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 | Editor | Year |
| 1. Battleship Potemkin | Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov | 1925 |
| 2. Raging Bull | Thelma Schoonmaker | 1980 |
| 3. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly | Nino Baragli, Eugenio Alabiso | 1966 |
| 4. Intolerance | D.W. Griffith, James Smith, Rose Smith | 1916 |
| 5. The Passion of Joan of Arc | Marguerite Beaugé, Carl Theodor Dreyer | 1928 |
| 6. JFK | Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia | 1991 |
| 7. Breathless | Cécile Decugis | 1960 |
| 8. Apocalypse Now | Richard Marks, Walter Murch, Gerald B. Greenberg, Lisa Fruchtman | 1979 |
| 9. Tokyo Story | Yoshiyasu Hamamura | 1953 |
| 10. Psycho | George Tomasini | 1960 |
| 11. The Wild Bunch | Lou Lombardo | 1969 |
| 12. Once Upon a Time in the West | Nino Baragli | 1968 |
| 13. Strike | Sergei Eisenstein | 1925 |
| 14. The Birth of a Nation | D.W. Griffith, James Smith, Rose Smith | 1915 |
| 15. Rashomon | Akira Kurosawa | 1950 |
| 16. The Godfather Part II | Peter Zinner, Barry Malkin, Richard Marks | 1974 |
| 17. The French Connection | Gerald B. Greenberg | 1971 |
| 18. Seven Samurai | Akira Kurosawa | 1954 |
| 19. Citizen Kane | Robert Wise | 1941 |
| 20. Requiem for a Dream | Jay Rabinowitz | 2000 |
| 21. Jules and Jim | Claudine Bouché | 1962 |
| 22. The Godfather | William Reynolds, Peter Zinner | 1972 |
| 23. Whiplash | Tom Cross | 2014 |
| 24. 2001: A Space Odyssey | Ray Lovejoy | 1968 |
| 25. Performance | Antony Gibbs, Brian Smedley-Aston, Frank Mazzola | 1970 |
| 26. Moulin Rouge | Jill Bilcock | 2001 |
| 27. Don’t Look Now | Graeme Clifford | 1973 |
| 28. Napoleon | Marguerite Beaugé | 1927 |
| 29. Inception | Lee Smith | 2010 |
| 30. October | Sergei Eisenstein | 1928 |
| 31. Lawrence of Arabia | Anne V. Coates | 1962 |
| 32. Chungking Express | William Chang, Kai Kit-wai, Kwong Chi-Leung | 1994 |
| 33. Rear Window | George Tomasini | 1954 |
| 34. Jaws | Verna Fields | 1975 |
| 35. Once Upon a Time in America | Nino Baragli | 1984 |
| 36. Stagecoach | Otho Lovering, Dorothy Spencer | 1939 |
| 37. Pulp Fiction | Sally Menke | 1994 |
| 38. Goodfellas | Thelma Schoonmaker | 1990 |
| 39. Run Lola Run | Mathilde Bonnefoy | 1998 |
| 40. Persona | Ulla Ryghe | 1966 |
| 41. Distant Voices, Still Lives | William Diver | 1988 |
| 42. Mad Max: Fury Road | Margaret Sixel | 2015 |
| 43. Taxi Driver | Marcia Lucas, Tom Rolf, Melvin Shapiro | 1976 |
| 44. Pierrot Le Fou | Françoise Collin | 1965 |
| 45. The Tree of Life | Hank Corwin, Jay Rabinowitz, Daniel Rezende, Billy Weber, Mark Yoshikawa | 2011 |
| 46. The Fountain | Jay Rabinowitz | 2006 |
| 47. The Matrix | Zach Staenberg | 1999 |
| 48. I Am Cuba | Nina Glagoleva | 1964 |
| 49. We Need to Talk About Kevin | Joe Bini | 2011 |
| 50. Trainspotting | Masahiro Hirakubo | 1996 |
| 51. The Thin Red Line | Billy Weber, Leslie Jones, Saar Klein | 1998 |
| 52. Cabaret | David Bretherton | 1972 |
| 53. Bonnie and Clyde | Dede Allen | 1967 |
| 54. The End of Summer | Koichi Iwashita | 1961 |
| 55. 8 1/2 | Leo Catozzo | 1963 |
| 56. Vertigo | George Tomasini | 1958 |
| 57. Early Summer | Yoshiyasu Hamamura | 1951 |
| 58. In the Mood for Love | William Chang | 2000 |
| 59. Do the Right Thing | Barry Alexander Brown | 1989 |
| 60. Manhattan | Susan E. Morse | 1979 |
| 61. Enter the Void | Gaspar Noé, Marc Boucrot, Jérôme Pesnel | 2009 |
| 62. Last Year at Marienbad | Henri Colpi, Jasmine Chasney | 1961 |
| 63. The New World | Richard Chew, Hank Corwin, Saar Klein, Mark Yoshikawa | 2005 |
| 64. Days of Heaven | Billy Weber | 1978 |
| 65. Raiders of the Lost Ark | Michael Kahn | 1981 |
| 66. Midnight Cowboy | Hugh A. Robertson | 1969 |
| 67. La Roue | Marguerite Beaugé | 1923 |
| 68. Lenny | Alan Heim | 1974 |
| 69. The Man Who Fell to Earth | Graeme Clifford | 1976 |
| 70. Reservoir Dogs | Sally Menke | 1992 |
| 71. Late Spring | Yoshiyasu Hamamura | 1949 |
| 72. Annie Hall | Ralph Rosenblum, Wendy Greene Bricmont | 1977 |
| 73. Shame | Joe Walker | 2011 |
| 74. Millennium Actress | Satoshi Terauchi | 2001 |
| 75. Hot Fuzz | Chris Dickens | 2007 |
| 76. The Big Short | Hank Corwin | 2015 |
| 77. The Grandmaster | William Chang | 2013 |
| 78. Saving Private Ryan | Michael Kahn | 1998 |
| 79. Mulholland Drive | Mary Sweeney | 2001 |
| 80. The Conversation | Walter Murch, Richard Chew | 1974 |
| 81. A Fistful of Dollars | Roberto Cinquini | 1964 |
| 82. Easy Rider | Donn Cambern | 1969 |
| 83. There Will Be Blood | Dylan Tichenor | 2007 |
| 84. The Master | Peter McNulty, Leslie Jones | 2012 |
| 85. Mr Smith Goes to Washington | Gene Havlick, Al Clark | 1939 |
| 86. For a Few Dollars More | Eugenio Alabiso, Giorgio Serrallonga, Adriana Novelli | 1965 |
| 87. The Third Man | Oswald Hafenrichter | 1949 |
| 88. Blow Out | Paul Hirsch | 1981 |
| 89. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World | Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss | 2010 |
| 90. Ran | Akira Kurosawa | 1985 |
| 91. Wings | E. Lloyd, Sheldon Lucien Hubbard | 1927 |
| 92. Alexander Nevsky | Sergei Eisenstein | 1938 |
| 93. North by Northwest | George Tomasini | 1959 |
| 94. Memento | Dody Dorn | 2000 |
| 95. Mother | Vsevolod Pudovkin | 1926 |
| 96. Juliet of the Spirits | Ruggero Mastroianni | 1965 |
| 97. Carrie | Paul Hirsch | 1976 |
| 98. Earth | Oleksandr Dovzhenko | 1930 |
| 99. The Lord of the Rings | John Gilbert, Michael J. Horton, Jamie Selkirk | 2001 |
| 100. Magnolia | Dylan Tichenor | 1999 |
Another incredible list! The only thing I might change is have Magnolia higher. Tokyo Story in the top 10 is an interesting (though certainly not unpleasant) touch. Would Dunkirk made it into the top 10 or 5?
Thanks @rujkoc! Something I certainly noticed while putting this together was the strength of editing across a lot of PTA films. Tokyo Story (and Ozu in general) very much breaks the mould of what you consider when it comes to great editing, but the precision and pacing of those pillow shots are hard to deny. I can certainly see Dunkirk taking a shot at the top 10, I would like to update this in a couple of years once that’s eligible.
Why is Taxi Driver so low? I feel something like 2001: A Space Odyssey is more built on long takes and world building rather than editing. May I say The Shining has better editing with the suspense/horror aspect?
I wouldn’t argue against a higher placement for Taxi Driver, but I wouldn’t say it’s low. You could be right about The Shining, it might be worth a revisit for that reason alone.
Very good, interesting list. It’s interesting to see The Godfather Part II higher than the The Godfather, and Tokyo Story in the top 10 (I haven’t seen either). I agree with 2001’s high ranking: the sound editing, the “Beyond the Infinite” sequence, the slow reveal of the monolith, etc. – if anything, it should be even higher. But I do think The Shining deserves a mention. I would put Citizen Kane in the top 5, for sure.
Breathless #7… I don’t understand… I really don’t understand. I did not get that movie at all.
The Godfather films are tough to compare in terms of editing – Part I might have the greatest single display of editing with the baptism, but Part II is built on that contrast between the past and present.
The argument for Breathless really lies in how much Godard breaks all the rules of continuity editing, and creates something so fresh and original from that. The jump cuts are a big part of that, but even the uneven rhythms are purposely uncomfortable.
Have you considered doing a top 100 for film form, or a top 50 formalists? That might be unique and interesting.
Wild that you haven’t seen The Godfather. That ‘s the first film that a cinephile should watch imo.
I haven’t seen The Godfather Part II or Tokyo Story (that was the either). I saw The Godfather (in theaters, actually).
You definitely need to see The Godfather Part 2.
I hoped to find it somewhere in theaters, like how I saw Part 1. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely.
I think I saw The Godfather for the 5th time in 2022 and 1st time in theaters when it was released for the 50th anniversary. Immensely rewatchable.
I have to say, Really shocked to see Hero not make the cut
Where would you place it on the list?