Vertigo
Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Vertigo is now the top film of all time, deposing Citizen Kane after 50 years, according to Sight and Sound Magazine’s poll. Vertigo rose from seventh place, to fourth in 1992, second in 2002 and now first. (Sight and Sound conducts its poll every ten years.)
Vertigo is Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, which is saying something of the director who also gave us such classics as Psycho, Rope, Rear Window, North by Northwest, and Strangers on a Train. Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak turned in excellent performances. Somehow Hitchcock magically combines a technical masterpiece with an enjoyable viewing experience. Not easy to do.
Interestingly, the movie critics now hail as the best ever got mixed reviews at its release. “Too long…too slow…bogs down,” they wrote. It never caught fire at the box office, either. And it received only two Oscar nods (in minor categories), and didn’t win either one. But don’t tell the critics that Sight And Sound polled. They’ll give you quite an enthusiastic rebuke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0bV2gh4E7Y