I would have to say:
1. Twilight Princess
2. A Link to the Past
3. The Legend of Zelda

I could never get past the water temple boss in MM, but it still ranks pretty high for me. It's above Wind Waker and OoT. But it can't touch LttP. Lttp is my favorite *game* ever, let alone Zelda game.

Haven't played Twilight Princess yet, and I didn't play enough of the first Zelda game or Minnish Cap to say anything about them.

This is tough but I'd have to vote this way:

1. Ocarina of Time (simply amazing for the time)
2. The Legend of Zelda (again, amazing for its time)
3. Twilight Princess (brilliant game, a little last gen so it gets bumped down)
4. Link to the Past (Like TP, seemed like an update to the original and wasn't that ground-breaking)
5. Majora's Mask (not nearly as good as OoT but still pretty damned good)

how can you say alttp wasn't groundbreaking? i think the original game was something like the basic script, but most of the features that make the series really great were introduced in alttp.

i can't understand why people like the first one so much anyway, but i think i'd have to have lived in that time to understand it. i only played it some years ago on the gba, but I thought it was not really playable while alttp is also absolutely great for a modern gamer.

Ocarina of Time, closely followed by Twilight Princess

Majora's Mask was a great game too, but i found it frustrating that a lot of your work was reset at the end of the three days

Easy..the one on the Philips!!!!!

JK Id say twilight princess, more area to roam freely (wii mote controller sucks for it though!

If you had played the original when it released, you would understand what I mean. LTTP, while great, IMO wasn't as good as some of the others on the list.

You have to remember that this is largely grasping at straws because damned near every Zelda game has been absolutely amazing. 

Yeah I guess it's really because I haven't played it back then, but it's only that when I play two games today and one is great and the other seems awful to me, I think there must be something in the newer game that makes the difference, and therefore it probably had something groundbreaking in it. But maybe it's also because of the other games at that time, I think the original was really something new while there where games in a similar style when alttp arrived.

If you'd asked me that a few months ago i would have said Ocarina hands down, but i dug out that gold cart with majora's mask on the front and rememberd how amazing it was, and now i can't decide which is better....so i'll say they're on par with each other in my opinion.

I've gotta go old school and say the original Legend of Zelda. The music is playing in my head even as I'm typing this.

Edit: Post 500, o_0 !!!