I really enjoyed the commentary on "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" by Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach. A little hard to hear sometimes, as they did it while sitting in a restaurant, but if you enjoy his movies, and really enjoy his writing like I do, it's worth the time.

I liked Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with Shane Black, Robert Downey Jr, and Val Kilmer.

Two come to mind...

The single BEST commentary I've EVER heard would be PT Anderson on the Boogie Nights DVD... so inspiring. If you don't walk away from that with a desire to raise up your game, I don't know what will.

My other fave would be McQuarrie and Singer on The Usual Suspects. Pretty fascinating all around.

For a mini-film school…on structure…and anything else you would want to know about making a film…I strongly suggest audio commentary on: El mariachi (Robert Rodriguez) and The Brothers McMullen (Edward Burns).

Great suggestions -- muchos appreciatos. That's probably not a thing.

- Adam

The commentary track on the Extended Editions of the Lord of the Rings with Fran Walsh, Philipa Boyens and Peter Jackson are pretty fascinating, too. Different scale of filmmaking, and the discussion focuses--understandably--on how they dealt with adapting such a huge/well-loved story.

And even if you're not focusing on an epic script or doing an adaptation, those three are fantastic writers period. Really easy listen, too.

- The first one that always springs to mind is Ron Moore and Brannon Braga on STAR TREK: GENERATIONS. It was their first feature and they are EXTREMELY candid about how the script got away from them and all the studio input/demands that resulted in the film turning out the way it did. Lots of great writing lessons to be found in this one.

- Gotta second KISS, KISS, BANG, BANG. Just a damn fun commentary.

- There are multiple commentaries on the various versions of TERMINATOR 2. My preference is for the one with just Cameron and writer Bill Wisher, but there's one track that incorporates about a dozen behind-the-scenes people.

- Richard Donner and Tom Mankiewicz are great storytellers on SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE

- Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson on SCREAM is a must for any horror fan.

- and Bob Gale's commentary on the BACK TO THE FUTURE movies is a must-hear for any fan of the trilogy, and the box set is insanely comprehensive with behind-the-scenes features.

Oh, and the commentary track on The Limey dvd with Soderbergh and Lem Dobbs (writer) is absolutely fantastic. It's a feature-length argument, and a great (and somewhat scary) look at what can happen to a script when a director implements his vision. Even when the director and the screenwriter are friends/work well together/shared similar ideas about the movie. Gulp.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-new-cult-canon-the-limey-filmmaker-commentary,23702/

That's a good preview of it. A little overly cynical, though--not totally sure I would agree with the horrifically bleak views on how doomed they make keeping your script intact.

Anyways. Great commentary track, and extremely informative.

For the most entertaining commentary you will ever hear, you have to check out "Used Cars". The commentary track with Zemeckis, Russell and Gale is just great. Trust me when I say that it is worth buying the DVD just for that. Not to mention its one of the best comedies from the 80's and largely unseen by most.

came in to say boogie nights but i'll also add QT talking about True Romance.

David Koepp and William Goldman did a pretty nifty one for PANIC ROOM.

I'm big on DVD commenaries. I'll try to recall some of the more notable ones. (Some commentaries invariably include other aspects of filmmaking such as direction, casting, etc)

Ken Nolan and Mark Bowden on BLACK HAWK DOWN.

Michael Mann on HEAT and MIAMI VICE; he comments his directorial choices, sure. But he also offers insights into his writing.

Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi on AEON FLUX is an interesting look at the compromises screenwriters have to sometimes make.

Hampton Fancher and David Peoples on the final cut of BLADE RUNNER.

Francis Ford Coppola on PATTON, APOCALYPSE NOW and GODFATHER TRILOGY.

Joss Wheedon on SERENITY.

Scott Frank and Steven Soderbergh on OUT OF SIGHT.

Guillermo Del Toro on PAN'S LABYRINTH.

The commentary on PotC: Black Pearl is especially cool because along with Rossio and Elliot, it also has the first two writers on the project. So you get a lot of interesting discussion about how the story changed as it went from writer to writer before reaching Rossio & Elliot, who of course came up with the game-saving idea of making it a supernatural pirate flick. So it's an instructive behind the scenes look at what happens when a project goes through multiple teams of writers.

Patrick Sweeney
I Blame Ninjas

I remember Michael Arndt contributing nicely with the directors on "Little Miss Sunshine".

Donald Westlake did a great commentary for The Grifters, really getting into the craft of writing scenes and adapting another author's work.

There's Something About Mary has a lot of good screenwriter commentary, both from Ed Decter and John Strauss who wrote the original screenplay and from the Farrelly brothers who rewrote it and directed the movie.
There is also some good commentary on the actors' performances and how they brought so much more than what was on the page.

"Blazing Saddles" has a great Mel Brooks commentary. He was one of the writers, and directed.

i second the Little Miss Sunshine. particularly the ones in the unused endings. Listening to them say why each bit just didn't work was great. I've seen a lot of scripts that just didn't know how to end the tale well. Seems like it can be as big a problem as starting them

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Heat
Collateral (though Mann wasn't really a writer on it, he did contribute a lot of interesting writing info on that commentary)

I loved the commentary of "A Beautiful Mind " by Akiva Glodsman(writer) and Director(Ron Howard).It was quite informative.