TSPDT

Dear film and list lovers, welcome to the 20th version of the 1,000 Greatest Films. That's right, the 20th edition.

The devil made me do it…

It's hard to believe I've been at this thing for as long as I have. I can only blame my combined love of film and mathematics (and my not so great love: data entry) for this lengthy, some may say, foolhardy endeavour. Also, your support and encouragement has played a major role in assuring the longevity of this project and TSPDT in general.

In terms of film-watching, many things have changed over the last (almost) 19 years since the first (official) edition was published in March 2006. Very notably, it has never been easier to access the films we want to see, thanks to the plethora of streaming services, and also in terms of the availability of so many previously hard-to-find and/or obscure films on physical media. The opportunity to watch all (or most) of the 1,000 Greatest Films can now be achieved without as much effort. There are still some viewing black holes here and there, but nowhere near as many. Generally-speaking, as a film buff and film collector it is pretty much heaven.

Alright then, what does this year's edition have in store? Well, if you were hoping for a shakeup of some sort, look away now.

Exactly like last year's, 2025's edition encompasses just twelve changes to the 1,000 Greatest Films. Only two films appear for the first time (The Hurt Locker and The Pianist), whilst the remaining ten are re-entries. The top-ten has remained exactly the same (as it tends to), and the top-100 is once again 99% unchanged, with To Be or Not to Be regaining its place, at the expense of Béla Tarr's Sátántangó.

In terms of sources, the number of best-of/all-time individual lists, used to compile the 1,000 Greatest Films, now tallies 10,025. The number of miscellaneous lists used (genre-based, decade-based, country-based, etc.) now sits at 6,849. That equals 16,874 unique lists in total. 859 new lists were added during 2024.

In summary, here is an abbreviated breakdown of the 10,025 individual best-of/all-time ballots used (these are classified as A-Lists here), or if you like, from where I have begged, borrowed and pillaged:

Sight & Sound polls 1952-2022 (4,100 ballots)
Rotten Tomatoes 2003-2023 (246 ballots) UPDATED
Senses of Cinema 2000-2007 (201 ballots)
A.Frame 2020-2024 (196 ballots) UPDATED
Filmes do Chico 2005-2017 (194 ballots)
Kino Muzeum’s 2015 poll (190 ballots) UPDATED
Your Movie Database (YMDB) Critics Corner 2002-2005 (140 ballots) UPDATED
Nickel Odeon 1994-1998 (136 ballots)
LaCinetek 2014-2024 (134 ballots) UPDATED
Positif’s 1991 & 2019 polls (132 ballots)
Time Out's 1995 poll (128 ballots)
Cinephilia's 2012 poll (128 ballots) UPDATED
Kinema Junpo 1989-2009 (113 ballots)
PBS Independent Lens 2005-2008 (110 ballots) UPDATED
El Mundo's 1995 poll (100 ballots)
Film-Magazine's (Iran) 2009 poll (83 ballots) UPDATED
John Kobal Presents the Top 100 Movies [Book] (1988) (81 ballots)
Le CiNéMa Club 2015-2024 (86 ballots) UPDATED
Steadycam's 2007 poll (79 ballots)
Facets 2003-2008 (76 ballots)
Empire 1989-2020 (75 ballots)
The Cinematheque's Top 10 Project 2005-2009 (74 ballots)
One-Line Review's 2009 poll (69 ballots)
ABC Spain poll (62 ballots) NEW
El Pais 2009-2010 (60 ballots)
HKinema 2011-2022 (58 ballots)
Cut Insight 2012-2018 (55 ballots) UPDATED
Cinematheque Belgique's 1952 poll (54 ballots)
Cinema Review's 2002 poll (53 ballots) UPDATED
Faróis do Cinema 2010-2015 (51 ballots)
Libre Journal du Cinéma's 2009 poll (50 ballots)
IONCINEMA.com 2009-2020 (50 ballots)
Plus 2,661 more ballots from a variety of other sources.

Set in Stone… TSPDT’s Top 10 Greatest Films
1. Citizen Kane (1)
2. Vertigo (2)
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (3)
4. Tokyo Story (4)
5. The Rules of the Game (5)
6. The Godfather (6)
7. 8½ (7)
8. Sunrise (8)
9. The Searchers (9)
10. The Seven Samurai (10)

Listed below are the biggest climbers and sliders in this year’s edition:

Top Climbers within the 1,000
669 to 589 - Plácido (Luis García Berlanga, 1961)
913 to 833 - Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
934 to 854 - Mon oncle d'Amérique (Alain Resnais, 1980)
813 to 739 - Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)
821 to 756 - The Firemen's Ball (Milos Forman, 1967)

Highest Entrants into the 1,000
906 - Hôtel Terminus (Marcel Ophüls, 1988)
947 - Dust in the Wind (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1986)
951 - Diary (David Perlov, 1983)
957 - Excalibur (John Boorman, 1981)
960 - The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)

Biggest Sliders within the 1,000
953 to 980 - Fox and His Friends (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1975)
690 to 712 - Nouvelle vague (Jean-Luc Godard, 1990)
779 to 801 - Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer, 1965)
455 to 476 - Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
506 to 527 - Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade, 1915)

Biggest Sliders from the 1,000
Previously ranked 788 - The Ballad of Narayama (Shohei Imamura, 1983)
Previously ranked 798 - Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones, 1953)
Previously ranked 876 - After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 1985)
Previously ranked 910 - Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)
Previously ranked 970 - I Am Twenty (Marlen Khutsiev, 1965)

Narrowed down from a starting list of 25,562 films, this is quite possibly the most definitive guide to the most-acclaimed movies of all-time. At the very least it is a rather spiffy place for all budding/established film buffs to commence/enhance their cinematic experiences.

The Starting List (which increased from 23,907 films to 25,562), with full rankings, can be viewed here (as an online sortable table) or via the traditional EXCEL spreadsheet (also very sortable, of course).

NEW A new resource has been introduced with this year's edition. Every critic's selection that contributed towards the current 1,000 Greatest Films (that's all 148,460 of them) can now, for the first time, be viewed in EXCEL format. Sort, interrogate and filter away.

Thank you to everyone that has contributed lists and/or lent their support towards this venture over the years. Thank you to Ángel González for his ongoing contributions, especially with this year's Beyond the Sight & Sound Canon poll. A continuing special mention also to Anastasis Stamelou for all his many list submissions that I am still delving into. Also thank you to Dmytro Petryk and Tan Boon Wah for their ongoing correspondence and very helpful corrections, principally in relation to TSPDT's data.

You Can Help…
If you have access to any additional film lists from critics and/or filmmakers that you think I may have missed (that is, those not mentioned here), then of course I’d love to see them. Please send all lists to bill@theyshootpictures.com. And, as always, I would love to read any feedback (good, bad, or otherwise) you have on this ongoing project. And, yes, if you see any mistakes (and there will be), please let me know.

Begin browsing the 1,000 Greatest Films by alphabetical order, descending ranking order, ascending ranking order or chronological order.