The 50 Best Movies of 2020

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – January 6, 2021

Here is Metacritic's final list of the 50 best-reviewed movies of 2020, ranked by Metascore. This list only includes films receiving at least 7 reviews from professional critics.

All films released between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020 in at least one U.S. theater or directly to streaming or VOD/digital services were eligible for inclusion. Titles are ranked by Metascore (a weighted average of scores from top professional critics) prior to rounding based on scores as of January 3, 2021.

12 of 25 photo by PBS

88 City Hall

(#12) At four-and-a-half hours, it's long, even judged against the previous films by legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman. But in days when "government" and "competent" rarely appear in the same sentence, perhaps this look at the everyday functioning of a local government (specifically, the city of Boston) isn't quite long enough.

If you aren't close to hitting your monthly data cap yet, the full film is now streaming on the PBS website.

“What Wiseman’s film boils down to, in many ways, is a much-needed dose of competency porn – a snapshot of government officials trying their very best to do better, and to be better. And that might be the story he’s really telling: a reminder that government, for all of its speed bumps and snags, can work. It can help. The people running it just have to want it to.” —Jason Bailey, The Playlist

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