work. In 2012, directors Mike Leigh, Asghar Farhadi, and Martin McDonagh respectively included Radio Days (1987), Take the Money and Run (1969), and Manhattan among their Top 10 films for Sight & Sound. Other admirers of his work include Olivia Wilde and Jason Reitman, who staged live readings of Hannah and Her Sisters and Manhattan respectively. Filmmaker Edgar Wright listed five of Allen's films (Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Play It Again, Sam, Sleeper, Annie Hall) in his list of 100 Favorite Comedy films. Bill Hader cited Allen's mockumentary films Take the Money and Run and Zelig as the biggest inspirations of the IFC series Documentary Now!. Film critics including Roger Ebert and Barry Norman have highly praised Allen's work. In 1980, on Sneak Previews, Siskel and Ebert called Allen and Mel Brooks "the two most successful comedy directors in the world today ... America's two funniest filmmakers." Pauline Kael wrote of Allen that "his comic character is enormously appealing to people partly because he's the smart, urban guy who at the same time is intelligent, is vulnerable, and somehow by his intelligence, he triumphs". Favorite films In 2012, Allen participated in the Sight & Sound film polls. Held every ten years to select the greatest films of all time, contemporary directors were asked to select ten films of their choice. Allen's choices, in alphabetical order, were: The 400 Blows (France, 1959) 8½ (Italy, 1963) Amarcord (Italy, 1972) Bicycle Thieves (Italy, 1948) Citizen Kane (USA, 1941) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (France, 1972) La Grande Illusion (France, 1937) Paths of Glory (USA, 1957) Rashomon (Japan, 1950) The Seventh Seal (Sweden, 1957) In his 2020 autobiography Apropos of Nothing Allen praised Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire (1951): Film activism and preservation In 1987, Allen joined Ginger Rogers, Sydney Pollack, and Miloš Forman at a Senate Judiciary committee hearing in Washington, D.C., where they each gave testimony against Ted Turner's and other companies' colorizing films without the artists' consent. Only one senator, Patrick Leahy, was present for the testimony. Allen testified: Allen also spoke about his decisions to make films in black and white, such as Manhattan, Stardust Memories, Broadway Danny Rose, and Zelig. Film director John Huston appeared in a pretaped video, and Rogers read a statement by Jimmy Stewart criticizing the colorization of his film It's a Wonderful Life. In 1990, Allen and Martin Scorsese created The