Films from the last 10 years have not been included on this list, and will be eligible in future updates when the moratorium has passed.
| Film | Screenwriter | Year |
| 1. Chinatown | Roman Polanski, Robert Towne | 1974 |
| 2. The Godfather | Francis Ford Coppola, Mario Puzo | 1972 |
| 3. Citizen Kane | Orson Welles, Herman J. Mankiewicz | 1941 |
| 4. Pulp Fiction | Quentin Tarantino | 1994 |
| 5. Taxi Driver | Paul Schrader | 1976 |
| 6. The Seventh Seal | Ingmar Bergman | 1957 |
| 7. Double Indemnity | Billy Wilder | 1944 |
| 8. The Godfather Part II | Francis Ford Coppola, Mario Puzo | 1974 |
| 9. Sunset Boulevard | Billy Wilder | 1950 |
| 10. The Social Network | Aaron Sorkin | 2010 |
| 11. Annie Hall | Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman | 1977 |
| 12. All About Eve | Joseph L. Mankiewicz | 1950 |
| 13. Casablanca | Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch | 1942 |
| 14. There Will Be Blood | Paul Thomas Anderson | 2007 |
| 15. Goodfellas | Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese | 1990 |
| 16. Raging Bull | Paul Schrader, Mardik Martin | 1980 |
| 17. The Master | Paul Thomas Anderson | 2012 |
| 18. Rashomon | Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto | 1950 |
| 19. Persona | Ingmar Bergman | 1966 |
| 20. Reservoir Dogs | Quentin Tarantino | 1992 |
| 21. Scenes from a Marriage | Ingmar Bergman | 1973 |
| 22. Lawrence of Arabia | Robert Bolt, Michael Wilson | 1962 |
| 23. The Big Sleep | Leigh Brackett, William Faulkner, Jules Furthman | 1946 |
| 24. La Dolce Vita | Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, Brunello Rondi, Pier Paolo Pasolini | 1960 |
| 25. Winter Light | Ingmar Bergman | 1963 |
| 26. Fargo | The Coen Brothers | 1996 |
| 27. Bringing Up Baby | Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wilde | 1938 |
| 28. Seven Samurai | Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni | 1954 |
| 29. No Country For Old Men | The Coen Brothers | 2007 |
| 30. His Girl Friday | Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht | 1940 |
| 31. Dr. Strangelove | Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern | 1964 |
| 32. 8 1/2 | Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, Brunello Rondi | 1963 |
| 33. The Big Lebowski | The Coen Brothers | 1998 |
| 34. Wild Strawberries | Ingmar Bergman | 1957 |
| 35. The Third Man | Graham Greene | 1949 |
| 36. High and Low | Ryūzō Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Eijiro Hisaita, Akira Kurosawa | 1963 |
| 37. All the President’s Men | William Goldman | 1976 |
| 38. The Graduate | Calder Willingham, Buck Henry | 1967 |
| 39. The Apartment | Billy Wilder | 1960 |
| 40. Psycho | Joseph Stefano | 1960 |
| 41. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid | William Goldman | 1969 |
| 42. Manhattan | Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman | 1979 |
| 43. Synecdoche, New York | Charlie Kaufman | 2008 |
| 44. Network | Paddy Chayefsky | 1976 |
| 45. Inglourious Basterds | Quentin Tarantino | 2009 |
| 46. It’s a Wonderful Life | Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra | 1946 |
| 47. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind | Charlie Kaufman | 2004 |
| 48. Inside Llewyn Davis | The Coen Brothers | 2013 |
| 49. A Clockwork Orange | Stanley Kubrick | 1971 |
| 50. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest | Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman | 1975 |
| 51. The Rules of the Game | Jean Renoir, Carl Koch | 1939 |
| 52. Vertigo | Alec Coppel, Samuel Taylor | 1958 |
| 53. Hiroshima Mon Amour | Marguerite Duras | 1959 |
| 54. Rear Window | John Michael Hayes | 1954 |
| 55. Memento | Christopher Nolan | 2000 |
| 56. Magnolia | Paul Thomas Anderson | 1999 |
| 57. The 400 Blows | Francois Truffaut, Marcel Moussy | 1959 |
| 58. 12 Angry Men | Reginald Rose | 1957 |
| 59. The Maltese Falcon | John Huston | 1941 |
| 60. L.A. Confidential | Brian Helgeland, Curtis Hanson | 1997 |
| 61. On the Waterfront | Budd Schulberg | 1954 |
| 62. Hannah and Her Sisters | Woody Allen | 1986 |
| 63. Dead Man | Jim Jarmusch | 1995 |
| 64. Ikiru | Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni | 1952 |
| 65. Groundhog Day | Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis | 1993 |
| 66. Mulholland Drive | David Lynch | 2001 |
| 67. Some Like it Hot | Billy Wilder | 1959 |
| 68. Birdman | Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Armando Bó | 2014 |
| 69. Dekalog | Krzysztof Kieślowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz | 1989 |
| 70. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters | Paul Schrader, Leonard Schrader | 1985 |
| 71. Out of the Past | Daniel Mainwaring | 1947 |
| 72. Apocalypse Now | John Milius, Francis Ford Coppola | 1979 |
| 73. Before Sunset | Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke | 2004 |
| 74. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | John Huston | 1948 |
| 75. My Dinner with Andre | Wallace Shawn, André Gregory | 1981 |
| 76. Naked | Mike Leigh | 1993 |
| 77. Touch of Evil | Orson Welles | 1958 |
| 78. Last Year at Marienbad | Alain Robbe-Grillet | 1961 |
| 79. The Usual Suspects | Christopher McQuarrie | 1995 |
| 80. Crimes and Misdemeanours | Woody Allen | 1989 |
| 81. Do the Right Thing | Spike Lee | 1989 |
| 82. The Best Years of our Lives | Robert E. Sherwood | 1946 |
| 83. Rio Bravo | Jules Furthman, Leigh Brackett | 1959 |
| 84. Notorious | Ben Hecht | 1946 |
| 85. Breaking the Waves | Lars von Trier, Peter Asmussen | 1996 |
| 86. Before Midnight | Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy | 2013 |
| 87. The Long Goodbye | Leigh Brackett | 1973 |
| 88. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière | 1972 |
| 89. Three Colours: Red | Krzysztof Kieślowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz | 1994 |
| 90. Fanny and Alexander | Ingmar Bergman | 1982 |
| 91. Punch-Drunk Love | Paul Thomas Anderson | 2002 |
| 92. M | Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou | 1931 |
| 93. North by Northwest | Ernest Lehman | 1959 |
| 94. The Lady Eve | Preston Sturges | 1941 |
| 95. A Woman Under the Influence | John Cassavetes | 1974 |
| 96. The Searchers | Frank S. Nugent | 1956 |
| 97. Stalker | Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky | 1979 |
| 98. JFK | Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar | 1991 |
| 99. The Departed | William Monahan | 2006 |
| 100. Back to the Future | Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale | 1985 |
If films from the last ten years could qualify, what would you add? The first one that came to mind was Parasite.
Along with Parasite, I could see films like First Reformed, The Favourite, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Marriage Story, and Oppenheimer having a solid shot.
Incredible work! Love seeing The Seventh Seal, both Godfathers and The Social Network getting into the top 10, and Groundhog Day making the list at all, let alone that high. Cannot wait to see how you will manage the screenwriters. Will you be doing best edited films of all time list also?
Thanks @rujkoc! After my screenwriters list, editing and editors lists will be my next focus – not far off at all.
Then cinematographers?
Yep, cinematography/cinematographers, then scores/composers, then directors.
I love the list. I particularly like seeing Mulholland Drive, Last Year at Marienbad, and There Will Be Blood. This is MUCH better then the 101 best screenplays list. Casablanca seems a little low, I think it could be #1, and The Master and The Social Network are both a little high – but still, I love the list. Would you ever elaborate more, or make reviews, on why you think these screenplays in particular are so great?
Thanks for kind words! Tough to argue against raising Casablanca higher – there’s just such strong competition all across that upper tier.
I don’t think I would dedicate an entire page solely to a single aspect of a film, but if the screenplay is worth singling out then I would try to work my praise for it into a broader review. I dig into the writing in my reviews for The Seventh Seal and High and Low for instance. I may put together individual pages for some of the all time great writers one day though, not unlike my directors pages.
Have you seen Moviewise’s new video, where he talks about the writing in Conclave? It couldn’t be timed better with your article. He has the best discussions of screenwriting anywhere on YouTube.
I haven’t yet, I was planning to see Conclave this week and maybe watch the video after.
No Rosemary’s Baby?
Strong contender, just barely missed the cut.
No, The Conformist either. It stands out because it is so much better than the screenplays in other Bertolucci films.
Tokyo Story not being here is a big miss tbh.
The screenplay in Conclave is pretty weak compared to say other Robert Harris’ works like The Ghost Writer and An Officer and a Spy. I’m a bit disappointed. There are at least 3 extremely one dimensional stereotypical characters(Lithgow, Diehz and Castellini). And you can easily guess who the new pope will be within the first 20 minutes.
It’s true, Moviewise did a great job going over this. The film is great otherwise except for Stanley Tucci trying to sink the whole film.
I didn’t think Tucci was that bad. His line delivery was just robotic rather than over the top. Did Isabella Rossellini really deserve a Oscar nomination for a totally negligible character only there to make a point/put out a message? I think she was powerful and landed her scene but still.
Just caught this last night. Overall I was fairly impressed with the film, but for the most part I agree with the criticisms of the screenplay.