The Essential Ozzy Osbourne

The Essential Ozzy Osbourne is a compilation album by British heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne, released in 2003. It reached No. 7 on US charts^[4] and No. 21 in the UK.^[5] Tracks featured here from the first two albums are the re-recorded versions from recent reissues (see Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman) as well as the remixed Bark at the Moon tracks.^{[citation needed]} The album was certified Gold by the RIAA on 5 February 2005 with an excess of 500,000 copies sold,^[6] then certified Platinum by the RIAA on 3 March 2016.^[7] This compilation was re-released in 2009 as a Limited Edition 3.0 package with an additional disc of bonus songs that were not on the original release.

The album tracks from Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman are from the 2002 remasters, for which they were partially re-recorded. The original drum and bass tracks were replaced with recordings by Osbourne's then-current bassist Robert Trujillo and drummer Mike Bordin, as a management response to legal action by original bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake for unpaid royalty fees.

It does not feature any material from 1986's The Ultimate Sin; however, the limited edition bonus disc does include two tracks from it.

Following Osbourne's death in 2025, The Essential Ozzy Osbourne reached a new peak position of number seven on the US Billboard 200 after previously peaking at number 81 in 2003. In doing so, it became Osbourne's tenth album to reach the top ten on that chart, having last achieved this in 2022 with his studio album Patient Number 9. During the July 18–24 tracking week, The Essential Ozzy Osbourne registered 44,000 equivalent album units, of which 35,000 of those were attributed to streaming.^[8]