The 50 Greatest Films (Another poll)

Some guy named Iain Stott conducted a poll "of filmmakers, critics, bloggers, historians, and other assorted cinephiles, attempting, consensusly, to find 'The 50 Greatest Films'" and, lo and behold, what should come out No. 1? Citizen Kane, of course. No. 2 on his list, Vertigo, is somewhat of a surprise for me. I certainly don't mind having a Hitchcock in that position. but I would gave gone with Notorious, which for some inexplicable reason, didn't even make his list, which makes me wonder about its credibility. Also, although most historians will recognize the greatness of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, it is not held in as high esteem in the film community as it was, say, 10 or so years ago. I would also place many other 1946 films ahead of It's a Wonderful Life (the aforementioned Notorious, as well as Stairway to Heaven, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Killers, The Big Sleep, My Darling Clementine, The Postman Always Rings Twice). My only other complaint is there's not a single film from the great Howard Hawks on the list. What's with that?

Speaking of directors, he also a list of the Top 50, in which Francis Ford Coppola is third and Martin Scorsese is 7th. Are you kidding me? He probably got this total by adding the votes for pictures and Coppola's Godfather and Apocalypse Now films probably totaled more than Scorsese's Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, but when you look at their entire body of work, Coppola can't compare to Scorsese.

Having said all this, I discovered something interesting about his list. If you click on a title, you are given all the people who voted for that particular film. I clicked on Citizen Kane, read the list and failed to recognize a single name. Who are these people, really?

The poll's Top 50 pictures are:

Citizen Kane (1941) .. Orson Welles
Vertigo (1958) .. Alfred Hitchcock
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) .. Stanley Kubrick
The Godfather (1972) .. Francis Ford Coppola
Casablanca (1942) .. Michael Curtiz
The Third Man (1949) .. Carol Reed
Taxi Driver (1976) .. Martin Scorsese
Seven Samurai (1954) .. Akira Kurosawa
Psycho (1960) .. Alfred Hitchcock
Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) .. Stanley Kubrick
The Godfather: Part II (1974) .. Francis Ford Coppola
The Searchers (1956) .. John Ford
Rear Window (1954) .. Alfred Hitchcock
Singin' in the Rain (1952) .. Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
Persona (1966) .. Ingmar Bergman
Chinatown (1974) .. Roman Polanski
Sunset Boulevard (1950) .. Billy Wilder
Sunrise (1927) .. F.W. Murnau
Tokyo Story (1953) .. Yasujiro Ozu
Pulp Fiction (1994) .. Quentin Tarantino
La Règle du Jeu (1939) .. Jean Renoir
8½ (1963) .. Federico Fellini
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) .. David Lean
The Night of the Hunter (1955) .. Charles Laughton
Apocalypse Now (1979) .. Francis Ford Coppola
City Lights (1931) .. Charles Chaplin
Bicycle Thieves (1948) .. Vittorio De Sica
Annie Hall (1977) .. Woody Allen
Touch of Evil (1958) .. Orson Welles
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) .. Carl Theodor Dreyer
Blade Runner (1982) .. Ridley Scott
M (1931) .. Fritz Lang
The General (1927) .. Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton
Some Like It Hot (1959) .. Billy Wilder
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) .. Sergio Leone
The Four Hundred Blows (1959) .. Franτois Truffaut
Duck Soup (1933) .. Leo McCarey
Double Indemnity (1944) .. Billy Wilder
Raging Bull (1980) .. Martin Scorsese
All About Eve (1950) .. Joseph L. Mankiewicz
A Clockwork Orange (1971) .. Stanley Kubrick
The Apartment (1960) .. Billy Wilder
La Grande Illusion (1937) .. Jean Renoir
Ikiru (1952) .. Akira Kurosawa
It's a Wonderful Life (1946) .. Frank Capra
Rashomon (1950) .. Akira Kurosawa
The Wizard of Oz (1939) .. Victor Fleming
Do the Right Thing (1989) .. Spike Lee
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) .. Sergio Leone
L'Avventura (1960) .. Michelangelo Antonioni