Silent film tops documentary poll

A 1929 silent film has been voted the greatest ever documentary in a poll of some 300 film-makers and critics. “Man with a Movie Camera”, directed by Dziga Vertov was picked by more than 100 cineastes who took part in the inaugural Sight & Sound poll.
The magazine launched the survey after Vertov's film, shot in the cities of Odessa, Kiev and Kharkiv, placed eighth in their 2012 best film poll. The magazine called it a “teasingly surrealist” homage to city life.
The British Film Institute magazine conducts a poll every decade to find the best film. When the most recent poll was conducted in 2012, Alfred Hitchcock's “Vertigo” took the top spot.
But “Man With a Movie Camera” 'turned up out of the blue' in eighth place, prompting the decision to run a separate best documentary poll.

Source: BBC