National Board of Review Award / Best Film

Winner of the National Board of Review in the category Best Film (Best Film) .

The most successful in this category was the American film director Steven Spielberg , whose films have received four awards. The film critics' association was able to present the Oscar winner 21 times in advance , most recently in 2018, with the award of the award to the feature film production Green Book - A Special Friendship .

The annual figures in the table indicate the film years assessed; the awards were given in the following year.

year	Award winners	German title	Director
1932	I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang	I am an escaped chain convict	Mervyn LeRoy
1933	Topaze	not known	Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast
1934	It Happened One Night *	It happened in one night	Frank Capra
1935	The Informer	The traitor	John Ford
1936	Mr. Deeds Goes to Town	Mr. Deeds is going into town	Frank Capra
1937	Night Must Fall	not known	Richard Thorpe
1938	The Citadel	The citadel	King Vidor
1939	Confessions of a Nazi Spy	I was a Nazi spy	Anatole Litvak
1940	The Grapes of Wrath	Grapes of Wrath	John Ford
1941	Citizen Kane	Citizen Kane	Orson Welles
1942	In Which We Serve	not known	Noël Coward David Lean
1943	The Ox-Bow Incident	Ride to the Ox-Bow	William A. Wellman
1944	None But the Lonely Heart	not known	Clifford Odets
1945	The True Glory	not known	Garson Kanin
1946	Henry V	Henry V.	Laurence Olivier
1947	Monsieur Verdoux	Monsieur Verdoux - The woman murderer of Paris	Charles Chaplin
1948	Paisà	Paisà	Roberto Rossellini
1949	Ladri di biciclette	Bicycle thieves	Vittorio De Sica
1950	Sunset Boulevard	Twilight Boulevard	Billy Wilder
1951	A place in the sun	A place in the Sun	George Stevens
1952	The Quiet Man	The winner	John Ford
1953	Julius Caesar	Julius Caesar	Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1954	On The Waterfront *	The fist on the neck	Elia Kazan
1955	Marty *	Marty	Delbert man
1956	Around the World in 80 Days *	In 80 days around the world	Michael Anderson
1957	The Bridge on the River Kwai *	The bridge on the Kwai	David Lean
1958	The Old Man and the Sea	the old Man and the Sea	John Sturges
1959	The Nun's Story	Story of a nun	Fred Zinnemann
1960	Sons and Lovers	Sons and lovers	Jack Cardiff
1961	Question 7	Question seven	Stuart Rosenberg
1962	The Longest Day	The longest day	Ken Annakin Andrew Marton Gerd Oswald Bernhard Wicki
1963	Tom Jones *	Tom Jones - Between the bed and the gallows	Tony Richardson
1964	Becket	Becket	Peter Glenville
1965	The Eleanor Roosevelt Story	not known	Richard Kaplan
1966	A Man for All Seasons *	A man for every season	Fred Zinnemann
1967	Far from the Madding Crowd	The mistress of Thornhill	John Schlesinger
1968	The Shoes of the Fisherman	In the fisherman's shoes	Michael Joseph Anderson
1969	They Shoot Horses, Don't They?	Only horses are given the coup de grace	Sydney Pollack
1970	Patton *	Patton - rebel in uniform	Franklin J. Schaffner
1971	The Tragedy of Macbeth	Macbeth	Roman Polanski
1972	Cabaret	Cabaret	Bob Fosse
1973	The Sting *	The highlight	George Roy Hill
1974	The conversation	The dialogue	Francis Ford Coppola
1975	Nashville	Nashville	Robert Altman
1976	All the President's Men	The incorruptible	Alan J. Pakula
1977	The turning point	At the turning point	Herbert Ross
1978	Days of Heaven	In the embers of the south	Terrence Malick
1979	Manhattan	Manhattan	Woody Allen
1980	Ordinary People *	A perfectly normal family	Robert Redford
1981	Chariots of Fire *	The hour of the victor	Hugh Hudson
	Reds	Reds	Warren Beatty
1982	Gandhi *	Gandhi	Richard Attenborough
1983	Betrayal	Amounted to	David Hugh Jones
	Terms of endearment *	Time of tenderness	James L. Brooks
1984	A Passage to India	Trip to India	David Lean
1985	The Color Purple	The colour purple	Steven Spielberg
1986	A room with a view	room with view	James Ivory
1987	Empire of the Sun	The realm of the sun	Steven Spielberg
1988	Mississippi Burning	Mississippi Burning - The Root of Hatred	Alan Parker
1989	Driving Miss Daisy *	Miss Daisy and her chauffeur	Bruce Beresford
1990	Dances With Wolves *	The one, who dances with the wolf	Kevin Costner
1991	The Silence of the Lambs *	The silence of the Lambs	Jonathan Demme
1992	Howard's End	See you in Howards End	James Ivory
1993	Schindler's List *	Schindlers List	Steven Spielberg
1994	Forrest Gump*	Forrest Gump	Robert Zemeckis
	pulp Fiction	pulp Fiction	Quentin Tarantino
1995	Sense & Sensibility	Sense and sensuality	Ang Lee
1996	Shine	Shine - the way into light	Scott Hicks
1997	LA Confidential	LA Confidential	Curtis Hanson
1998	Gods and Monsters	Gods and Monsters	Bill Condon
1999	American Beauty *	American Beauty	Sam Mendes
2000	Quills	Quills - power of obsession	Philip Kaufman
2001	Moulin Rouge!	Moulin Rouge!	Baz Luhrmann
2002	The Hours	The Hours - From Eternity to Eternity	Stephen Daldry
2003	Mystic River	Mystic River	Clint Eastwood
2004	Finding Neverland	when dreams learn to fly	Marc Forster
2005	Good Night, and Good Luck.	Good Night, and Good Luck	George Clooney
2006	Letters from Iwo Jima	Letters from Iwo Jima	Clint Eastwood
2007	No Country for Old Men *	No Country for Old Men	Ethan and Joel Coen
2008	Slumdog Millionaire *	Slumdog millionaire	Danny Boyle
2009	Up in the air	Up in the air	Jason Reitman
2010	The social network	The social network	David Fincher
2011	Hugo	Hugo Cabret	Martin Scorsese
2012	Zero Dark Thirty	Zero Dark Thirty	Kathryn Bigelow
2013	Her	Her	Spike Jonze
2014	A Most Violent Year	A Most Violent Year	JC Chandor
2015	Mad Max: Fury Road	Mad Max: Fury Road	George Miller
2016	Manchester by the Sea	Manchester by the Sea	Kenneth Lonergan
2017	The Post	The publisher	Steven Spielberg
2018	Green Book *	Green Book - A special friendship	Peter Farrelly
2019	The Irishman	The Irishman	Martin Scorsese

* = Film productions, later the Oscar as Best Picture of the Year won