It also topped the first two directors' polls, with 30 votes in 1992 and 42 votes in 2002. Citizen Kane (1941) stood at number 1 for five consecutive polls, with 22 votes in 1962, 32 votes in 1972, 45 votes in 1982, 43 votes in 1992, and 46 votes in 2002.Bicycle Thieves (1948) topped the first poll in 1952 with 25 votes.American critic 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.'

This poll is regarded as one of the most important 'greatest ever film' lists. Sixty-three critics participated in 1952, 70 critics in 1962, 89 critics in 1972, 122 critics in 1982, 132 critics and 101 directors in 1992, 145 critics and 108 directors in 2002, and 846 critics and 358 directors in 2012.

Since 1992, they have invited directors to vote in a separate poll. Vertigo (1958) was ranked number one in the most recent (2012) British Film Institute's Sight & Sound decennial poll of critics.Įvery decade, starting in 1952, the British film magazine Sight & Sound asks an international group of film critics to vote for the greatest film of all time.