Git: How to list commits on this branch but not from merged branches

TLDR : git log origin/master --no-merges will give you a log of master and exclude any merged commits ( in this case x, y, z )

Original Points

There is another general way to go about this that doesn't rely on --first-parent which will be helpful in certain situations.. using the branch exclusion filters

git log origin/topic ^origin/master This will give you a log of origin/topic with all of origin/master's commits removed.

you could also add in --no-merges which will hide merge commits which you may or may not want.

Another handy tip is to use shortlog instead of log which will give you more of an abbreivated summary that can be handy for release notes, or communication of whats in a branch.

Update
After re-reading this, you actually would want nearly the inverse of what I posted; however it would end up excluding everything that is on master and foo ( git log origin/master ^origin/foo ) . However you could also get what you ask for ( hide all commits that are part of merges) with git log origin/master --no-merges

git log has option --first-parent, so you won't get topic history.

When merged from master, the master commits are the first parents in merge. Git log allows to display only those commits with --first-parent, so you get the right stuff.