Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’ announced only Indian film on the new top 100 films of all-time list – Times of India

Since the first poll in 1952, the British magazine publishes the prestigious list once every ten years. A total of 1,639 reviewers, programmers, curators, archivists, and academics took part in this year’s poll of their top 10 lists.

During the inaugural poll, the top film was Vittorio de Sica’s ‘Bicycle Thieves’. Since then the ranking was topped by Orson Welles’ ‘Citizen Kane’ for five consecutive years: 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992, and 2002. ‘Vertigo’ by Alfred Hitchcock took the first spot in the last survey in 2012.

‘Pather Panchali’ (1955), the first installment in Ray’s ‘Apu Trilogy’, managed to grab the number 35 spot. Interestingly, it is the only Indian film on the list of greatest films of all time. ‘Pather Panchali’ (A Song of the Little Road) marked Satyajit Ray’s debut as a director. This masterpiece from Ray is a social drama inspired by a famous novel of the same name by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. ‘Pather Panchali’ plots a young boy ‘Apu’ from a poor family and his daily life in a rural Indian village. The film was produced by the then West Bengal government as the legendary filmmaker ran out of money after only shooting half of the movie.

Meanwhile, a few of the most recent inclusions are Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Barry Jenkins’ ‘Moonlight’ (2016), Bong Joon-ho’s ‘Parasite’ (2019), and Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’ (2017).

For the unversed, with Akerman’s film taking the top spot in the latest release, the prestigious all-time greatest film poll see a film directed by a woman at the number one position for the first time in its 70-year long journey.