| Rank | Title | Year | Director(s) | Overall Rank |
| 1 | Citizen Kane | 1941 | Orson Welles | 11 |
| 2 | All about Eve | 1950 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz | 64 |
| 3 | Sunset Blvd. | 1950 | Billy Wilder | 41 |
| 4 | Singin' in the Rain | 1952 | Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly | 7 |
| 5 | Double Indemnity | 1944 | Billy Wilder | 51 |
| 6 | On the Waterfront | 1954 | Elia Kazan | 79 |
| 7 | The Rules of the Game | 1939 | Jean Renoir | 138 |
| 8 | Sunrise | 1927 | F.W. Murnau | 117 |
| 9 | Casablanca | 1942 | Michael Curtiz | 5 |
| 10 | The Searchers | 1956 | John Ford | 53 |
| 11 | City Lights | 1931 | Charles Chaplin | 40 |
| 12 | Tokyo Story | 1953 | Yasujirô Ozu | 78 |
| 13 | Some Like It Hot | 1959 | Billy Wilder | 19 |
| 14 | The Maltese Falcon | 1941 | John Huston | 81 |
| 15 | Vertigo | 1958 | Alfred Hitchcock | 15 |
| 16 | Chinatown | 1974 | Roman Polanski | 34 |
| 17 | The Bicycle Thief | 1948 | Vittorio De Sica | 69 |
| 18 | 8 1/2 | 1963 | Federico Fellini | 100 |
| 19 | Annie Hall | 1977 | Woody Allen | 33 |
| 20 | Nashville | 1975 | Robert Altman | 161 |
| 21 | Touch of Evil | 1958 | Orson Welles | 87 |
| 22 | The Battleship Potemkin | 1925 | Sergei Eisenstein | 131 |
| 23 | Rashômon | 1950 | Akira Kurosawa | 65 |
| 24 | Raging Bull | 1980 | Martin Scorsese | 44 |
| 25 | Lawrence of Arabia | 1962 | David Lean | 25 |
| 26 | La Dolce Vita | 1960 | Federico Fellini | 124 |
| 27 | Gone with the Wind | 1939 | Victor Fleming | 31 |
| 28 | Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb | 1964 | Stanley Kubrick | 16 |
| 29 | The Grapes of Wrath | 1940 | John Ford | 273 |
| 30 | Notorious | 1946 | Alfred Hitchcock | 148 |
| 31 | The Third Man | 1949 | Carol Reed | 42 |
| 32 | Intolerance | 1916 | D.W. Griffith | 369 |
| 33 | Breathless | 1960 | Jean-Luc Godard | 97 |
| 34 | Pather Panchali | 1955 | Satyajit Ray | 155 |
| 35 | Taxi Driver | 1976 | Martin Scorsese | 17 |
| 36 | The Best Years of Our Lives | 1946 | William Wyler | 200 |
| 37 | A Streetcar Named Desire | 1951 | Elia Kazan | 237 |
| 38 | The General | 1926 | Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton | 86 |
| 39 | Sherlock, Jr. | 1924 | Buster Keaton | 281 |
| 40 | The 400 Blows | 1959 | François Truffaut | 70 |
| 41 | It Happened One Night | 1934 | Frank Capra | 99 |
| 42 | The Lady Eve | 1941 | Preston Sturges | 239 |
| 43 | The Passion of Joan of Arc | 1928 | Carl Theodor Dreyer | 152 |
| 44 | The Conformist | 1970 | Bernardo Bertolucci | 287 |
| 45 | Sweet Smell of Success | 1957 | Alexander Mackendrick | 209 |
| 46 | The Birth of a Nation | 1915 | D.W. Griffith | 448 |
| 47 | L'Avventura | 1960 | Michelangelo Antonioni | 299 |
| 48 | Bonnie and Clyde | 1967 | Arthur Penn | 116 |
| 49 | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | 1948 | John Huston | 142 |
| 50 | Stagecoach | 1939 | John Ford | 183 |
| 51 | Modern Times | 1936 | Charles Chaplin | 61 |
| 52 | The Man with the Movie Camera | 1929 | Dziga Vertov | 240 |
| 53 | Do the Right Thing | 1989 | Spike Lee | 75 |
| 54 | The Battle of Algiers | 1966 | Gillo Pontecorvo | 158 |
| 55 | Children of Paradise | 1945 | Marcel Carné | 216 |
| 56 | L'Atalante | 1934 | Jean Vigo | 332 |
| 57 | Shoah | 1985 | Claude Lanzmann | 254 |
| 58 | Au hasard Balthazar | 1966 | Robert Bresson | 365 |
| 59 | Greed | 1924 | Erich von Stroheim | 473 |
| 60 | The Philadelphia Story | 1940 | George Cukor | 126 |
| 61 | Andrei Rublev | 1966 | Andrei Tarkovsky | 264 |
| 62 | The Gold Rush | 1925 | Charles Chaplin | 171 |
| 63 | Jeanne Dielman | 1975 | Chantal Akerman | 321 |
| 64 | Apocalypse Now | 1979 | Francis Ford Coppola | 10 |
| 65 | The Decalogue | 1989 | Krzysztof Kieslowski | 508 |
| 66 | Meet Me in St. Louis | 1944 | Vincente Minnelli | 284 |
| 67 | The Grand Illusion | 1937 | Jean Renoir | 180 |
| 68 | The Leopard | 1963 | Luchino Visconti | 340 |
| 69 | Ordet | 1955 | Carl Theodor Dreyer | 514 |
| 70 | The Shop around the Corner | 1940 | Ernst Lubitsch | 260 |
| 71 | North by Northwest | 1959 | Alfred Hitchcock | 49 |
| 72 | The Magnificent Ambersons | 1942 | Orson Welles | 456 |
| 73 | Red River | 1948 | Howard Hawks | 319 |
| 74 | Seven Samurai | 1954 | Akira Kurosawa | 24 |
| 75 | Jules and Jim | 1962 | François Truffaut | 241 |
| 76 | Playtime | 1967 | Jacques Tati | 328 |
| 77 | The Night of the Hunter | 1955 | Charles Laughton | 57 |
| 78 | Bringing Up Baby | 1938 | Howard Hawks | 128 |
| 79 | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | 1939 | Frank Capra | 362 |
| 80 | Laura | 1944 | Otto Preminger | 408 |
| 81 | Top Hat | 1935 | Mark Sandrich | 386 |
| 82 | Fanny and Alexander | 1982 | Ingmar Bergman | 253 |
| 83 | McCabe & Mrs. Miller | 1971 | Robert Altman | 337 |
| 84 | Persona | 1966 | Ingmar Bergman | 122 |
| 85 | Ugetsu | 1953 | Kenji Mizoguchi | 352 |
| 86 | The Graduate | 1967 | Mike Nichols | 73 |
| 87 | Swing Time | 1936 | George Stevens | 966 |
| 88 | An American in Paris | 1951 | Vincente Minnelli | 405 |
| 89 | Chimes at Midnight | 1965 | Orson Welles | 739 |
| 90 | Sansho the Bailiff | 1954 | Kenji Mizoguchi | 414 |
| 91 | The Band Wagon | 1953 | Vincente Minnelli | 542 |
| 92 | Letter from an Unknown Woman | 1948 | Max Ophüls | 793 |
| 93 | The Godfather | 1972 | Francis Ford Coppola | 2 |
| 94 | Late Spring | 1949 | Yasujirô Ozu | 593 |
| 95 | M | 1931 | Fritz Lang | 84 |
| 96 | Killer of Sheep | 1978 | Charles Burnett | 434 |
| 97 | Days of Heaven | 1978 | Terrence Malick | 243 |
| 98 | Last Year at Marienbad | 1961 | Alain Resnais | 433 |
| 99 | L'Eclisse | 1962 | Michelangelo Antonioni | 806 |
| 100 | Day of Wrath | 1943 | Carl Theodor Dreyer | 799 |
| 101 | Viridiana | 1961 | Luis Buñuel | 485 |
| 102 | The Earrings of Madame De… | 1953 | Max Ophüls | 801 |
| 103 | Pickpocket | 1959 | Robert Bresson | 752 |
| 104 | Nanook of the North | 1922 | Robert J. Flaherty | 587 |
| 105 | Pickup on South Street | 1953 | Samuel Fuller | 939 |
| 106 | Diary of a Country Priest | 1951 | Robert Bresson | 715 |
| 107 | Close-Up | 1990 | Abbas Kiarostami | 531 |
| 108 | Voyage in Italy | 1954 | Roberto Rossellini | 833 |
| 109 | Imitation of Life | 1959 | Douglas Sirk | 571 |
| 110 | Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations | 1938 | Leni Riefenstahl | 1097 |
| 111 | The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | 1972 | Luis Buñuel | 368 |
| 112 | The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance | 1962 | John Ford | 230 |
| 113 | The Sorrow and the Pity | 1969 | Marcel Ophüls | 766 |
| 114 | Funny Face | 1957 | Stanley Donen | 898 |
| 115 | It's a Gift | 1934 | Norman Z. McLeod | 1777 |
| 116 | Los Olvidados | 1950 | Luis Buñuel | 570 |
| 117 | Rome, Open City | 1945 | Roberto Rossellini | 360 |
| 118 | In a Lonely Place | 1950 | Nicholas Ray | 568 |
| 119 | Dodsworth | 1936 | William Wyler | 1669 |
| 120 | Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty | 1938 | Leni Riefenstahl | 1154 |
| 121 | The Red Shoes | 1948 | Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger | 150 |
| 122 | A Hard Day's Night | 1964 | Richard Lester | 303 |
| 123 | Ceddo | 1977 | Ousmane Sembene | 2169 |
| 124 | Yeelen | 1987 | Souleymane Cissé | 1692 |
| 125 | The Last Picture Show | 1971 | Peter Bogdanovich | 294 |
| 126 | Paisan | 1946 | Roberto Rossellini | 1120 |
| 127 | Written on the Wind | 1956 | Douglas Sirk | 1278 |
| 128 | A Place in the Sun | 1951 | George Stevens | 1258 |
| 129 | Meshes of the Afternoon | 1943 | Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid | 823 |
| 130 | The Mother and the Whore | 1973 | Jean Eustache | 922 |
| 131 | Out of the Past | 1947 | Jacques Tourneur | 461 |
| 132 | Network | 1976 | Sidney Lumet | 192 |
| 133 | The Last Laugh | 1924 | F.W. Murnau | 835 |
| 134 | The World of Apu | 1959 | Satyajit Ray | 492 |
| 135 | The Wind | 1928 | Victor Sjöström | 861 |
| 136 | Aparajito | 1956 | Satyajit Ray | 651 |
| 137 | The Gospel According to St. Matthew | 1964 | Pier Paolo Pasolini | 845 |
| 138 | Napoléon | 1927 | Abel Gance | 621 |
| 139 | Amarcord | 1973 | Federico Fellini | 554 |
| 140 | Cabaret | 1972 | Bob Fosse | 257 |
| 141 | A Woman under the Influence | 1974 | John Cassavetes | 449 |
| 142 | Johnny Guitar | 1954 | Nicholas Ray | 477 |