the Algerian war, but those not interested in Algeria may substitute another war; The Battle of Algiers has a universal frame of reference". The film occupies the 48th place on the Critics' Top 250 Films of the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, as well as 120th place on Empire magazine's list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. In 2010, Empire also ranked the movie 6th in The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema. It was selected to enter the list of the "100 Italian films to be saved". The American film director Stanley Kubrick praised the film by stating: "All films are, in a sense, false documentaries. One tries to approach reality as much as possible, only it’s not reality. There are people who do very clever things, which have completely fascinated and fooled me. For example, The Battle of Algiers. It’s very impressive." Also, according to Anthony Frewin, Kubrick's personal assistant, he stated: "When I started work for Stanley in September 1965 he told me that I couldn’t really understand what cinema was capable of without seeing The Battle of Algiers. He was still enthusing about it prior to his death." The American filmmaker Steven Soderbergh listed the film as an inspiration on his film Traffic noting that the film (along with Costa-Gavras's Z) had "that great feeling of things that are caught, instead of staged, which is what we were after." The British-American filmmaker Christopher Nolan listed the film as one of his favorites and is credited for inspiring his films such as The Dark Knight Rises and Dunkirk. The Palestinian-American academic Edward Said (famous for his work Orientalism) praised The Battle of Algiers (along with Pontecorvo's other film, Burn!) as the two films "...stand unmatched and unexcelled since they were made in the 60s. Both films together constitute a political and aesthetic standard never again equaled." The British-Pakistani writer and activist Tariq Ali has placed The Battle of Algiers in his top 10 films list for the Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films of all time. The German filmmaker Werner Herzog admired the film and it was one of the few films that was required viewing to his film school students. The English filmmaker Ken Loach listed the film as one of his top 10 favorite films of all time and mentioned the film's influence on his filmmaking by saying: “It used non-professional