1. Ocarina of Time
2. A Link to the Past
3. Majoras Mask
4. Minish Cap
5. The Wind Waker

1. A Link To Past

2. Ocarina of Time

3. The Wind Waker

4. Link's Awakenig

5. Twilight Princess GC version

Anybody who puts wind waker in the top 5 of their list needs to quit gaming right now. That game is a disgrace to the zelda franchise.
The top 5 end all list.

1) The Legend of Zelda (The beginning of it all, if anyone doesn't have this as #1 let alone not played it get the hell out)

2) Ocarina of Time (Brought the franchise to a whole new level with the installment on N64. End fight with Gannon is in my opinion the best of the franchise)

3) Link to the Past (Awesome!!! That's all that needs to be said. Bad ass dungeon s and paved the way for a new expansive world that held much to do)

4) Majora's Mask (The most in depth game of the series, so much to do in this game and beautiful story line)

5) Twilight Princess (I guess I have to put this here, hate to do it because the gameplay was so repetitive and boring. Link's Awakening deserves consideration but after wind waker any installment is a huge upgrade.)

Many people put Twilight and Wind waker high on their list. Have you played the first installments?!?! Because if you have and still rank them above any of the ones I have, sterilize yourself.

1. Ocarina of Time - Great, all around.  It has a wonderful mix of interesting NPCs, cool dungeons, and a nice-sized and interesting overworld to explore.

2. Majora's Mask - Excellent atmosphere, numerous interactive NPCs, and great sidequests, but somewhat weak dungeons and a small (but jampacked full of stuff) overworld.

3. Twilight Princess - Great dungeons, but few really interesting NPCs and a somewhat empty overworld (probably because of it's size).

4. Wind Waker - Great atmosphere and artstyle, cool NPCs on islands like Windfall, but the dungeons were crap (they gave you the third pearl for free!), and don't get me started on the Quest for the Triforce Shards.  The sailing was cool at first, but changing the wind direction became annoying after awhile.

5. Phantom Hourglass - I'm not finished this one yet, but I'm enjoying it.  It's at an obvious disadvantage for me, though, since it's a handheld title, and I'm not too big a fan of handhelds, and also it's quite short for a Zelda title, from what I hear.  The overworld is small, and the controls take awhile to get used to.  There aren't too many characters to talk to, and going through the same Temple over and over again gets old.

Keep in mind that any negatives I may point out are only in comparison to other Zelda titles.  All five games are excellent titles, imo, and the first four are in my top ten favorite games of all time.

I'll be starting a Link to the Past soon, so hopefully that will make the list as well. :)

 lol. funny, i had that same opinion for a long long time. i thought windwaker was a disgrace to the franchise, and i used to go on the zelda forums and say things like windwaker sucks and its not a real zelda game and stuff like that. i was really excited for twilight princess because i thought it was going to take zelda back to its roots, but it wasnt until that came out that i played windwaker and beat it 100%. (i even took all the pictures and got all the statues for them.) after that, i think it is a really good zelda game, i like it, but it still think its not top 5 material. have you actually played windwaker? its not as bad as it seems.

@angrypoolman
yeah i played it, I have to its a Zelda game haha. Changing winds and boating although awesome to begin with gets old real fast real boring. Triforce section at end sucked bad. They give you a piece!! Maps, tingle charges too much.

It was so easy too, it seems that after majora's mask, which was criticized for being too complicated(although an awesome game) and furthing it with the introduction of the wii, they tried to make wind waker and twilight princess accessible to a much younger crowd so they wouldn't get frustrated.

I love the Zelda games for their challenge, but these new iterations are becoming more and more a joke. What happened to the difficulty of Zelda 2: Adventure of Link? Awesome game. Most people that liked wind waker or Twilight have not ever played the earlier versions Legend, Adventure, Link to the Past

 I loved Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, and I'v PLAYED every game in the series, including beating The Legend Of Zelda 4 times, Zelda II 3 times, Link To The past 3 times, so I guess its down to personal taste, I love Zelda II and Majora's Mask, the harder ones, but both Wind Waker and Twiligh Princess are great games in the own way.

Nah, it seems we don't have taste. Pharaoh is a Zelda god, he's played them all too and beaten them 100%. Praise teh mastar.

1. The Wind Waker
2. Ocarina of Time
3. A Link to the Past
4. Twilight Princess
5. The Legend of Zelda

yeah i liked Wind Waker better than Ocarina....sue me

@SHMUPGurus

Thanks for the compliment man, im glad you agree anytime you want come bask in my glory.

@O-D-C

Yeah that's what I'm talking about, the other zelda games you want to keep replaying them and replaying them because they are awesome. When i finished wind waker and TP, I never wanted to pick them up again. If I want a Zelda fix, turn on the snes or N64.
Don't get me wrong they are good games, but not good enough for a Zelda game. Do you know what I mean? That's why I hate it when people say "oh Wind waker is awesome best Zelda game ever". Some if not most haven't played all of them.
I think you can agree with me that it doesn't belong in the top 5, and TP barely gets in there over link's awakening.