Looking at the results of BBC Culture’s world cinema poll, one element is most shocking. Two hundred-and-nine critics sent in their 10 greatest foreign-language films. Of these respondents, 94 were women – that is, 45 per cent – and yet there are only four female directors at the helm of titles in the top 100: Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels), Claire Denis (Beau Travail), Agnès Varda (Cleo from 5 to 7), and Katia Lund (co-director of City of God). There are more films in the top 100 directed by men named Jean – seven films – than directed by women.

Read more about BBC Culture’s 100 greatest foreign-language films:

- The 100 greatest foreign-language films

- What the critics had to say about the top 25

- The full list of critics who participated – and how they voted

- Why is Seven Samurai number one?

- 12 great foreign-language masterpieces you may not know

This troubling result puts the current conversation about the dearth of women film-makers in a wider context: by being barred from the exercise of their craft in cinema, women run the risk of being excluded from its history.

“The fact that so few directors who are women made it to the top of the poll isn’t surprising to me,” says Gabrielle Kelly, Screenwriting Faculty at AFI, and author and editor of Celluloid Ceiling: Women Film Directors Breaking Through. “Film studies have always focused on men because men have controlled most aspects of film, ever since it became a profitable business in the US, back in the early days of cinema.”