A ranked list of the top 1,000+ films by actual votes cast in 2023's Beyond the Sight & Sound Canon poll, conducted by Ángel González and published by They Shoot Pictures Don't They on 8 April 2024.
Note this is not the official published form of the results, which consists of a headline 'A-list' based not only on votes but on distribution across decades, countries and languages, plus various supplementary lists, as explained below. I've also put the A-list on Letterboxd here: boxd.it/uFr6o/detail .
This list doesn't represent my choices but is posted here for information. I have no connection to the poll beyond submitting my own ballot, which is here: boxd.it/pfZhy/detail .
Between August and December 2023, film enthusiasts were…
A ranked list of the top 1,000+ films by actual votes cast in 2023's Beyond the Sight & Sound Canon poll, conducted by Ángel González and published by They Shoot Pictures Don't They on 8 April 2024.
Note this is not the official published form of the results, which consists of a headline 'A-list' based not only on votes but on distribution across decades, countries and languages, plus various supplementary lists, as explained below. I've also put the A-list on Letterboxd here: boxd.it/uFr6o/detail .
This list doesn't represent my choices but is posted here for information. I have no connection to the poll beyond submitting my own ballot, which is here: boxd.it/pfZhy/detail .
Between August and December 2023, film enthusiasts were invited through the TSPDT website and various online forums to participate in a poll of 'greatest films' EXCLUDING the 4,366 titles receiving at least one mention in the 2022 Sight & Sound poll. 839 film enthusiasts, including 75 professional critics, submitted lists of up to 100 feature films (58+ minutes in length), with a total of 14,560 films receiving at least one vote.
Rather than simply ranking the films based on overall votes received, the organisers chose to focus their results on an 'A-List' of 1,030 films which allocated votes within decades and within US and non-US/English and non-English categories to obtain a more varied selection. They also published a spreadsheet including not only the A-List but the rest of the films receiving at least two votes, 'orphans' that only one person voted for, and a few films disqualified as they were too recent to have been considered for the main 2022 S&S poll.
Helpfully, the spreadsheet included votes cast for each film, so it's been straightforward to derive this list from the same ballots, ranking films purely by votes cast. It makes an interesting comparison to the A-list, and you can understand why the organisers were keen instead to publicise a list that features more diversity across the decades and internationally. But as with the A-list you may be surprised to note some of the titles that didn't receive a single mention from the Sight and Sound participants!
I've listed 1,134 films in total as a large number of films are tied in final position with nine votes. Many other rankings represent tied votes too, with tied films listed in chronological order. Letterboxd has no facility for showing equal placings, but I've included each film's vote tally in the notes.
For full lists and more details on the methodology see www.theyshootpictures.com/beyondtheSScanon.htm
Note: the poll organisers made some minor corrections to the published data in April 2024 and in line with these I amended the list on 29 October 2024 to include Altered States (1980), with 13 votes. Apologies that it took me so long to catch up.