SIGHT & SOUND. Special issue: September, 2002. London: British Film Institute, £3.25.

"Top 10" lists may be prejudiced, arbitrary and capricious, but they also indicate inclinations and directions. Once a decade since 1952, the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine has polled leading critics (and, since 1992, leading directors) on the 10 best films of all time. The resulting lists point to something larger than individual preference, something that might be called a community of taste, a general unspoken agreement, something that is gradually evolving.

Even the definition of "best" seems to be changing. For the past four decades, Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" has been voted No. 1 by critics, and, since the addition of the directors' poll ten years ago, by directors, too. Welles himself was listed in the 2002 poll as best director by both critics and directors alike.

This year, however, only six votes kept Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" from sweeping the critical stakes. It took second place. Ten years ago, in 1992, it was fourth; in 1982 it was seventh, and in 1972 it wasn't even listed.

Reasons have been offered. For example, critical taste and popular taste seem to be coming together. Similar polls by London magazine Time Out in 1995 indeed ousted "Kane" in favor of Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather," but this was a poll of readers, not of critics and film directors. This year the Coppola picture has moved up to fourth place in Sight & Sound's critics' poll, and to second place in its directors' poll. In 1992 it wasn't listed at all. Either elite and pop taste are merging, or older films are (as is their way) acquiring patina.

Or losing it. Among the directors whose films appeared in the first listing in 1952 and were then permanently dropped 10 years later are Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Marcel Carne and Rene Clair. Indeed, the only film to presently remain from the earliest Sight & Sound listing is Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" (fourth in 1952, seventh in 2002).

Another indication of change is the dramatic rise of Asian contenders, particularly among the Japanese. This year, Yasujiro Ozu's "Tokyo Story" once again secured a place in the critics' top 10 list, after first appearing in 1992, and Ozu himself is listed in the critics' poll of the top 10 directors. Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" and "Seven Samurai" tied for ninth place this year in the directors' top 10, after both coming 10th in 1992, and Kurosawa himself was voted third in the directors' poll of the best 10 directors. However, Kenji Mizoguchi's "Ugetsu Monogatari," which made the top 10 movie listings in 1962 and 1972, has dropped out, permanently it would seem.

In the last 10 years, other Asian films have made strong showings. Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali" was sixth in the 1992 critics' poll, and, looking at the individual poll sheets for the critics, one finds that Asian and Middle Eastern films are often mentioned, including those of Hsiao-hsien Hou, Abbas Kiarostami and Edward Yang.

Critics in Asia were extensively polled for the first time this year. Mark Schilling, a critic for this paper, chose (in no particular order): Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (a strong contender this year, taking sixth place in the critics' top 10), "Citizen Kane," "Seven Samurai," Federico Fellini's "8 1/2," "The Godfather," "Tokyo Story," "Vertigo," Buster Keaton's "The General," Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas," and Michelangelo Antonioni's "L'Avventura."

For the same poll, I chose (in chronological order): Carl Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc," Aleksandr Dovzhenko's "Earth," "Citizen Kane," "Tokyo Story," "Seven Samurai," "Pather Panchali," Ingmar Bergman's "Wild Strawberries," "L'Avventura," Robert Bresson's "Au hasard Balthazar," and Andrei Tarkovsky's "Mirror."

In all of these various listing a certain pattern is seen, a trend is to be discerned. Perhaps the poststructuralists are right: the categories of elite and popular are crumbling; and perhaps the new economists are right: Asia is rising.