Best Movies of All Time: Top 10 Ranked

There is no single authority on the best movies of all time, so this ranking combines the three lists that carry the most weight and shows exactly how each film placed on each. The result puts Citizen Kane and The Godfather level at the top, with Vertigo third.

The three sources are the Sight and Sound critics poll, run by the British Film Institute every ten years since 1952; the American Film Institute ranking of American cinema; and the IMDb audience chart, built from millions of user ratings. They disagree almost completely, which is the most useful thing about combining them. The table shows each film’s position on all three and its composite score.

#	Film	Year	Director	Critics poll	AFI	Audience	Points
1	Citizen Kane	1941	Orson Welles	3	1	n/a	18
2	The Godfather	1972	Francis Ford Coppola	n/a	2	2	18
3	Vertigo	1958	Alfred Hitchcock	2	9	n/a	11
4	Jeanne Dielman	1975	Chantal Akerman	1	n/a	n/a	10
5	The Shawshank Redemption	1994	Frank Darabont	n/a	n/a	1	10
6	Casablanca	1942	Michael Curtiz	n/a	3	n/a	8
7	The Dark Knight	2008	Christopher Nolan	n/a	n/a	3	8
8	Singin’ in the Rain	1952	Kelly and Donen	10	5	n/a	7
9	Schindler’s List	1993	Steven Spielberg	n/a	8	7	7
10	Tokyo Story	1953	Yasujiro Ozu	4	n/a	n/a	7

How the Three Lists Were Combined

Each film earns points on a simple scale: 10 points for first place on a list, 9 for second, down to 1 point for tenth, and nothing for placing outside a top 10. The scores are added. A film on two lists therefore beats a film that dominates one.

Ties are broken first by the number of lists a film appears on, then by its single best placement, with the two expert polls counting ahead of the audience chart. That is how Citizen Kane edges The Godfather at 18 points each, and how Jeanne Dielman takes fourth ahead of The Shawshank Redemption when both score 10.

The method has a known bias worth stating plainly. The American Film Institute only considers films with significant American production and English-language dialogue, so Tokyo Story and Jeanne Dielman can never score there. The audience chart skews heavily towards films released after 1970. Only the critics poll is open to the whole history of cinema in every language.

• Sight and Sound critics poll 2022: 1,639 critics, programmers, curators, archivists and academics, published December 2022
• American Film Institute 100 Years…100 Movies: the 10th anniversary edition, broadcast June 20, 2007
• IMDb Top 250: a live chart weighted by user ratings, read for this ranking in October

The 10 Best Movies of All Time, Ranked

Each entry gives the film’s placement on every list that ranked it, so you can see which audience it convinced and which it did not.

1. Citizen Kane: The One Both Expert Lists Agree On

Year: 1941 · Director: Orson Welles · Critics poll: 3rd · AFI: 1st · Points: 18

Welles was 25 when he directed, co-wrote and starred in it. The film traces a newspaper magnate’s life backwards through the recollections of people who knew him, a structure that has been borrowed so often it now reads as ordinary.

It topped the critics poll in 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2002 before Vertigo displaced it in 2012. At the 14th Academy Awards it drew nine nominations and won one, for original screenplay, shared by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles. Best Picture went to How Green Was My Valley.

2. The Godfather: The Critics and the Crowd Together

Year: 1972 · Director: Francis Ford Coppola · AFI: 2nd · Audience: 2nd · Points: 18

The Godfather is the only film in the top three to place on both the industry list and the audience chart, which makes it the most broadly agreed-upon choice here. It won Best Picture, Best Actor for Marlon Brando and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Its sequel sits fourth on the audience chart on its own merits, the only case in this exercise of a film and its follow-up both ranking independently. Where Citizen Kane wins on expert consensus, The Godfather wins on reach.

3. Vertigo: The Film That Rose Fastest

Year: 1958 · Director: Alfred Hitchcock · Critics poll: 2nd · AFI: 9th · Points: 11

Vertigo was received tepidly on release and was out of circulation for much of the 1970s. It entered the AFI list at 61st in 1998 and climbed to 9th by 2007, the sharpest rise of any film between those two editions.

In the critics poll it reached first place in 2012, ending Citizen Kane’s fifty-year run, then fell to second in 2022. No other film has moved so far in both directions within living memory.

4. Jeanne Dielman: The Current Critics Choice

Year: 1975 · Director: Chantal Akerman · Critics poll: 1st · Points: 10

Akerman was 25 when she made it, the same age Welles was for Citizen Kane. It runs 201 minutes and follows three days of a widow’s domestic routine in near real time, with the camera fixed and the chores shown in full.

It topped the 2022 critics poll, the first film directed by a woman to do so in the poll’s seventy-year history. It appears on no other list here, which is why it places fourth rather than first: it is the most admired film among critics and close to unknown outside them.

5. The Shawshank Redemption: The Audience Favourite

Year: 1994 · Director: Frank Darabont · Audience: 1st · Points: 10

Shawshank has held first place on the IMDb chart for most of the time the chart has existed, currently at 9.3 from more than three million ratings. It was a commercial disappointment on release and found its audience on television and home video.

It appears on neither expert list. Adapted from a Stephen King novella, it was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won none. Its placing here is the clearest single measure of the gap between what critics rank and what people rewatch.

6. Casablanca: The Most Quoted Film Ever Made

Year: 1942 · Director: Michael Curtiz · AFI: 3rd · Points: 8

Casablanca was a studio assignment shot largely on the Warner Bros. lot while the script was still being written. It won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The AFI has separately ranked more lines of dialogue from Casablanca among the most memorable in American cinema than from any other film. It places sixth here because the critics poll has never ranked it in the top ten.

7. The Dark Knight: The Film That Changed the Oscars

Year: 2008 · Director: Christopher Nolan · Audience: 3rd · Points: 8

The Dark Knight sits third on the audience chart at 9.1 from more than three million ratings, the highest placed film released this century on any list used here.

It was not nominated for Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards, where Heath Ledger won a posthumous Best Supporting Actor award for his performance as the Joker. The Academy expanded the Best Picture field from five nominees to ten the following year, a change widely read as a response to the omission.

8. Singin’ in the Rain: The Only Musical on Either Expert List

Year: 1952 · Directors: Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen · Critics poll: 10th · AFI: 5th · Points: 7

It is a comedy about the film industry’s own panic as sound arrived in 1927, built from songs the studio already owned. Kelly co-directed and choreographed as well as starring.

It entered the critics poll top ten for the first time in 2022 and is the only musical on either expert list. Like Citizen Kane it was not a major awards presence in its year, receiving two nominations and winning neither.

9. Schindler’s List: The Highest Placed Film on Both Lists It Appears On

Year: 1993 · Director: Steven Spielberg · AFI: 8th · Audience: 7th · Points: 7

Spielberg shot it in black and white in Poland while Jurassic Park was in post-production, and declined a salary. It won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, the first for Spielberg.

It is one of only two films here to place on both the AFI list and the audience chart, the other being The Godfather. That combination of industry and popular standing is rarer than it sounds.

10. Tokyo Story: The Highest Non-English Film

Year: 1953 · Director: Yasujiro Ozu · Critics poll: 4th · Points: 7

An elderly couple travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children and find them too busy to spend time with them. Ozu shot it with a static camera positioned low, roughly at the eye level of a person seated on a mat, a technique he used throughout his career.

It topped the directors’ section of the 2012 critics poll and placed fourth among critics in 2022. It is the highest-ranked film here not made in English, and like Jeanne Dielman it is structurally excluded from the AFI list.

Where the Three Lists Disagree Most

Only two films appear on more than one list in the top ten, and not one film appears on all three. That is the single most revealing result of this exercise.

The split is chronological as much as anything. The critics poll top ten contains no film released after 2001 and four from before 1955. The audience chart top ten contains eight films from 1972 onward. The AFI list sits between them, with a median release year in the 1950s.

Language explains much of the rest. The critics poll ranks films in Japanese, French and Cantonese inside its top ten. Neither of the other two lists ranks a single non-English film. Our ranking of the highest grossing movies shows a third pattern again, driven by neither critics nor ratings.

What Preservation Status Adds

Beyond rankings, the National Film Registry selects 25 films each year for preservation on the grounds of cultural, historic or aesthetic significance, with no ranking and no limit on how old a film must be beyond ten years.

Every American film in this top ten has been selected. Citizen Kane was among the first 25 films chosen in 1989. Selection is a better guide to a film’s standing than any single ranking, because it is cumulative and nothing is ever removed.

How to Use a List Like This

Read the component columns, not the final number. A film ranked fourth by critics and absent elsewhere is a very different proposition from one ranked eighth by two different audiences.

Match the list to what you want. The audience chart is the best predictor of whether you will enjoy a film tonight. The critics poll is the best guide to what has shaped how films are made. The AFI list is the closest thing to a canon of American cinema.

Expect movement. Vertigo climbed 52 places on the AFI list in nine years and moved from first to second among critics in ten. If you are choosing by genre instead, our roundups of the best sci-fi movies and the best thriller movies narrow the field faster than any all-time ranking.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best movie of all time?

Citizen Kane, on this composite, by the narrowest possible margin over The Godfather. Both score 18 points. Citizen Kane places first on the AFI list and third among critics, while The Godfather places second on both the AFI list and the audience chart.

Why is Jeanne Dielman ranked so highly by critics?

It topped the 2022 Sight and Sound poll of 1,639 critics and academics, the first film by a woman director to lead it. Its reputation rests on its treatment of time and domestic labour, which is why it ranks first with critics and does not appear on lists built from audience ratings.

Why is The Shawshank Redemption not on the critics lists?

It has never placed in the Sight and Sound top ten and is not eligible for a top AFI position it has not earned. It leads the IMDb chart at 9.3 from more than three million ratings, which measures how much audiences like a film rather than its influence on cinema.

How often do these rankings change?

The Sight and Sound poll runs once a decade, with the next edition due in 2032. The AFI list has been published twice, in 1998 and 2007. The IMDb chart updates continuously as ratings are submitted.

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