These are the ballots I submitted to Sight & Sound's once-a-decade-on-the-2s poll for the greatest films of all time.
Despite appearances, I think I was trying harder to be "special" with my 2012 submissions; special and with a meager attempt at king-making, as if I would, working my wiggling fingers through the cosmos, influence 1-2 fellow cinephiles' notions of the Official Canon, allowing my picks - all of them - to stand shoulder to shoulder with traditional S&S champions of bygone years. Jerry Lewis as mighty as Welles and Hitchcock, Sokurov's extraordinary and singular DV feat as worthy as Feuillade's seminal serial. I still stand by all of that but I don't dwell on it. One tires of one's own opinions, after a time, and it's important to try other ways of thinking.
The 2022 ballot, naturally, was fashioned in the shadow of the memory of the 2012 ballot. I only allowed one hard rule: no director repeats. (There's one cheat, sort of... anyway doesn't matter.) Otherwise, not a rule per se but a guiding thought: try very hard not to list any film that has a hope in hell of making the top 250 finishers. I succeeded in all but one, Ozu's great 1962 masterpiece.
As always, my answer to "are you fucking kidding with these" is, "sadly no".
