"As the DGA celebrates its 80th anniversary this year, we decided to poll our members to see what they consider the 80 greatest directorial achievements in feature films since the Guild’s founding in 1936. (Features directed by nonmembers were eligible.) Many organizations and critics groups have compiled similar lists, but this was an opportunity for the people who actually do the job to focus specifically on the work of the director and his or her team. Members participating totaled 2,189 (13.7 percent of all Guild members). As in any poll of this nature, there are bound to be choices you disagree with, and other films you would have included—that’s part of the fun. But we think you’ll find this list thought-provoking and a fitting tribute to the timeless work of our great directors.top ten favorite movie titles to collectively build our list of the 100 best movies of all time. Now it's time to see how you compare. Have you seen The Turin Horse, which falls in the top three of Oscar winner Juliette Binoche's list? Do you agree with Michael C. Hall's favorites To Kill a Mockingbird or the modern classic Goodfellas? Find out how high you score in the below checklist—and get to watching the movies you've been missing out on!"
- Directors Guild of America (DGA)
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.
The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.
Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial object buried beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer H.A.L. 9000, sets off on a quest.
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York is portrayed while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on his crime syndicate stretching from Lake Tahoe, Nevada to pre-revolution 1958 Cuba.
During the Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade colonel who has set himself up as a god among a local tribe.
In German-occupied Poland during World War II, Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazi Germans.
A manipulative Southern belle carries on a turbulent affair with a blockade runner during the American Civil War.
Henry Hill and his friends work their way up through the mob hierarchy.
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption and murder.
Dorothy Gale is swept away to a magical land in a tornado and embarks on a quest to see the Wizard who can help her return home.
An emotionally self-destructive boxer's journey through life, as the violence and temper that leads him to the top in the ring destroys his life outside it.
When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist and a grizzled fisherman set out to stop it.
An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.
An insane general triggers a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically try to stop.
Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency.
A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle-station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader.
A blade runner must pursue and try to terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
An ex-prize fighter turned longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses.
The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.
A troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape Earth and return to his home-world.
Neurotic New York comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the ditzy Annie Hall.
Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.
A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves.
In future Britain, charismatic delinquent Alex DeLarge is jailed and volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society's crime problem - but not all goes according to plan.
Archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis.
A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.
Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice.
A Phoenix secretary steals $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
A Civil War veteran embarks on a journey to rescue his niece from an Indian tribe.
Forrest Gump, while not intelligent, has accidentally been present at many historic moments, but his true love, Jenny Curran, eludes him.
A silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.
A harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.
Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
Three World War II veterans return home to small-town America to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed.
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, a British colonel co-operates to oversee his men's construction of a railway bridge for their captors - while oblivious to a plan by the Allies to destroy it.
A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.
A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients.
A woman leaves an Austrian convent to become a governess to the children of a Naval officer widower.
A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge for violent action, attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute in the process.
A seventeen-year-old aristocrat falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic.
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.
The incredible story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, told by his peer and secret rival Antonio Salieri - now confined to an insane asylum.
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during the First World War and then the October Revolution.
Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.
When two musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.
Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson.
A young F.B.I. cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims.
A man tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.
A paraplegic marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.
During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.
Fred Dobbs and Bob Curtin, two Americans searching for work in Mexico, convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Illustrated upon the progress of his latest Broadway play, a former popular actor's struggle to cope with his current life as a wasted actor is shown.
An ingenue insinuates herself into the company of an established but aging stage actress and her circle of theater friends.
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the U.S. Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of people in a small industrial town in Pennsylvania.
A story of family, religion, hatred, oil and madness, focusing on a turn-of-the-century prospector in the early days of the business.
In Chicago in September 1936, a young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a criminal banker.
An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.
After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as distress call, their landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious lifeform. Continuing their journey back to Earth with the attacked crew having recovered and the critter deceased, they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.
Rocky Balboa, a small-time boxer, gets a supremely rare chance to fight the heavy-weight champion, Apollo Creed, in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect.
A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
Gandhi's character is fully explained as a man of nonviolence. Through his patience, he is able to drive the British out of the subcontinent. And the stubborn nature of Jinnah and his commitment towards Pakistan is portrayed.
Set in Post-WWII Italy, a working class man's bicycle is stolen. He and his son set out to find it.
A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.
A bureaucrat in a retro-future world tries to correct an administrative error and himself becomes an enemy of the state.
A poor Midwest family is forced off of their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
"The Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Richard Nixon's resignation.
An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England.
A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in a Mexican border town.
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Retired Old West gunslinger William Munny reluctantly takes on one last job, with the help of his old partner and a young man.
A sole survivor tells of the twisty events leading up to a horrific gun battle on a boat, which begin when five criminals meet at a seemingly random police lineup.
A television network cynically exploits a deranged former anchor's ravings and revelations about the news media for its own profit.
A heinous crime and its aftermath are recalled from differing points of view.
Epic story of a mysterious stranger with a harmonica who joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad.