Citizen Kaned!

Orson Welles’ classic loses out in BFI poll as Belgian movie named best of all time

It’s the cinematic titan that has dominated best film lists for decades.

But it seems Citizen Kane may have lost its power over modern audiences – and it takes a true cinema fan to know why.

For a cult 1970s Belgian drama has been voted the greatest film of all time in a British Film Insitute poll, beating Orson Welles’ classic for the first time.

Chantal Akerman’s 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is the first by a female director to top the sight and sound survey.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo had previously come first in the poll, which is carried out every ten years. But this year the 1958 thriller was voted second while Citizen Kane – which dominated the list for 40 years – came in third. No

‘Shakes a fist at the establishment’

other film made by a woman has even reached the top ten in the poll’s 70-year history, with Akerman placed 35th in 2012.

Jeanne Dielman tells the story of a Belgian widow who turns to prostitution to make ends meet.

the film follows her tightly ordered schedule over three days as she cooks, cleans and looks after her son. But her routine begins to unravel when she kills one of her clients.

Running at almost three-and-ahalf hours, it is considered by many to be a great work of feminist cinema. Akerman, who has been lauded as a pioneering avant-garde director, died in 2015 aged 65.

Lillian Crawford, a film critic and writer who contributed to the poll, said the film was the ‘essential text’ in feminist cinema. she told the BBC: ‘Jeanne Dielman isn’t a film that I would say to someone getting into cinema, “Oh, this is the first film you absolutely must see”. But in an academic sense and – encouraging more people to seek out films by women – in terms of the history of feminist cinema, this is absolutely the essential text.’

Jason Wood, of the BFI, said: ‘As well as being a compelling list, one of the most important elements is that it shakes a fist at the established order. Canons should be challenged and interrogated and as part of the BFI’s remit to not only revisit film history but to also reframe it, it’s so satisfying to see a list that feels quite radical in its sense of diversity and inclusion.’