The Best Movies of the 2020s (So Far)
The decade is more than half over, which is long enough to say which of its films have lasted. These are the ones from 2020 onward that critics rate highly and ordinary viewers genuinely love, picked to cover every kind of night: blockbusters, comedies, animation, horror, romance, and a handful in other languages that are worth the subtitles.
The split that matters is between films that hit hardest the first time and films that grow afterward. Top Gun: Maverick, RRR and Godzilla Minus One are pure, immediate pleasure, ideal for a crowd. Aftersun, Past Lives and Drive My Car are quiet on the night and enormous a week later. Everything Everywhere All at Once and Sinners somehow manage both.
Several are long and a few are hard going: The Zone of Interest is set beside Auschwitz, Killers of the Flower Moon runs well past three hours, and Anora is sexually explicit. For families, The Wild Robot, Flow and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse are the picks. For the very newest films, see The Best New Movies; for more in other languages, Foreign-Language Films Worth the Subtitles; for animation aimed at adults, Animated Movies for Grown-Ups.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Movie · 2022The film that best captures the decade: a laundromat owner buried in tax paperwork discovers she can borrow skills from other versions of herself. Absurd and overwhelming for most of its length, then a deeply moving story about a mother and daughter. It won Best Picture and holds up on a rewatch.
Oppenheimer
Movie · 2023Christopher Nolan's three-hour biography of the man who led the atomic bomb project, built first like a thriller and then like a courtroom drama. Cillian Murphy is haunting in the lead, and the Trinity test sequence is one of the great scenes of the decade. It won Best Picture.
Top Gun: Maverick
Movie · 2022The sequel nobody asked for that turned into the decade's best pure blockbuster. Tom Cruise trains young pilots for an impossible mission, and the cast really flew in fighter jets for the cockpit footage. You don't need to remember the 1986 original, but the payoff lands harder if you do.
Sinners
Movie · 2025The decade's best genre film so far: a juke-joint drama in 1930s Mississippi that becomes a vampire siege, about music, ownership and what gets taken from Black artists. Ryan Coogler won the original screenplay Oscar. Bloody and sexy, with a blues soundtrack you'll want to hear again.
Past Lives
Movie · 2023Two childhood sweethearts from Seoul meet again in New York twenty-four years later, when she's married. Nothing dramatic happens, and it's devastating anyway. Celine Song's first film and one of the best date-night picks of the decade, as long as you're both happy to talk afterward. Partly in Korean.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Movie · 2023Somehow even more inventive than the first, with every universe drawn in its own art style. Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy carry a story that's funny, emotional and enormous. One warning: it ends on a cliffhanger, and the next part isn't out yet. Great for older kids who can handle a long, intense movie.
Dune: Part Two
Movie · 2024The rare sci-fi epic that feels genuinely alien: vast deserts, giant sandworms, and Timothée Chalamet's Paul turning from refugee into something frightening. Watch Denis Villeneuve's first Dune before this one; together they're the best big-screen science fiction of the decade.
One Battle After Another
Movie · 2025Paul Thomas Anderson's most entertaining film: a stoner ex-radical, a fierce teenage daughter, a sinister colonel and a country coming apart, loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland. It belongs here because it's thrilling as well as timely, which is a rarer combination than it should be.
The Holdovers
Movie · 2023A cranky teacher, a troublemaking student and a grieving cook are stuck at a New England boarding school over Christmas 1970. Paul Giamatti is wonderful and Da'Vine Joy Randolph won an Oscar. It looks and feels like a lost 1970s film, and it's the warmest pick on this list.
Anatomy of a Fall
Movie · 2023A writer is found dead in the snow outside a mountain chalet, and his wife becomes the suspect. The trial that follows is gripping because the film never tells you what really happened. Sandra Hüller is extraordinary. It won the Palme d'Or; in French and English with subtitles.
The Wild Robot
Movie · 2024A robot washed up on a wild island ends up raising an orphaned gosling. The painterly animation is gorgeous, and the story will make parents cry harder than their kids. The best family film of the decade so far; expect animal deaths, mostly off screen, and a tense robot attack, so it's best from about eight.
Barbie
Movie · 2023Greta Gerwig's comedy about the doll leaving Barbieland for the real world is smarter, stranger and funnier than a toy movie had any right to be, and Ryan Gosling's Ken nearly steals it. Rated PG-13 for suggestive references and brief language, so fine for most tweens.
Godzilla Minus One
Movie · 2023A Japanese Godzilla film set just after World War II, about a former kamikaze pilot who couldn't go through with his mission. The monster scenes are terrifying, but the human story is what people remember. It won the visual effects Oscar on a fraction of a Hollywood budget. In Japanese with subtitles.
The Banshees of Inisherin
Movie · 2022On a tiny Irish island in 1923, a man's best friend suddenly announces he doesn't want to be friends anymore. Very funny for an hour, then grim. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson reunite from In Bruges. Be warned about some shocking self-inflicted violence, and a much-loved donkey.
Conclave
Movie · 2024The pope has died, the cardinals are locked in to choose the next one, and Ralph Fiennes is the man running the vote. A gossipy, twisty political thriller in red robes, and an easy crowd-pleaser for a room of adults with different tastes. Rated PG, surprisingly.
Palm Springs
Movie · 2020Two wedding guests get stuck reliving the same day in the desert, and the time loop turns into the best romantic comedy of the decade. Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti are perfect together, and it's about ninety minutes long. Raunchier than most romcoms, with sex, drugs and constant swearing; ideal for a date night.
RRR
Movie · 2022Three hours of the most joyful action filmmaking of the decade: two revolutionaries in 1920s India, a great friendship, and set pieces involving tigers, motorcycles and a dance-off whose song won an Oscar. In Telugu with subtitles, and best with a crowd.
Aftersun
Movie · 2022A woman remembers a vacation in Turkey with her young dad in the late 1990s, and slowly understands what she couldn't see at the time. Quiet, sunlit and devastating, with an Oscar-nominated Paul Mescal. Hard to describe, and the people who love it really love it.
Anora
Movie · 2024A young Brooklyn stripper impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch, and his family sends men to undo it. Sean Baker's film is a screwball comedy, then a romance, then something sadder. It won Best Picture. Frequent explicit sex and nudity, so not one for watching with family.
Flow
Movie · 2024A small cat survives a great flood on a boat with a capybara, a dog, a lemur and a bird. There's no dialogue at all, so it works in any language, though the near-constant peril makes it best from about seven. Made in Latvia using free software, and it beat the big studios to the animated feature Oscar.
The Worst Person in the World
Movie · 2021Twelve chapters in the life of a woman in Oslo approaching thirty who can't settle on a career or a man. Funny, romantic and painfully recognizable. Renate Reinsve, who also leads Sentimental Value, made her name here. In Norwegian with subtitles, and a good one for couples.
Drive My Car
Movie · 2021A grieving actor and director rehearses Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima while a quiet young woman drives his car. Close to three hours, mostly conversation, and it never drags. Adapted from a Haruki Murakami story and winner of the international feature Oscar. In Japanese with subtitles.
Nomadland
Movie · 2020Frances McDormand as a widow who sets off in a van to live and work on the road across the American West, alongside real-life nomads playing themselves. Chloé Zhao, who later made Hamnet, won Best Picture and director for it. Slow, spare and very beautiful.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Movie · 2023Martin Scorsese's account of the murders of Osage people in 1920s Oklahoma for their oil money, with Lily Gladstone as the woman at its center and Leonardo DiCaprio as her husband. Well over three hours, deliberate and angry. An important watch rather than an enjoyable one.
The Zone of Interest
Movie · 2023A commandant's family tends their garden and plans their lives next to the wall of Auschwitz. You never see inside the camp; you hear it, constantly. Jonathan Glazer's film is the hardest watch on this list and one of the most important. In German with subtitles; watch it alone and attentively.
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Picks are editorial recommendations. Streaming availability changes by region and over time — the “where to stream” links check current availability on JustWatch.