Per a recent Landmark Theaters poll of 35,000 moviegoers, the Italian drama is topping a list of the top 100 foreign-language films of all time.
"Foreign language films have been a principal component of Landmark's programming for 25 years, and as such, they have been an integral part of our company's history," Cary Jones, Landmark's veep of marketing, says in a statement.
"The poll offered us a wonderful way to celebrate both the breadth of filmmaking talent from around the world as well as our own history."
Jones says the company encourages debate over the list, and since nearly every film in the top 20 was released in the '90s, film buffs are sure to debate the results.
"I think that when you do a poll of best movies of all time and look at the general public rather than film critics or industry people, you're going to have more recent films do better on the list," explains Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com.
"That's only because they're more fresh in the minds of moviegoers. If it's your job and your life to criticize and study film, I think you have a broader sense of really looking at older films and giving them more weight in a poll like this."
Pandya says he agrees with the placement of Life Is Beautiful in the top spot, due to it's high box-office gross and the firm placement of Benigni's acceptance antics in the minds of movie-lovers, but he does think a more critical list would differ a bit from Landmark's results.
"They might get shuffled around a lot, but the Top 10 would probably include a lot of the films in the top 20," he says. "Maybe Eat Drink Man Woman might rise or maybe Das Boot might rise. I think Ran (No. 27), from Japan, might rank a little higher because it's seen as Akira Kurosawa's greatest film. Some of the films on the bottom might go to the top if critics were doing this list, because they have a better sense of going back in time."
The list was compiled from a poll of 35,000 theater-goers from August 1 through October 31, and in order to qualify, the films had to be made by a foreign filmmaker in a language other than English. Here's a rundown of the top 20.
1. Life Is Beautiful, Italy 1997 (Italian)
2. Cinema Paradiso, Italy 1988 (Italian)
3. Il Postino (The Postman), Italy 1994 (Italian)
4. Like Water for Chocolate, Mexico 1992 (Spanish)
5. Das Boot (The Boat), Germany 1981 (German)
6. Babette's Feast, Denmark 1987 (Danish)
7. The Gods Must Be Crazy, Botswana 1981 (Afrikaans)
8. The Seven Samurai, Japan 1954 (Japanese)
9. Shall We Dance?, Japan 1996 (Japanese)
10. The Bicycle Thief, Italy 1948 (Italian)
11. La Femme Nikita, France 1990 (French)
12. La Cage aux Folles (Birds of a Feather), France 1978 (French)
13. My Life as a Dog, Sweden 1985 (Swedish)
14. Central Station, Brazil 1998 (Portuguese)
15. Run Lola Run, Germany 1998 (German)
16. Au Revoir, Les Enfants (Goodbye Children), France 1987 (French)
17. Eat Drink Man Woman, Taiwan 1994 (Mandarin Chinese)
18. La Dolce Vita, Italy 1960 (Italian)
19. Jean de Florette, France 1986 (French)
20. Raise the Red Lantern, China 1991 (Mandarin Chinese)
complete list