question of the day: What makes a movie great?

The Guardian and the Observer film critics banded together recently to name the top 25 films in a variety of genres -- horror, sci-fi and fantasy, arthouse and drama, action, comedy, crime, romance; see the whole list of top films here -- and ended up picking one film to top them all as their official Best Movie Ever: Chinatown. Explaining their choice:

The Guardian's film critic, Peter Bradshaw, said: "Chinatown is such a powerful piece of myth-making, a brilliant evocation of Los Angeles as a spiritual desert." The Observer's Philip French considers it a movie of "near perfection", ending "unforgettably with the line 'Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown!'".

Alongside Nicholson, Chinatown features career-best performances from Faye Dunaway – who notoriously clashed on set with director Polanski – and legendary film-maker John Huston, who played sinister landowner Noah Cross. Polanski himself had a cameo as a stiletto-wielding hoodlum who slices Nicholson's nose open.