While Citizen Kane, The Searchers and Lawrence of Arabia don’t make the cut, Point Break, an action thriller with preposterous stunts, a threadbare plot and Patrick Swayze as a philosopher-surfer-bankrobber, does.

Readers of The Times are urged to share their views on a provocative new list of the 100 greatest films in history, given away with the newspaper today.

The list, compiled by The Times’s film critics, is an attempt to reevaluate the sacred cows of cinema and determine whether they still justify their traditional lofty status.

Casablancais in first place in the list, but many other perennial favourites have been relegated to the lower reaches or dislodged altogether by a combination of modern upstarts and lesser-known classics from the archives.

Two films from the past five years make the Top Ten : There Will Be Blood, which reached British cinemas only in February, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind from 2004.

Point Break is the standout surprise, in 97th place. Wendy Ide writes that it “redefined the macho action flick”, magnifying the homoerotic tension between the chief protagonists, played by Swayze and Keanu Reeves, and developing an adrenaline-driven shooting style that is “still felt today”, notably in the Bourne movies.

Notable omissions include The Third Man, Psycho, The Seven Samurai, The Battle of Algiers, Battleship Potemkin, Star Wars, When Harry Met Sally, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and the entire works of Frank Capra.

In their place is a solid bedrock of well-established classics tracking the medium’s development from the end of the silent era (Fritz Lang’s Metropolis) past the golden age of the 1940s (His Girl Friday, The Maltese Falcon, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) through the flowering of the new Hollywood in the 1970s with Jaws, Taxi Driver and The Godfather to the modern era with Lost in Translation and Hidden.

Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story, which headed Halliwell’slist of the Top 1,000 films in 2005, is in at 80th position, but its heavyweight arthouse presence is leavened by more populist fare such as Jurassic Park and The Life of Brian.

Stanley Kubrick is the most succesful director on the list, with four films, followed by George Cukor, Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg on three. Only four women directors feature: Jane Campion ( The Piano), Kathryn Bigelow ( Point Break), Sofia Coppola ( Lost in Translation) and Claire Denis ( Beau Travail).

Tim Teeman, deputy arts editor of The Times, said that the aim was to produce “a new list of 100 great films that would stand the test of time. We think these are films that have redefined their area of cinema. There are lists of top films all over the place and the same tired old suspects feature in all of them. Citizen Kane has had its run. We would like readers to discover Touch of Evil, a far more interesting Orson Welles film.”

Inside the guide James Christopher writes that Touch of Evil, a 1958 masterpiece starring Charlton Heston and Marlene Dietrich, “may not have the dazzling virtuosity of Citizen Kane. But it has far uglier, darker and truer things to say.” Justifying the choice of Casablanca as the greatest of all films, he adds: “There is nothing remotely prosaic about the magic. Casablanca is the greatest romantic thriller yet painted on screen. ”

No one will agree with all of our 100 choices but part of the joy of cinema is arguing the merits of such wildly differing works as Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (88th place) and Rob Reiner’s This is Spinal Tap (71st).

The Top Ten

Casablanca Michael Curtiz, 1942
There Will Be Blood Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007
ET: The Extra Terrestrial Steven Spielberg, 1982
Chinatown Roman Polanski, 1974
The Shining Stanley Kubrick, 1980
Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
Kes Ken Loach, 1969
Sunset Boulevard Billy Wilder, 1950
Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind Michel Gondry, 2004
The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola, 1972

Source: The Times Top 100 Films of All Time

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