Giải Tinh thần độc lập cho phim hay nhất

Giải Tinh thần độc lập cho phim hay nhất là một trong các giải Tinh thần độc lập được trao hàng năm cho một phim độc lập, được bầu chọn là hay nhất. Giải này được lập từ năm 1985.

Các phim đoạt giải & được đề cử

Thập niên 1980

1985: After Hours
- Blood Simple.
- Smooth Talk
- The Trip to Bountiful
1986: Platoon
- Blue Velvet
- Down by Law
- On Valentine's Day
- Salvador
- Stand by Me
1987: River's Edge
- The Big Easy
- Matewan
- Swimming to Cambodia
- Tough Guys Don't Dance
1988: Stand and Deliver
- Hairspray
- Patti Rocks
- The Thin Blue Line
- Torch Song Trilogy
1989: sex, lies, and videotape
- Drugstore Cowboy
- Heat and Sunlight
- Mystery Train
- True Love

Thập niên 1990

1990: The Grifters
- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
- The Plot Against Harry
- Pump Up the Volume
- To Sleep with Anger
1991: Rambling Rose
- City of Hope
- Hangin' with the Homeboys
- Homicide
- My Own Private Idaho
1992: The Player
- Bad Lieutenant
- Gas, Food Lodging
- Mississippi Masala
- One False Move
1993: Short Cuts
- Equinox
- Hsi yen (The Wedding Banquet)
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Ruby in Paradise
1994: Pulp Fiction
- Bullets Over Broadway
- Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
- New Nightmare
- Yin shi nan nu (Eat Drink Man Woman)
1995: Leaving Las Vegas
- The Addiction
- Living in Oblivion
- Safe
- The Secret of Roan Inish
1996: Fargo
- Dead Man
- The Funeral
- Lone Star
- Welcome to the Dollhouse
1997: The Apostle
- Chasing Amy
- Loved
- Ulee's Gold
- Waiting for Guffman
1998: Gods and Monsters
- Affliction
- Claire Dolan
- A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries
- Velvet Goldmine
1999: Election
- Cookie's Fortune
- The Limey
- The Straight Story
- Sugar Town

Thập niên 2000

2000: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo hu cang long)
- Before Night Falls
- George Washington
- Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
- Requiem for a Dream
2001: Memento
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch
- L.I.E.
- Things Behind the Sun
- Waking Life
2002: Far From Heaven
- The Good Girl
- Lovely & Amazing
- Secretary
- Tully
2003: Lost in Translation
- American Splendor
- In America
- Raising Victor Vargas
- Shattered Glass
2004: Sideways
- How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass
- Kinsey
- Maria Full of Grace (Maria, eres llena de gracia)
- Primer
2005: Brokeback Mountain
- Capote
- Good Night, and Good Luck.
- The Squid and the Whale
- The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
2006: Little Miss Sunshine
- American Gun
- The Dead Girl
- Half Nelson
- Pan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno)
2007: Juno
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le scaphandre et le papillon)
- I'm Not There
- A Mighty Heart
- Paranoid Park
2008: The Wrestler
- Ballast
- Frozen River
- Rachel Getting Married
- Wendy and Lucy