15 Best Movies Of The 2020s (So Far), According To IMDb

The Internet Movie Database (or IMDb) remains one of the largest and most enduring online platforms for movie fans to discuss and debate their favorite films. Even as it faces fresh competition from sites like Letterboxd seeking to attract serious cinephiles to create the next virtual destination for entertainment discourse, IMDb continues to field hundreds of thousands of reviews for popular films from around the world.

As such, their official rankings can provide an interesting if incomplete look at what films actually made the biggest impact culturally, as opposed to which films were merely critically acclaimed, went viral on Twitter, or were financially successful. Given that we’re now over halfway through the 2020s, we decided to investigate the movies IMDb users collectively consider to be the best films of the decade so far.

We had to implement necessary ranking filters to ensure the list reflected internationally popular features as much as possible. Most notably, we only considered films with 200,000 reviews or more. While this exacerbates the unavoidable bias toward blockbusters and viral movies, it does provide us with a fascinating rundown of the work that might define this uniquely volatile and transformative era of cinema.

Here are the 15 best movies of the 2020s, according to IMDb.

IMDb Rating: 7.9

Number of Reviews: 470K

All right, hold on. Before you lose all faith in this list and click away from the article (which, we’re required to inform you, will leave us no option but to strap the writer of this article into a “Clockwork Orange” style contraption to watch both parts of “Rebel Moon” back-to-back), the fact that Zack Snyder’s “Justice League” made it onto this list isn’t that surprising. We’d describe it as a deceptively unwarranted feat, justified at the very least by the historic (if often sycophantic) fervor that willed it into existence.

The original 2017 iteration of “Justice League” was irreparably mangled by studio intervention, and even the harshest critics of this unwieldy and indulgent 242-minute director’s cut have to admit its superiority. We here at /Film found it to be a fascinating and uneven experiment, using its ridiculous runtime to expand on Snyder’s inarguably ambitious mythological vision for the then-uncertain future of the DC Extended Universe. The DCEU would ultimately come to a close two years after “Justice League” hit HBO Max.

Nevertheless, Zack Snyder’s “Justice League” is an undeniably herculean filmmaking achievement. In our ranking of the director’s filmography, it remains at the top.

IMDb Rating: 7.9

Number of Reviews: 464K

This one is a bit of a shock to us, as “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is not even at the top of our own ranking for the franchise. While the 2023 trilogy-capper and quasi-swan song for Marvel Studios favorite James Gunn is certainly one of the better Marvel movies to come out in the post-“Avengers: Endgame” era, we “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” to be a remarkably rushed and uneven end for our favorite intergalactic a-holes. It’s a solid sci-fi action comedy, just not one you’d expect to see on a list like this (heck, we’d sooner expect Gunn’s “Superman” to make an appearance).

Despite the fact that it doesn’t impact the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “Guardians 3” is a wild, expansive romp that unexpectedly focuses heavily on the character Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper). As he heals from his own psychological and emotional trauma (inflicted upon him by Chukwudi Iwuji’s High Evolutionary), the rest of the team makes peace with the strange, often painful lives they’ve each managed to grow beyond. The film grossed well over $800 million worldwide, a rare and bittersweet victory for the studio during this era, given that it was won by a director they essentially chased away.

IMDb Rating: 8.0

Number of Reviews: 443K

“Soul” fared better than many other pandemic-era films in terms of viewership and even box office receipts. Despite being released for free on Disney+ for American subscribers in 2020, countries like China, Russia, and South Korea helped the film cross $120 million worldwide. Even so, Disney and Pixar’s “Soul” is an existential and ambitious odyssey through the life, death, and bizarre reincarnation of an ordinary jazz musician, and it remains one of the most underrated films of the 2020s so far. Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey lead the voice cast of Pete Docter’s film, respectively playing a recently deceased music teacher and the yet-to-be-born soul who takes over his body when they manage to return to Earth.

When “Soul” was finally given a theatrical release in 2024, it failed to gross even $1 million. Given that it is one of just three animated films to make it onto this list (with over 440,000 reviews no less), perhaps being stuck at home during the pandemic with little to do but watch and talk about movies online helped the film reach much of the excited, engaged audience it deserved. At the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021, “Soul” took home the awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score (Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste).

IMDb Rating: 8.0

Number of Reviews: 204K

If “CODA” isn’t on your personal list of the best films of the decade, it would be fair to question whether or not it had been overlooked. This familiar yet deeply moving coming-of-age charmer flew under the radar in 2021, starring future “Task” actor Emilia Jones as a young, hearing girl growing up in a family of non-hearing adults.

“CODA” was something of a surprise success when awards season came around. Going up against buzzy, star-studded dramas like Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up,” Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” and Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” (arguably the frontrunner, going into the evening with 12 nominations), “CODA” won Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Troy Kotsur), and Best Picture. Winning the latter award was a historic moment for the industry, as “CODA” was not only the first Sundance premiere to win Best Picture, but the first streaming film to do so as well. (Netflix, the distributor of “Don’t Look Up,” has yet to accomplish this feat as of writing.)

IMDb Rating: 8.0

Number of Reviews: 1M

Uncoupled from its sequel, “Dune: Part One” likely won’t land on most “best movies of the decade” lists. Though this visually stunning ensemble epic kicked off the next great sci-fi franchise, it drew some light criticism for clearly being the first, only somewhat less-exciting first half of an ambitious story.

“Dune” was one of the last yet least-affected films to fall victim to Warner Bros.’ polarizing “day-and-date” release strategy, which (as critics argued) effectively cannibalized a film’s box office potential by releasing it for free on HBO Max the same day it hit theaters (which proponents argued serviced those who didn’t want to risk COVID exposure). It managed to gross over $400 million, ending the year as the 11th-highest-grossing film of 2021. Not bad for a movie competing with a free version of itself.

The same year “CODA” took home Best Picture, “Dune” held the distinction of being the evening’s most-awarded film. It was nominated for 10 awards total, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Score (Hans Zimmer), and Best Cinematography (Greig Fraser of “The Batman”). It won six, including the latter two mentioned above.

IMDb Rating: 8.2

Number of Reviews: 242K

Florian Zeller’s “The Father” is a deceptively unassuming drama. Starring Anthony Hopkins as an aging man and Olivia Colman as the daughter caring for him as he wrestles with a progressive Alzheimer’s diagnosis, the 2020 film is quietly one of the greatest cinematic dramas ever produced.

“The Father” drew widespread critical acclaim after its festival premiere in January of 2020. Though it would ultimately not see a wide release until the summer of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that may have wound up being a blessing in disguise. The quiet drama generated significant awards buzz at the 93rd Oscars, earning several nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Colman), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor (Hopkins). It took home the latter two, and went on to gross $24 million against a budget of $6 million. A self-contained prequel — titled “The Son”– was released in 2022, starring Hugh Jackman.

IMDb Rating: 8.2

Number of Reviews: 1M

After the embattled COVID-era rollout of his polarizing science fiction thriller “Tenet,” “Oppenheimer” was a make-or-break film for Christopher Nolan. The director had divided fans of his career-defining “Dark Knight” trilogy with a somewhat uneven finale a decade earlier and had since failed to make the same cultural impact through subsequent, varyingly well-received films. (Though “Interstellar” has since earned a reputation as one of the most enduring films of the 2010s, it was far from a critical darling at the time).

Working with a new studio partner in Universal Pictures, Nolan produced a true historical epic that redefines what fans of the genre expect going forward. The delicately crafted blockbuster biopic chronicles the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (played in the film by Cillian Murphy), particularly focusing on his feud with politician Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) and his role in inventing the atomic bomb.

By the end of the decade, it’s hard to imagine anyone will be arguing that “Oppenheimer” wasn’t one of the greatest cinematic achievements of the 2020s. In addition to being both massively popular and a box office smash (thanks in part to the singular cultural moment that was “Barbenheimer,” it grossed over $975 million), Nolan’s masterpiece was a critical darling that dominated the 2023-2024 awards season. It was nominated for 13 Academy Awards, winning seven including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Murphy), and Best Supporting Actor (Downey).

IMDb Rating: 8.4

Number of Reviews: 719K

“Dune: Part One” was an auspicious yet muted launch for a sci-fi franchise, faintly signaling a potential that COVID kept at bay. “Dune: Part Two” proved the next “Star Wars” had arrived. Picking up from the cliffhanger ending of the first film, it tracked the darkly messianic rise of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) as he leads Arrakis toward retribution against the Harkonnens.

“Dune: Part Two” conquered the worldwide box office, grossing over $714 million. Culturally, it was impactful enough that it’s not unreasonable to imagine it will be remembered as one of the most important films of the 2020s — maybe even one of the best. It earned multiple Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, ultimately losing to Sean Baker’s erotic dramedy “Anora.” Since the film’s release, the “Dune” franchise has expanded to include a prequel television series (“Dune: Prophecy”) and an upcoming third film directed by Villeneuve.

IMDb Rating: 8.5

Number of Reviews: 579K

Of all the films on this list, we’re most skeptical of “The Kashmir Files,” a Bollywood political thriller that has a much stronger chance of being remembered as one of the most inflammatory movies of the decade, rather than one of the best. It was hardly a critical hit when it was released in 2022: Out of the five critics that had reviews registered by Rotten Tomatoes, three were overwhelmingly negative The consensus was that, in addition to lacking dramatic effectiveness, the film eschews nuance surrounding the real mass exodus of Pandits from the Kashmir Valley in order to use history as a means of stoking Hindu nationalist sentiment.

It’s a provocative claim, though not an unfounded one. Indian Prime Minister and BJP member Narendra Modi championed the film amidst reports from mainstream news outlets that it had sparked waves of anti-Muslim hate speech online.

IMDb Rating: 8.5

Number of Reviews: 511K

Next to “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Dune: Part Two” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” helped make the 2020s the decade of the sequel. The 2023 animated film captivates even in spite of its narrative incompleteness, taking the saga of Miles Morales in a challenging new direction while raising the bar yet again through groundbreakingly imaginative and meticulous animation.

Though it’s probably unlikely that it comes to be regarded as one of the best films of the decade at the end of the 2020s, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” will almost certainly be hailed as one of the best animated films, superhero films, and sequels of the 2020s (even if it did lose the Best Animated Feature Oscar to Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron”). It grossed over $690 million worldwide, and its thrilling cliffhanger ending has generated hype for a climactic forthcoming sequel.

IMDb Rating: 8.6

Number of Reviews: 233K

The Kollywood legal biopic “Jai Bhim” might not have been as big of a hit in the United States, but it will surely be remembered as one of the best Indian films of the decade. Written and directed by T. J. Gnanavel, this 2021 feature explores social and political injustice within the Indian caste system by dramatizing a real 1993 case centered around future judge and activist K. Chandru, portrayed in the film by the mononymous Kollywood superstar Suriya.

Unlike “The Kashmir Files,” the presence and placement of “Jai Bhim” doesn’t belie its critical reception. The film enjoys a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 7 reviews, and the international audience it found through a release on Amazon Prime Video has broadly praised it for illuminating social issues that those outside India might be ignorant of. On Letterboxd, it was one of the highest-rated international films of 2021.