**—Won Academy Award for Best Picture.
*—Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.
| Rank | Title | Director(s) | Overall Rank |
| 1 | In the Mood for Love | Kar-Wai Wong | 135 |
| 2 | Gladiator** | Ridley Scott | 137 |
| 3 | Memento | Christopher Nolan | 139 |
| 4 | Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon* | Ang Lee | 191 |
| 5 | Requiem for a Dream | Darren Aronofsky | 259 |
| 6 | Amores perros | Alejandro G. Iñárritu | 457 |
| 7 | Almost Famous | Cameron Crowe | 531 |
| 8 | Dancer in the Dark | Lars von Trier | 532 |
| 9 | Yi yi: A One and a Two... | Edward Yang | 552 |
| 10 | Battle Royale | Kinji Fukasaku | 600 |
| 11 | Snatch. | Guy Ritchie | 673 |
| 12 | O Brother, Where Art Thou? | Joel Coen | 806 |
| 13 | Best in Show | Christopher Guest | 849 |
| 14 | American Psycho | Mary Harron | 855 |
| 15 | Werckmeister Harmonies | Béla Tarr | 890 |
| 16 | The Gleaners & I | Agnès Varda | 926 |
| 17 | Sexy Beast | Jonathan Glazer | 941 |
| 18 | Chicken Run | Peter Lord and Nick Park | 962 |
| 19 | Erin Brockovich* | Steven Soderbergh | 1046 |
| 20 | High Fidelity | Stephen Frears | 1052 |
| 21 | Remember the Titans | Boaz Yakin | 1053 |
| 22 | X-Men | Bryan Singer | 1167 |
| 23 | Billy Elliot | Stephen Daldry | 1264 |
| 24 | Cast Away | Robert Zemeckis | 1395 |
| 25 | Traffic* | Steven Soderbergh | 1452 |
| 26 | Love & Basketball | Gina Prince-Bythewood | 1564 |
| 27 | Meet the Parents | Jay Roach | 1588 |
| 28 | George Washington | David Gordon Green | 1592 |
| 29 | Unbreakable | M. Night Shyamalan | 1735 |
| 30 | Platform | Zhangke Jia | 1780 |
| 31 | Songs from the Second Floor | Roy Andersson | 1982 |
| 32 | Chocolat* | Lasse Hallström | 2077 |
| 33 | Ginger Snaps | John Fawcett | 2106 |
| 34 | Girlfight | Karyn Kusama | 2270 |
| 35 | You Can Count on Me | Kenneth Lonergan | 2339 |
| 36 | The Emperor's New Groove | Mark Dindal | 2369 |
| 37 | Together | Lukas Moodysson | 2441 |
| 38 | Bring It on | Peyton Reed | 2460 |
| 39 | Pitch Black | David Twohy | 2490 |
| 40 | Before Night Falls | Julian Schnabel | 2519 |
| 41 | Devils on the Doorstep | Wen Jiang | 2534 |
| 42 | The Patriot | Roland Emmerich | 2557 |
| 43 | Dark Days | Marc Singer | 2775 |
| 44 | Nine Queens | Fabián Bielinsky | 2797 |
| Rank | Title | Director(s) | Overall Rank |
| 1 | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring* | Peter Jackson | 43 |
| 2 | Spirited Away | Hayao Miyazaki | 79 |
| 3 | Amélie | Jean-Pierre Jeunet | 119 |
| 4 | Mulholland Dr. | David Lynch | 124 |
| 5 | Donnie Darko | Richard Kelly | 176 |
| 6 | Shrek | Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson | 353 |
| 7 | Moulin Rouge!* | Baz Luhrmann | 357 |
| 8 | Monsters, Inc. | Pete Docter | 397 |
| 9 | Y tu mamá también | Alfonso Cuarón | 426 |
| 10 | The Royal Tenenbaums | Wes Anderson | 434 |
| 11 | Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone | Chris Columbus | 503 |
| 12 | A Beautiful Mind** | Ron Howard | 524 |
| 13 | A.I.: Artificial Intelligence | Steven Spielberg | 593 |
| 14 | Hedwig and the Angry Inch | John Cameron Mitchell | 779 |
| 15 | Ghost World | Terry Zwigoff | 797 |
| 16 | Zoolander | Ben Stiller | 866 |
| 17 | The Others | Alejandro Amenábar | 902 |
| 18 | The Devil's Backbone | Guillermo del Toro | 945 |
| 19 | Black Hawk Down | Ridley Scott | 947 |
| 20 | Waking Life | Richard Linklater | 970 |
| 21 | Ocean's Eleven | Steven Soderbergh | 984 |
| 22 | Bridget Jones's Diary | Sharon Maguire | 1091 |
| 23 | Ali | Michael Mann | 1199 |
| 24 | Wet Hot American Summer | David Wain | 1381 |
| 25 | Lagaan: Once upon a Time in India | Ashutosh Gowariker | 1436 |
| 26 | The Piano Teacher | Michael Haneke | 1445 |
| 27 | Gosford Park* | Robert Altman | 1753 |
| 28 | Dogtown and Z-Boys | Stacy Peralta | 1806 |
| 29 | The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat) | Zacharias Kunuk | 1951 |
| 30 | Fat Girl | Catherine Breillat | 1967 |
| 31 | Shaolin Soccer | Stephen Chow | 1990 |
| 32 | Monsoon Wedding | Mira Nair | 1993 |
| 33 | Millennium Actress | Satoshi Kon | 2133 |
| 34 | The Man Who Wasn't There | Joel Coen | 2272 |
| 35 | No Man's Land | Danis Tanovic | 2304 |
| 36 | I Am Sam | Jessie Nelson | 2315 |
| 37 | Session 9 | Brad Anderson | 2319 |
| 38 | Kissing Jessica Stein | Charles Herman-Wurmfeld | 2377 |
| 39 | Enemy at the Gates | Jean-Jacques Annaud | 2456 |
| 40 | La Ciénaga | Lucrecia Martel | 2485 |
| 41 | The Son's Room | Nanni Moretti | 2545 |
| 42 | Blow | Ted Demme | 2553 |
| 43 | The Fast and the Furious | Rob Cohen | 2580 |
| 44 | Band of Brothers | David Frankel, Mikael Salomon, Tom Hanks, David Leland, Richard Loncraine, David Nutter, Phil Alden Robinson, and Tony To | 2591 |
| 45 | Pulse | Kiyoshi Kurosawa | 2593 |
| 46 | 61* | Billy Crystal | 2638 |
| 47 | Ichi the Killer | Takashi Miike | 2673 |
| 48 | Legally Blonde | Robert Luketic | 2686 |
| 49 | Training Day | Antoine Fuqua | 2728 |
| 50 | In the Bedroom* | Todd Field | 2740 |
| 51 | Vanilla Sky | Cameron Crowe | 2767 |
| Rank | Title | Director(s) | Overall Rank |
| 1 | The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers* | Peter Jackson | 67 |
| 2 | City of God | Fernando Meirelles | 128 |
| 3 | The Pianist* | Roman Polanski | 269 |
| 4 | Minority Report | Steven Spielberg | 516 |
| 5 | 28 Days Later… | Danny Boyle | 553 |
| 6 | Chicago** | Rob Marshall | 617 |
| 7 | Bowling for Columbine | Michael Moore | 630 |
| 8 | Talk to Her | Pedro Almodóvar | 634 |
| 9 | Spider-Man | Sam Raimi | 655 |
| 10 | Infernal Affairs | Wai-keung Lau and Alan Mak | 685 |
| 11 | Punch-Drunk Love | Paul Thomas Anderson | 829 |
| 12 | The Bourne Identity | Doug Liman | 854 |
| 13 | Adaptation. | Spike Jonze | 888 |
| 14 | Hero | Yimou Zhang | 898 |
| 15 | Catch Me If You Can | Steven Spielberg | 988 |
| 16 | Far from Heaven | Todd Haynes | 1099 |
| 17 | Road to Perdition | Sam Mendes | 1149 |
| 18 | Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | Chris Columbus | 1151 |
| 19 | Ice Age | Chris Wedge | 1163 |
| 20 | Bend It Like Beckham | Gurinder Chadha | 1211 |
| 21 | 25th Hour | Spike Lee | 1219 |
| 22 | The Ring | Gore Verbinski | 1234 |
| 23 | Russian Ark | Aleksandr Sokurov | 1325 |
| 24 | The Hours* | Stephen Daldry | 1334 |
| 25 | Irréversible | Gaspar Noé | 1348 |
| 26 | Spellbound | Jeffrey Blitz | 1351 |
| 27 | Whale Rider | Niki Caro | 1404 |
| 28 | Lilja 4-ever | Lukas Moodysson | 1414 |
| 29 | Secretary | Steven Shainberg | 1424 |
| 30 | 24 Hour Party People | Michael Winterbottom | 1661 |
| 31 | To Be and to Have | Nicolas Philibert | 1674 |
| 32 | About a Boy | Chris and Paul Weitz | 1713 |
| 33 | Gangs of New York* | Martin Scorsese | 1774 |
| 34 | The Son | Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne | 1852 |
| 35 | The Rookie | John Lee Hancock | 1898 |
| 36 | Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks | Bing Wang | 1908 |
| 37 | Insomnia | Christopher Nolan | 1962 |
| 38 | Lilo & Stitch | Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders | 1994 |
| 39 | Signs | M. Night Shyamalan | 2007 |
| 40 | My Big Fat Greek Wedding | Joel Zwick | 2025 |
| 41 | Frida | Julie Taymor | 2031 |
| 42 | Equilibrium | Kurt Wimmer | 2091 |
| 43 | Solaris | Steven Soderbergh | 2161 |
| 44 | A Walk to Remember | Adam Shankman | 2187 |
| 45 | Blade II | Guillermo del Toro | 2190 |
| 46 | Bubba Ho-Tep | Don Coscarelli | 2253 |
| 47 | The Magdalene Sisters | Peter Mullan | 2275 |
| 48 | Bus 174 | José Padilha | 2318 |
| 49 | Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance | Chan-wook Park | 2349 |
| 50 | The Quiet American | Phillip Noyce | 2360 |
| 51 | The Man without a Past | Aki Kaurismäki | 2379 |
| 52 | Morvern Callar | Lynne Ramsay | 2412 |
| 53 | Ten | Abbas Kiarostami | 2413 |
| 54 | Rabbit-Proof Fence | Phillip Noyce | 2510 |
| 55 | Ju-on: The Grudge | Takashi Shimizu | 2566 |
| 56 | 8 Women | François Ozon | 2732 |
| 57 | Bloody Sunday | Paul Greengrass | 2784 |
| 58 | Femme Fatale | Brian De Palma | 2801 |
| Rank | Title | Director(s) | Overall Rank |
| 1 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King** | Peter Jackson | 48 |
| 2 | Lost in Translation* | Sofia Coppola | 161 |
| 3 | Finding Nemo | Andrew Stanton | 168 |
| 4 | Oldboy | Chan-wook Park | 190 |
| 5 | Kill Bill: Vol. 1 | Quentin Tarantino | 274 |
| 6 | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl | Gore Verbinski | 344 |
| 7 | The Triplets of Belleville | Sylvain Chomet | 601 |
| 8 | Dogville | Lars von Trier | 626 |
| 9 | Love Actually | Richard Curtis | 636 |
| 10 | Big Fish | Tim Burton | 711 |
| 11 | X2 | Bryan Singer | 736 |
| 12 | Mystic River* | Clint Eastwood | 759 |
| 13 | Memories of Murder | Bong Joon Ho | 852 |
| 14 | Capturing the Friedmans | Andrew Jarecki | 924 |
| 15 | The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara | Errol Morris | 929 |
| 16 | Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring | Ki-duk Kim | 1098 |
| 17 | Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World* | Peter Weir | 1130 |
| 18 | The Best of Youth | Marco Tullio Giordana | 1147 |
| 19 | Elf | Jon Favreau | 1154 |
| 20 | Elephant | Gus Van Sant | 1170 |
| 21 | Touching the Void | Kevin Macdonald | 1180 |
| 22 | Monster | Patty Jenkins | 1183 |
| 23 | The School of Rock | Richard Linklater | 1256 |
| 24 | American Splendor | Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini | 1258 |
| 25 | The Return | Andrey Zvyagintsev | 1320 |
| 26 | Old School | Todd Phillips | 1408 |
| 27 | 21 Grams | Alejandro G. Iñárritu | 1426 |
| 28 | Seabiscuit* | Gary Ross | 1474 |
| 29 | Open Range | Kevin Costner | 1504 |
| 30 | The Barbarian Invasions | Denys Arcand | 1590 |
| 31 | Good Bye Lenin! | Wolfgang Becker | 1596 |
| 32 | Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior | Prachya Pinkaew | 1815 |
| 33 | The Station Agent | Tom McCarthy | 1825 |
| 34 | Tokyo Godfathers | Satoshi Kon | 1869 |
| 35 | The Dreamers | Bernardo Bertolucci | 1899 |
| 36 | The Matrix Reloaded | Lana and Lilly Wachowski | 1901 |
| 37 | The Last Samurai | Edward Zwick | 1922 |
| 38 | Bad Santa | Terry Zwigoff | 1925 |
| 39 | A Tale of Two Sisters | Jee-woon Kim | 1933 |
| 40 | Los Angeles Plays Itself | Thom Andersen | 2163 |
| 41 | Freaky Friday | Mark Waters | 2220 |
| 42 | The Corporation | Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar | 2504 |
| 43 | The Matrix Revolutions | Lana and Lilly Wachowski | 2507 |
| 44 | Zatôichi | Takeshi Kitano | 2550 |
| 45 | High Tension | Alexandre Aja | 2563 |
| 46 | The Italian Job | F. Gary Gray | 2656 |
| 47 | The Five Obstructions | Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier | 2790 |
| Rank | Title | Director(s) | Overall Rank |
| 1 | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind | Michel Gondry | 76 |
| 2 | The Incredibles | Brad Bird | 205 |
| 3 | Shaun of the Dead | Edgar Wright | 260 |
| 4 | Before Sunset | Richard Linklater | 315 |
| 5 | Million Dollar Baby** | Clint Eastwood | 331 |
| 6 | Downfall | Oliver Hirschbiegel | 424 |
| 7 | Kill Bill: Vol. 2 | Quentin Tarantino | 439 |
| 8 | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | Alfonso Cuarón | 449 |
| 9 | Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy | Adam McKay | 491 |
| 10 | Howl's Moving Castle | Hayao Miyazaki | 573 |
| 11 | Sideways* | Alexander Payne | 606 |
| 12 | Spider-Man 2 | Sam Raimi | 652 |
| 13 | Napoleon Dynamite | Jared Hess | 690 |
| 14 | The Notebook | Nick Cassavetes | 732 |
| 15 | The Bourne Supremacy | Paul Greengrass | 737 |
| 16 | Hotel Rwanda | Terry George | 789 |
| 17 | Mean Girls | Mark Waters | 815 |
| 18 | Team America: World Police | Trey Parker | 936 |
| 19 | Primer | Shane Carruth | 1011 |
| 20 | Crash** | Paul Haggis | 1054 |
| 21 | Kung Fu Hustle | Stephen Chow | 1070 |
| 22 | Garden State | Zach Braff | 1112 |
| 23 | Saw | James Wan | 1158 |
| 24 | Miracle | Gavin O'Connor | 1172 |
| 25 | The Sea Inside | Alejandro Amenábar | 1232 |
| 26 | Ray* | Taylor Hackford | 1239 |
| 27 | Friday Night Lights | Peter Berg and Josh Pate | 1249 |
| 28 | Dawn of the Dead | Zack Snyder | 1280 |
| 29 | Shrek 2 | Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, and Conrad Vernon | 1287 |
| 30 | Dead Man's Shoes | Shane Meadows | 1295 |
| 31 | 2046 | Kar-Wai Wong | 1304 |
| 32 | Finding Neverland* | Marc Forster | 1313 |
| 33 | Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story | Rawson Marshall Thurber | 1356 |
| 34 | The Butterfly Effect | Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber | 1405 |
| 35 | The Passion of the Christ | Mel Gibson | 1407 |
| 36 | Mysterious Skin | Gregg Araki | 1422 |
| 37 | House of Flying Daggers | Yimou Zhang | 1493 |
| 38 | Head-On | Fatih Akin | 1543 |
| 39 | Bad Education | Pedro Almodóvar | 1577 |
| 40 | The Aviator* | Martin Scorsese | 1605 |
| 41 | Fahrenheit 9/11 | Michael Moore | 1615 |
| 42 | Collateral | Michael Mann | 1645 |
| 43 | The Motorcycle Diaries | Walter Salles | 1733 |
| 44 | Man on Fire | Tony Scott | 1813 |
| 45 | The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou | Wes Anderson | 1826 |
| 46 | Super Size Me | Morgan Spurlock | 1827 |
| 47 | Moolaadé | Ousmane Sembene | 1845 |
| 48 | Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle | Danny Leiner | 1865 |
| 49 | A Very Long Engagement | Jean-Pierre Jeunet | 1885 |
| 50 | The Chorus | Christophe Barratier | 1941 |
| 51 | 3-Iron | Ki-duk Kim | 1969 |
| 52 | Tropical Malady | Apichatpong Weerasethakul | 2009 |
| 53 | Nobody Knows | Hirokazu Koreeda | 2073 |
| 54 | Hellboy | Guillermo del Toro | 2196 |
| 55 | Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids | Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman | 2255 |
| 56 | Metallica: Some Kind of Monster | Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky | 2302 |
| 57 | The Machinist | Brad Anderson | 2332 |
| 58 | Vera Drake | Mike Leigh | 2418 |
| 59 | My Summer of Love | Pawel Pawlikowski | 2434 |
| 60 | DiG! | Ondi Timoner | 2522 |
| 61 | Layer Cake | Matthew Vaughn | 2546 |
| 62 | The Terminal | Steven Spielberg | 2575 |
| 63 | Saved! | Brian Dannelly | 2644 |
| 64 | Birth | Jonathan Glazer | 2672 |
| 65 | Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War | Je-gyu Kang | 2749 |
**—Won Academy Award for Best Picture.
*—Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.
