'Apocalypse Now' voted best film of past 25 years

Francis Ford Coppola's brutal Vietnam classic Apocalypse Now was named yesterday as the greatest film of the past 25 years by cinema experts.

The film – based on Joseph Conrad's novelHeart of Darkness – was chosen by a panel of 50 British critics and writers.

The highest-ranking British film was Terence Davies' Distant Voices, Still Lives at number nine in the poll organised by the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine.

Films dating from January 1978 to this year were eligible, so the much-loved Star Wars fell just outside the time limit. Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull was runner-up in the list, followed by Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. Scorsese's GoodFellas was fourth, followed by David Lynch's Blue Velvet at five, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing at six and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

Nick James, editor of Sight & Sound, said: "As film history now spans over 100 years, it's almost impossible to compile a list of top films. In this new poll we wanted to free people up from choosing the established classics like Citizen Kane and let them concentrate on recent cinema."

The panel of judges included the broadcaster Barry Norman and critics from Time Out, Empire and Total Film.