Top 100 favourite films lists cause a lot of debate, but when Channel 4 launched their "greatest films" vote, the debate started when they set out their list of 100 films for the public to put in order. What? Yes, their "experts" chose 100 films to start with. A hugely biased list (amazing the number of those films Channel 4 and Film 4 have the rights to show). In response to this, an old film site, Sisqua.com, was resurrected for the specific purpose of producing an alternative Top 100 list. Visitors could vote for five films - any choices!

The Sisqua folks were not expecting a large response, but through simple word of mouth, huge numbers of people visited the site and they were somewhat taken aback when they got 5,000 votes in the first 4 days! Eight weeks later and 24,129 people cast a total of 120,512 (validated) votes. As these were free format, the team had a huge task to count them all up, but after a sterling effort, the results were released on 27th January 2002.

A free public vote for favourite films of all time and the results make fascinating reading. Blade Runner this time in 11th place. (With Star Wars and Godfather films split up, they take up extra slots!) But this reporter is pleased that Star Wars isn't top anyway. LotR:FotR was released part way through the voting process and so on the one hand missed the initial voters' lists, but on the other hand was fresh in the minds of those voting later. We'll see how it does in ten years time. Good to see lesser known masterpieces like Leon now have a strong fanbase! But enough of my rambling - here is the list, (replicated completely from the Sisqua site with their kind permission).

This list is currently published on the website along with a Top 100 Stars List (Channel 4 gave 150 options for their vote). However, Sisqua have said that they do not intend to continue the site apart from these votes. So, our thanks go to the Sisqua team (Sisqua, Bomber, Kenji, Connie and Treakle) for doing this and hope the response might encourage the Sisqua site to continue.

Also check out our report on the original Channel 4 vote.