Ranking Every Movie of 2020 (sort of)

The headline says it all. Every year, in addition to publishing our list of the best movies of the past 12 months, MovieManifesto unveils an exhausting ranking of every release of that year. Except the ranking isn’t really a ranking, because that invites widespread ridicule (or maybe just my own nightmares); instead, we separate everything into 10 distinct tiers. In addition, as part of our ongoing efforts to serve the public, we append certain data to each title: its director, its respective ratings on Rotten Tomatoes on Metacritic, and—most valuably—where it’s currently streaming. This is our gift to you. You’re welcome.

Obligatory disclaimer: The tiers aren’t infallible, if I re-ranked things a month from now they’d look considerably different, appreciation of art isn’t a fixed object but shifts over time, blah blah. The point is, don’t take these rankings too seriously; do use them as an opportunity to search for intriguing films from 2020 that you might have missed.

Tier 1: The Top 20
This is the only tier that’s actually ranked. For a more detailed write-up of these gems, click here.

1. Emma (directed by Autumn de Wilde; 87% Rotten Tomatoes, 71 Metacritic)
2. Ammonite (Francis Lee; 69% RT, 72 MC; streaming on Hulu)
3. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman; 99% RT, 91 MC)
4. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin; 89% RT, 76 MC; streaming on Netflix)
5. Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell; 90% RT, 73 MC)
6. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder; 97% RT, 82 MC; streaming on Amazon)
7. Soul (Pete Docter; 95% RT, 83 MC; streaming on Disney+)
8. Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov; 92% RT, 84 MC; streaming on Kanopy)
9. Straight Up (James Sweeney; 93% RT, 66 MC; streaming on Netflix)
10. Tenet (Christopher Nolan; 70% RT, 69 MC; streaming on HBO Max)
11. The Assistant (Kitty Green; 92% RT, 79 MC; streaming on Hulu)
12. The Father (Florian Zeller; 98% RT, 88 MC)
13. Palm Springs (Max Barbakow; 95% RT, 83 MC; streaming on Hulu)
14. Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach; 88% RT, 82 MC; streaming on Criterion)
15. A Sun (Chung Mong-Hong; 94% RT; streaming on Netflix)
16. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe; 98% RT, 87 MC; streaming on Netflix)
17. Happiest Season (Clea DuVall; 83% RT, 69 MC; streaming on Hulu)
18. The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell; 91% RT, 72 MC; streaming on Cinemax)
19. The Nest (Sean Durkin; 89% RT, 79 MC)
20 (tie). First Cow (Kelly Reichardt; 96% RT, 89 MC; streaming on Showtime)
20 (tie). Nomadland (Chloé Zhao; 94% RT 93 MC; streaming on Hulu)

Tier 2: Honorable Mention
Despite failing to crack the top 20, these 10 titles are all killer, no filler.

Bacurau (directed by Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho; 93% Rotten Tomatoes, 82 Metacritic; streaming on Criterion)
Bad Education (Cory Finley; 94% RT, 81 MC; streaming on HBO Max)
The Climb (Michael Angelo Covino; 90% RT, 82 MC; streaming on Starz)
Hamilton (Thomas Kail; 98% RT, 90 MC; streaming on Disney+)
Kajillionaire (Miranda July; 90% RT, 78 MC)
Minari (Lee Isaac Chung; 98% RT, 89 MC)
Les Misérables (Ladj Ly; 88% RT, 78 MC; streaming on Amazon)
On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola; 86% RT, 73 MC; streaming on Apple)
Red, White, and Blue (Steve McQueen; 98% RT, 84 MC; streaming on Amazon)
Unpregnant (Rachel Lee Goldenberg; 90% RT, 61 MC; streaming on HBO Max)

Tier 3: Good Movies!
I liked these 13 movies! They aren’t perfect, but they’re well worth watching.

Another Round (directed by Thomas Vinterberg; 92% Rotten Tomatoes, 80 Metacritic; streaming on Hulu)
Babyteeth (Shannon Murphy; 93% RT, 77 MC; streaming on Hulu)
Birds of Prey (Cathy Yan; 79% RT, 60 MC; streaming on HBO Max)
Cuties (Maïmouna Doucouré; 88% RT, 67 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Freaky (Christopher Landon; 83% RT, 66 MC)
I’m Your Woman (Julia Hart; 81% RT, 63 MC; streaming on Amazon)
The Lodge (Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala; 74% RT, 64 MC; streaming on Hulu)
Mangrove (Steve McQueen; 99% RT, 90 MC; streaming on Amazon)
Mank (David Fincher; 83% RT, 79 MC; streaming on Netflix)
The Midnight Sky (George Clooney; 50% RT, 58 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Miss Juneteenth (Channing Godfrey Peoples; 99% RT, 73 MC; streaming on Kanopy)
The Painted Bird (Václav Marhoul; 82% RT, 72 MC; streaming on Hulu)
Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis; 87% RT, 65 MC; streaming on Showtime)

Tier 4: Pretty Good Movies
I’m not quite as high on these 16 movies as those in the prior tier (see how this works?), but there are still plenty of reasons to recommend them.

Da 5 Bloods (directed by Spike Lee; 92% Rotten Tomatoes, 82 Metacritic; streaming on Netflix)
The Forty-Year-Old Version (Radha Blank; 98% RT, 80 MC; streaming on Netflix)
The Gentlemen (Guy Ritchie; 75% RT, 51 MC; streaming on Showtime)
The Half of It (Alice Wu; 97% RT, 74 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Let Him Go (Thomas Bezucha; 84% RT, 63 MC)
Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello; 85% RT, 74 MC; streaming on Kanopy)
Misbehaviour (Philippa Lowthorpe; 85% RT, 62 MC; streaming on Starz)
News of the World (Paul Greengrass; 88% RT, 73 MC)
The Platform (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia; 80% RT, 73 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Saint Frances (Alex Thompson; 99% RT, 83 MC; streaming on Starz)
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (Richard Phelan and Will Becher; 96% RT, 79 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Sputnik (Egor Abramenko; 89% RT, 61 MC; streaming on Hulu)
The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson; 92% RT, 84 MC; streaming on Amazon)
Vivarium (Lorcan Finnegan; 72% RT, 64 MC; streaming on Amazon)
The Way Back (Gavin O’Connor; 83% RT, 66 MC)
Wolfwalkers (Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart; 99% RT, 87 MC; streaming on Apple)

Tier 5: Not Bad, But…
With 25 entries, this is easily the most populous tier. I mostly liked these movies, but they also didn’t entirely work for me.

Arkansas (directed by Clark Duke; 47% Rotten Tomatoes, 55 Metacritic; streaming on Amazon)
Big Time Adolescence (Jason Orley; 86% RT, 64 MC; streaming on Hulu)
Blackbird (Roger Michell; 64% RT, 53 MC)
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner; 85% RT, 68 MC; streaming on Amazon)
The Broken Hearts Gallery (Natalie Krinsky; 78% RT, 57 MC; streaming on Starz)
The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi; 66% RT, 57 MC; streaming on Starz)
Charm City Kings (Angel Manuel Soto; 80% RT, 62 MC; streaming on HBO Max)
Driveways (Andrew Ahn; 100% RT, 83 MC; streaming on Showtime)
Education (Steve McQueen; 96% RT, 87 MC; streaming on Amazon)
Escape from Pretoria (Francis Annan; 73% RT, 56 MC; streaming on Starz)
Greyhound (Aaron Schneider; 79% RT, 64 MC; streaming on Apple)
His House (Remi Weekes; 100% RT, 72 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Horse Girl (Jeff Baena; 71% RT, 61 MC; streaming on Netflix)
The King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow; 75% RT, 67 MC; streaming on HBO Max)
Lost Girls (Liz Garbus; 73% RT, 67 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Mulan (Niki Caro; 72% RT, 66 MC; streaming on Disney+)
The Old Guard (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 80% RT, 70 MC; streaming on Netflix)
One Night in Miami (Regina King; 98% RT, 83 MC; streaming on Amazon)
Onward (Dan Scanlon; 88% RT, 61 MC; streaming on Disney+)
Pieces of a Woman (Kornél Mundruczó; 75% RT, 66 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Possessor (Brandon Cronenberg; 93% RT, 72 MC; streaming on Hulu)
Run (Aneesh Chaganty; 89% RT, 67 MC; streaming on Hulu)
Sylvie’s Love (Eugene Ashe; 93% RT, 74 MC; streaming on Amazon)
Valley Girl (Rachel Lee Goldenberg; 58% RT, 53 MC; streaming on Amazon and Hulu)
Weathering with You (Makoto Shinkai; 91% RT, 72 MC; streaming on HBO Max)

Tier 6: Better Than You’ve Heard
This is where things get tricky. Most of these tiers are based solely on my personal opinion, but for both this section and the next, I’m comparing my thoughts to the critical consensus. The 9 movies in this tier aren’t necessarily good, but I found all of them to be better than their overall reputation would suggest.

Antebellum (directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz; 29% Rotten Tomatoes, 43 Metacritic; streaming on Hulu)
Guns Akimbo (Jason Lei Howden; 51% RT, 42 MC; streaming on Amazon)
Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard; 26% RT, 38 MC; streaming on Netflix)
The Hunt (Craig Zobel; 57% RT, 50 MC; streaming on Cinemax)
Radioactive (Marjane Satrapi; 62% RT, 56 MC)
Rebecca (Ben Wheatley; 39% RT, 46 MC; streaming on Netflix)
The Rhythm Section (Reed Morano; 28% RT, 45 MC; streaming on Amazon and Hulu)
Wild Mountain Thyme (John Patrick Shanley; 26% RT, 42 MC; streaming on Hulu)
Wonder Woman 1984 (Patty Jenkins; 59% RT, 60 MC; streaming on HBO Max)

Tier 7: Disappointing
This is the flip side of the prior tier. I was eagerly anticipating all 10 of these movies, either because of their pedigree or their critical acclaim. Yet for whatever reason, I failed to appreciate them as much as I’d hoped.

Blow the Man Down (directed by Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy; 98% Rotten Tomatoes, 72 Metacritic; streaming on Amazon)
An Easy Girl (Rebecca Zlotowski, 95% RT, 78 MC; streaming on Netflix)
I’m No Longer Here (Fernando Frias; 98% RT, 72 MC; streaming on Netflix)
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman; 82% RT, 78 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Let Them All Talk (Steven Soderbergh; 88% RT, 72 MC; streaming on HBO Max)
Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen; 98% RT, 95 MC; streaming on Amazon)
Relic (Natalie Erika James; 92% RT, 77 MC; streaming on Showtime)
She Dies Tomorrow (Amy Seimetz; 83% RT, 80 MC; streaming on Hulu)
Shirley (Josephine Decker; 87% RT, 76 MC; streaming on Hulu)
True History of the Kelly Gang (Justin Kurzel; 79% RT, 75 MC; streaming on Showtime)

Tier 8: Not Good, Not Terrible
These 14 movies aren’t especially good; they aren’t especially awful, either. You could do worse, and better.

Banana Split (directed by Benjamin Kasulke; 89% Rotten Tomatoes, 63 Metacritic; streaming on Netflix)
The Banker (George Nolfi; 79% RT, 59 MC; streaming on Apple)
Enola Holmes (Harry Bradbeer; 91% RT, 68 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (David Dobkin; 63% RT, 50 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Gretel & Hansel (Osgood Perkins; 64% RT, 64 MC; streaming on Amazon and Hulu)
The Last Thing He Wanted (Dee Rees; 5% RT, 35 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Over the Moon (Glen Keane; 81% RT, 60 MC; streaming on Netflix)
The Quarry (Scott Teems; 41% RT, 53 MC; streaming on Cinemax)
Selah and the Spades (Tayarisha Poe; 86% RT, 69 MC; streaming on Amazon)
7500 (Patrick Vollrath; 71% RT, 58 MC; streaming on Amazon)
Tesla (Michael Almereyda; 58% RT, 67 MC; streaming on Hulu)
Tigertail (Alan Yang; 81% RT, 65 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Underwater (William Eubank; 47% RT, 48 MC; HBO Max)
Wasp Network (Olivier Assayas; 40% RT, 54 MC; streaming on Netflix)

Tier 9: Pretty Bad, Not Deplorable
It’s rare that I actively dislike a movie, and I didn’t hate any of these 10 films. But they aren’t very good.

Alex Wheatle (directed by Steve McQueen; 95% Rotten Tomatoes, 77 Metacritic; streaming on Amazon)
An American Pickle (Brandon Trost; 72% RT, 58 MC; streaming on HBO Max)
Ava (Tate Taylor; 16% RT, 39 MC; streaming on Netflix)
The Boys in the Band (Joe Mantello; 82% RT, 70 MC; streaming on Netflix)
The Devil All the Time (Antonio Campos; 64% RT, 55 MC; streaming on Netflix)
Extraction (Sam Hargrave; 67% RT, 56 MC; streaming on Netflix)
The Glorias (Julie Taymor; 67% RT, 58 MC; streaming on Amazon)
The One and Only Ivan (Thea Sharrock; 70% RT, 58 MC; streaming on Disney+)
The Witches (Robert Zemeckis; 48% RT, 47 MC; streaming on HBO Max)
The Wretched (Brett Pierce and Drew T. Pierce; 75% RT, 61 MC; streaming on Hulu)

Tier 10: Bad Movies
As I said, it’s rare that I actively dislike a movie. But for these 6 titles—all of which received positive reviews!—I made an exception.

Amulet (directed by Romola Garai; 71% Rotten Tomatoes, 64 Metacritic; streaming on Hulu)
Bad Boys for Life (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah; 76% RT, 59 MC; streaming on Starz)
Color Out of Space (Richard Stanley; 86% RT, 70 MC)
The Dark and the Wicked (Bryan Bertino; 92% RT, 72 MC; streaming on Hoopla)
The Photograph (Stella Meghie; 74% RT, 62 MC; streaming on HBO Max)
Tommaso (Abel Ferrara; 76% RT, 66 MC; streaming on Kanopy)