Director Subhash Ghai's 'Khalnayak', starring Sanjay Dutt, Madhuri Dixit and Jackie shroff, has been voted as the third best film among the top ten movies ever made, in a British Film Institute 'Sight and Sound' poll.

Among the other Indian directors voted for included legends Satyajit Ray and Guru Dutt. The other films in the top ten include 'Manila by Night and 'The Opening of Misty Beethoven', a press release issued here said today.

In 1952, 'Sight and Sound', a magazine of British Film Institute, polled the world's leading film critics to compile a list of the best films of all times. The magazine has repeated this poll every ten years to show which film stands the test of time in the face of shifting critical opinion. In 1992, a poll, asking directors for their personal choices, was added.

The recent poll has been the largest and received contributions from 145 film critics, writers and academicians and 108 film directors, the release added.

'Khalnayak' was one of the most succssful films that released in 1993. It dealt with terrorism, which, at that time, was a relatively new theme for Bollywood.

'Khalnayak' is the story of a young man, Ballu Balram (Sanjay Dutt), and how he enters the world of crime and eventually becomes a hardcore 'terrorist'.

His actions are attributed to issues like unemployment and to how his father had to suffer because he was an honest man. These issues affect Ballu's psyche.