So, in the not-so-passive aggressive comparison between the BFI critics poll and the AFI poll, Sunrise has been in the too 10 films for the past 20 years ( number 5 and the previously, number 7). I found a link of a fuller list of the 1992 that indicated it was number 11 that year (though the annotation on the wiki page contradicts that).
Make of that what you will.
(The BFI Director's Poll however, places it at 22, which is... lower, but not as substantially lower as the AFI).
I still need to rewatch (this weekend, I'll probably stick with the non-Czech version on the blu-ray), but on first watch, I wasn't as taken by this as I was Man with a Movie* Camera or The Passion of Joan of Arc (though closer to the latter). Mentally, I always got stuck on the plot point that it's basically, "how do you say you're sorry (for planning to murder you)?"
*: Man With a Movie Camera tried to have no intertitles and was consciously trying to push the visual artform.
I'll probably appreciate the camera work more this time after having watched some of the documentary series, The History of Film: An Odyssey (I think I may have mentioned it on these forums before). It actually covers the shortcomings of movies with the introduction of sound (some of it alluded to in the podcast). In addition to getting stuck in sound boxes, they had issues syncing the sounds, (anyone whose had to fiddle with the av sync on their receiver will appreciate what a difference 30 Ms makes). Which meant they had to film their close ups and crowd shots at the same time. Which could result in what would be considered flawed compositions so the cameras wouldn't catch each other (the point of the episode was, film was no longer a visual medium, but had become an auditory medium). Which gets driven home better of you see the scenes (I think the series is still on Hulu).
Of the silent era they covered that I haven't seen that I'm most curious in are the King Vidor (e.g. The Crowd - which has an office shot that would show up again in The Apartment) and von Stroheim (he later acted as the butler in Sunset Blvd) movies (e.g. Greed). Mainly because they were described as trying to present "a more real" world rather than the fantasy world of Hollywood.