The 80 Best-Directed Films According to the Directors Guild of America

To commemorate the DGA's 80th anniversary this year, members decided to put together a list of the '80 greatest directorial achievements in feature films since the Guild’s founding in 1936.' How many have you seen? Thanks to @vrenee_nfs over on No Film School for the heads up!

The 80 Best-Directed Films

1. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
2. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
3. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
5. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
6. The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
7. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
8. Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
9. Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
10. Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
11. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
12. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
13. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
14. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
15. It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
16. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
17. The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
18. The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
19. Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977)
20. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
21. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
22. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
23. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
24. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
25. Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998)
26. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
27. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
28. Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
29. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
30. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
31. To Kill A Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
32. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
33. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
34. Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994)
35. Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1952)
36. 8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
37. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
38. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946)
39. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
40. The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957)
41. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
42. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Miloš Forman, 1975)
43. The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965)
44. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
45. Titanic (James Cameron, 1997)
46. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
47. Amadeus (Miloš Forman, 1984)
48. Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965)
49. West Side Story (Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, 1961) 
50. Some Like it Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)
51. Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959)
52. Fargo (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, 1996)
53. The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
54. The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
55. Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)
56. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)
57. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)
58. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, 2014)
59. All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)
60. The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978)
61. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
62. The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973)
63. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
64. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
65. Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976)
66. The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)
67. Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982)
68. The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
69. Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)
70. Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
71. The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)
72. All the President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976)
73. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
74. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
75. Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984)
76. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)
77. The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995)
78. Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
79. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
80. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)