Vertigo dislodges Citizen Kane as critics’ top choice

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo has climbed to the top of the British Film Institute’s poll of the greatest films ever made, dislodging Citizen Kane for the first time in 50 years.

Some 846 experts were polled for the BFI Sight and Sound magazine’s decadal list, and selected the 1958 suspense thriller about a retired police officer with a fear of heights, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, by 34 votes.

Vertigo has gradually inched up the poll in recent decades, as Hitchcock’s thriller has steadily grown in stature since its initial mixed reception.