Every 10 years, the British Film Institute organizes an international poll of critics and asks them to rank the 100 best movies ever made. The results of their last poll have just been published in the BFI’s magazine Sight and Sound, and have some logical inclusions, but also some very surprising ones. Here are the 13 best movies ever, ranked, according to the poll of the British Film Institute.

Updated April 29, 2023: If you love films ranked highly by the British Film Institute, you'll be excited to know this list has been updated with additional content by Amira Abdel-Fadil.

13 The Rules of the Game

The Rules of the Game
Gaumont Film Company

The Rules of the Game is a French movie about human relationships and what lies beneath them. Just at the onset of World War II, the record-breaking pilot, André Jurieux is having an affair with Christine whose husband has a mistress. On top of that, Christine’s maid is romantically involved with the local poacher. When they all get invited to a fancy hunting weekend at the country estate where they are surrounded by servants and elite guests, realities get exposed.

The film reveals biting truths about class and social standing, and social pretense. It had such an impact that the original was forbidden by the French government for having an undesirable influence on its viewers. Only an 85-minute version was available with most original copies being destroyed. However, when a remaining original copy was found and restored, it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 1959, and the movie was brought to life again where critics praised it tremendously.

12 The Godfather

The Godfather
Paramount Pictures

The Godfather is one of the highest-rated movies of all time on websites such as IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. The movie’s central characters were played by Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, and Diane Keaton, and it was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The Godfather, Vito, Corleone, is the head of a powerful mafia family based in New York City. His youngest son, Micheal is not interested in the family business. However, when another rival mafia set out to cause clashes for the Corleone family, Micheal is forced to step in.

The film is a character study and an exploration of circumstances and challenges which are beyond one’s power at certain times. It is known as the “best gangster film of all time."

11 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Fox Film Corporation

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans zooms in on the story of a farmer who gets successfully seduced by a modern and experienced woman who also convinces him to murder his wife and join her in the city. Reluctant to follow her suggestion, he gives in to her proposition but decides to not go with the plan at the last minute.

It is told almost totally in frames and music that is nothing short of bold and immensely engaging. It looks at the fragility of human relationships, the comparison between urban and rural life, and the power of temptation. It is easily one of the best films of the silent era. It was directed by the German director F. W. Murnau and has won three Oscars: Best Picture,, Best Cinematography, and Best Actress in a Leading Role.

10 Singin’ in the Rain (1951)

Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain, one of the best musicals of the 50s
Loew's, Inc.

A musical about doing musicals, this film with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds is pure joy and fun. One of those movies that even all these years later, when seen for the first time, produces amazement in the viewer from start to finish, especially in the Gene Kelly’s number that gives the movie its title. The Stanley Donen film (he also co-choreographed) is back in the Top 10 of the BFI after 2012, when it got 20th place. Singin’ in the Rain also explains many of the spectacular musicals that came after, as its roots can be traced in films like Moulin Rouge! and La La Land.

Related: Here Are the Most Romantic Classical Hollywood Movies

Kelly’s widow and biographer, Patricia Ward, said to IndieWire that she thinks his husband would find today’s musicals: “a bit regressive, honestly. I think that he would think that maybe we’re going backwards a bit because oftentimes you look at the dancing; the dancing is very much like the 1930s and ’40s. It’s a line of people lined up. And they’re more like Pepsi commercials and things, as opposed to the camera in there moving. The camera’s often stationary, or the camera is zinging around almost out of control, and then you see just body parts flying. That was anathema to Gene.”

9 Man With a Movie Camera (1929)

Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera
VUFKU

This Russian film made by Dziga Vertov is a documentary that proves that the film medium can be beautiful even without much artifice. Vertov only employs camera shots, movement of the camera, editing, and score to create an incredible film that shows the life of a Soviet city. Vertov probes in this film the power filmed images have, and creates a unique portrait of his world with it. The original form of the film has been lost, and now watching this movie is only possible with an inaccurate speed that doesn’t match the original score. And yet, it’s a statement of Vertov’s talent that, even in those, not perfect conditions, Man With a Movie Camera still works and can create emotions in its viewers.

8 Mulholland Drive (2001)

Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring in Mulholland Drive.
Universal Pictures

David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive might be one of the best fantasy films ever made; a puzzle inside a riddle in a question. Its sense of atmosphere and dream logic is winning viewers every year, as its disconnected world is becoming much more real for those always in a haze because of social media and the news. “Lynchian” has become an adjective over the years to explain films with some dream logic, that don't have an easily explainable ending, and as the author of this movie, Mulholland Drive might be the most “Lynchian” of them all. Even in this strange, unique fantasy, Naomi Watts and Laura Harring give incredible performances that make us empathize with them as they’re as lost as we are in this movie that requires many viewings to fully understand it.

7 Beau Travail (1999)

BeauTrvail
Pyramide Distribution

Galoup (Denis Lavant) remembers his time as an ex-Foreign Legion officer leading troops in Djibouti, and his jealousy of new recruit Sentain (Grégoire Colin). Claire Denis has been a director with whom many great actors have worked over the years. This film is one of the reasons why. She’s one of the only directors who can do poetry with images, and Beau Travail is a perfect example of that ability. Denis can mix genres and tones with mastery, as he does in this film, with its final sequence, which is both much different than everything that has come before, and also makes perfect sense with what’s going on in the mind of its protagonist. Greta Gerwig has said in the past that this film is what inspired her to become a director, and, seeing her movies, it makes perfect sense.

6 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Keir Dullea as David Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

2001: A Space Odyssey is a movie, that, like its story, went where no one had been before. Kubrick created a film that's as beautiful, as it's philosophical; as scary as magical; and as advanced as anyone could’ve thought of. This is Stanley Kubrick’s best movie, period. One where all his obsessive perfectionism and intelligent mind mix in the best way, creating images that are still inspiring today, from start to finish, and with one of the best evil robots we ever got. Without HAL, there wouldn’t be Battlestar Galactica or Her. This movie is one of a kind; one of those that creates a before and after effect, as everyone who saw this movie in the cinema knew that films could be much more.

5 In the Mood for Love (2000)

In the Mood for Love
Jet Tone Productions

In the Mood for Love tells the story of Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung) and Su Li-Zhen (Maggie Cheung), two neighbors who suspect their respective couples are having an affair. During their conversations, they start to fall in love with each other but don't want to cross any lines. Wong Kar Wai’s film is a beautiful, moody, melancholic, unique showing of what real romance can be in a movie. It might not end like most Hollywood rom-coms, but it explores desire and yearning like no other. This film went from the 24th to the 5th in the BFI rankings in 2002, 10 years that proved that this masterpiece might’ve been more influential than it looked back then.

Director Wong Kar Wai told IndieWire: “At the beginning, I thought this is an easy film, because we had two characters and the whole film is about these two persons, and then I realized it was much more difficult than my previous films with 10 characters because we had to put a lot of details in it. We shot the film [following the characters from] 1962 to 1972 and in the editing room, I think the film stopped at 1966, which is the film you see now.”

4 Tokyo Story (1953)

cast-tokyo-story-1953-shochiku
Shochiku

Yasuhiro Ozu’s masterpiece looks like a simple story of an old couple, who realize their family no longer needs them, but it’s much more. It’s a story about life and how it never stops; a film about the passage of time; a movie that uses small vignettes to tell the most tragic of all stories: time stops for no one. Ozu’s style is always minimalist, but in this film, he takes it to the extreme, as not only does he do more with less, but also makes a movie that makes the most sense once you’ve ended it, and surprises yourself thinking about it, every once in a while. With all that in mind, it’s no surprise that Tokyo Story was the number one film in 2002, the last time the BFI had its poll.

3 Citizen Kane (1941)

Orson Welles as Kane in Citizen Kane
RKO Radio Pictures
 

Citizen Kane is Orson Welles' best movie; one that played with story and structure, but also with what a film could do technically in telling the story of Charles Foster Kane. The rumor is that this film was about Charles Randolph Hearst and that he did everything in his power to discredit the movie, but what everyone remembers is the significance of "rosebud," and the innovative shooting tricks Welles invented for the film.

What’s even more amazing, is the fact that this was Welles' first movie and that he directed it when he was just 26 years old. The movie stayed at the top of the BFI list from 1962 to 2002, proving that Welles' ideas made one of the best films ever, as even with the modernization of styles and techniques, his Citizen Kane was still the best movie ever.

2 Vertigo (1958)

Vertigo
Paramount Pictures

Hitchcock is one of the greatest directors ever, and this film is one of his best. Vertigo tells the story of detective John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart), as he gets obsessed with Madeleine Ester (Kim Novak) and follows her on his last job. Madelaine looks like someone from Scottie’s past, making everything more difficult and confusing. This Hitchcock film is a unique exploration of fears, vices, compulsions, and, well, vertigo. In this film, nothing looks as it seems, and everything, from the direction to the music, editing, art direction, actors, work together to create the perfect and thrilling recipe that is this film.

1 Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Woman drinks milk.
Paradise Films

The film at the number one spot on the BFI poll is not a movie known by many and was never a blockbuster, and in the last poll was at number 35. This is the first film directed by a woman, not only to reach the first spot but also to reach the Top 10. What Chantal Ackerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles has going for itself is being utterly feminist.

The film depicts women’s oppression through the story of this Belgian housewife; a mother, a part-time sex worker, and an enigma. The film only contains three days of this woman's existence, but it’s enough to make us understand the world she lives in, and how imprisoned she feels. This avant-garde movie is the best weapon to show the oppression of women back then while using it to also liberate her.