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BFI Sight & Sound 250

the top 250 greatest films of all time published by sight & sound magazine of the british film institute

status: Evergreen

Status Indicator

The status indicator reflects the maturity of the content: • rough — Initial thoughts, unstructured • growing — Being actively developed • evergreen — Stable, well-developed content • withered — No longer being maintained This helps readers understand the completeness of the content.

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certainty: certain

Confidence Rating

The confidence tag expresses how well-supported the content is, or how likely its overall ideas are right. This uses a scale from "impossible" to "certain", based on the Kesselman List of Estimative Words: 1. "certain" 2. "highly likely" 3. "likely" 4. "possible" 5. "unlikely" 6. "highly unlikely" 7. "remote" 8. "impossible" Even ideas that seem unlikely may be worth exploring if their potential impact is significant enough.

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importance: 3/10

Importance Rating

The importance rating distinguishes between trivial topics and those which might change your life. Using a scale from 0-10, content is ranked based on its potential impact on: - the reader - the intended audience - the world at large For example, topics about fundamental research or transformative technologies would rank 9-10, while personal reflections or minor experiments might rank 0-1.

Letter from Kris

In 1952, the Sight and Sound team had the novel idea of asking critics to name the greatest films of all time. The tradition became decennial, increasing in size and prestige as the decades passed. The Sight and Sound poll is now a major bellwether of critical opinion on cinema and this year’s edition (its eighth) is the largest ever, with 1,639 participating critics, programmers, curators, archivists and academics each submitting their top ten ballot. What has risen up the ranks? What has fallen? Has 2012’s winner Vertigo held on to its title? Find out below.

Greatest Films of All Time

I have corrected the list to remove several ties at any specific number so the list stretches a bit longer than 250