(Photo by Lionsgate. Thumbnail: Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection.)
Rotten Tomatoes is collecting every new Certified Fresh movie into one list, creating our guide to the best movies of 2021. Among them you’ll find Blockbusters (Godzilla vs. Kong), documentaries (Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry), awards contenders (Minari, Judas and the Black Messiah, The Father), and the cutting-edge in horror (Come True, The Queen of Black Magic).
Movies achieve Certified Fresh status by maintaining a Tomatometer score of at least 75% after a minimum number of reviews, with that number depending on how the movie was released. For wide releases (of which there were significantly fewer this year, as you can imagine), the minimum number of reviews is 80. For streaming or limited release movies, that number is 40. And finally, it’s 20 reviews for movies premiering on television. Across all release types, each movie needs at least five of its reviews to be written by Top Critics. Once a movie goes Certified Fresh, the only way to lose it is by dropping below 70%.
After the world-altering year of 2020, critics and audiences and studio heads alike are navigating 2021 with its evolving distribution models and industry standards. So far, streaming continues to deliver the goods straight to the people (Barb Star Go to Vista Del Mar), as theaters carefully thread the needle during the re-opening process with their releases (Nobody). Meanwhile, major studios experiment with dual streaming and theatrical releases, for the likes of Raya and the Last Dragon and Godzilla vs. Kong.
Read on for the best movies of 2021, ranked by Tomatometer, and check back often as we update the list!
