-esteem, sexual inadequacy and fear that lead some men to abuse women. -
Tokyo Story (1953)
It lacks sentimental triggers and contrived emotion; it looks away from moments a lesser movie would have exploited. It doesn't want to force our emotions, but to share its understanding. It does this so well that I am near tears in the last 30 minutes. It ennobles the cinema. -
The Tree of Life (2011)
The film's portrait of everyday life is bounded by two immensities, one of space and time, and the other of spirituality. 'The Tree of Life' has awe-inspiring visuals suggesting the birth and expansion of the universe, the appearance of life on a microscopic level and the evolution of species. -
Vertigo (1958)
It is the most confessional film Hitchcock ever made, dealing directly with the themes that controlled his art. It is about how Hitchcock used, feared and tried to control women.