6 Years Later, These Are the 8 Best Movies of 2020

Image via Searchlight Pictures Published Jul 29, 2026, 4:54 PM EDT Sign in to your Collider account 2020 was a horrible year to release a movie. Cinemas were closed, festivals went online, release calendars collapsed, and some of the year’s finest work reached audiences through laptops when it deserved a packed room. The strange part is that the films themselves were often unusually alert to loneliness, uncertainty, grief, reinvention, and the fear that life had stopped moving. Six years have made the ranking clearer. These eight films survived the chaos around their release and kept growing once the awards campaigns and first-wave hype faded. They found comedy inside repetition, hope inside displacement, and brutal honesty inside families, classrooms, marriages, and minds under pressure. Even now, they still know exactly where to hit. 8 'Palm Springs' (2020) Image via Hulu A wedding in the California desert turns into an endless prison for Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti), two guests forced to relive November 9 every time they fall asleep or die. The time-loop setup is familiar, and Palm Springs knows viewers already understand the rules. That lets the film skip the slow explanation and focus on what repetition does to people who have stopped believing tomorrow will arrive. Nyles has already tried everything and found no permanent reward. Cristin Milioti’s Sarah refuses to accept that surrender, partly from stubbornness and partly from guilt over what she did before the wedding. Their romance develops through boredom, resentment, reckless fun, and the terrifying possibility that one person may want to escape more than the other. The film was released during lockdown,and accidentally became one of 2020’s most relatable stories. Everyone suddenly understood stalled time, repeated routines, and the need to find meaning inside days that had started blending together. Palm Springs made that anxiety funny without treating it lightly. 7 'Promising Young Woman' (2020) Image via Focus Features In Promising Young Woman, Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) has built her adult life around the death of her best friend Nina. She dropped out of medical school, lives with her parents, works at a coffee shop, and spends nights pretending to be drunk so supposedly decent men reveal what they will do when they think a woman cannot resist. The film wraps the story in bright colours, pop music, romantic-comedy beats, and deliberately feminine styling. That surface keeps colliding with a culture trained to protect men through excuses, reputations, and selective disbelief. Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham) initially appears to offer Cassie a future beyond revenge, but his connection to Nina’s assault exposes how easily passive witnesses preserve the same system as active abusers. The film’s choices remain divisive, especially its cruel conclusion and police-based last move. That discomfort is part of its grip. Promising Young Woman refuses to give Cassie a clean victory or the audience a comforting idea of justice. The anger stays after the credits, exactly where it should. 6 'Soul' (2020) Image via Pixar Animation Studios Pixar had already explored grief, memory, family, and growing up. Soul went after a harder question. What happens when someone achieves the dream that has organised his entire identity and still feels strangely unchanged? Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) finally gets the jazz opportunity he has wanted for years, then an accident separates his soul from his body before the performance can secure the life he imagined. The Great Before introduces Joe to 22 (Tina Fey), a soul with no interest in being born. Their journey gradually exposes the mistake at the centre of Joe’s ambition. He has confused having a purpose with earning the right to enjoy existence. Music remains essential, especially the moment he enters the zone while playing piano, but the film refuses to declare career success the highest form of fulfilment. A slice of pizza, sunlight through leaves, a subway musician, and ordinary time with another person gain equal weight. Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey keep the philosophical ideas warm and funny. Soul reached families during a year when millions were being forced to reconsider their plans. Its answer was gentle and urgently needed and it was — living cannot be postponed until the impressive part begins. 5 'Nomadland' (2020) Image via Searchlight Pictures Fern (Frances McDormand) loses her husband, her job, and even her town after the gypsum plant in Empire, Nevada, shuts down. She moves into a van and joins a loose community of older Americans travelling between seasonal jobs, campsites, warehouses, and public land. Frances McDormand keeps Fern private without turning her into an empty mystery. Her independence is real, though grief also shapes every mile. Chloé Zhao blends professional performers with real-life nomads including Linda May, Swankie, and Bob Wells. Their stories add economic anger without converting the film into a lecture. These people have worked for decades and still face insecure housing, limited healthcare, physical exhaustion, and employers ready to use them temporarily. Fern’s choices remain more complicated than simple victimhood. She receives offers of stability and leaves again. A conventional home has become difficult to separate from the life she lost with Bo. Nomadland sees freedom and precarity occupying the same space, sometimes within the same person. Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best PictureIs Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one. 🪜Parasite 🌀Everything Everywhere ☢️Oppenheimer 🐦Birdman 🪙No Country for Old Men FIND YOUR FILM → 01 What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind. ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours? AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does. NEXT QUESTION → 03 How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means. AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you? AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical. NEXT QUESTION → 05 What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like? AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible. AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable. AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you. ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense. NEXT QUESTION → 09 How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately. AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action. NEXT QUESTION → 10 What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want? AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days. REVEAL MY FILM → The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works. ParasiteYou are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image. Everything Everywhere All at OnceYou want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about. OppenheimerYou are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort. BirdmanYou are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all. No Country for Old MenYou are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 4 'Minari' (2020) Image via A24 In Minari, Jacob Yi (Steven Yeun) brings his wife Monica Yi (Yeri Han) and their children to rural Arkansas with a plan to grow Korean vegetables for immigrant communities across the American South. The family’s new home is a trailer sitting on wheels, far from the security Monica expected. Jacob sees land, independence, and a chance to build something of his own. She sees debt, isolation, tornado warnings, and a husband gambling the family’s future on pride. Lee Isaac Chung, the director, reportedly drew from his childhood without making the Yi family a collection of inspirational immigrant symbols. Their home is loud, funny, tense, loving, and often divided. Steven Yeun gives Jacob ambition with enough selfishness to keep the dream honest. Yeri Han shows Monica’s fear without reducing her to the spouse blocking progress. Then Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung) arrives, swears, watches wrestling, drinks Mountain Dew, and disrupts young David Yi (Alan Kim)’s idea of how a grandmother should behave. The minari she plants grows easily near the creek while the expensive farm struggles. That detail lands without a speech. Roots survive differently after transplantation, and families do too. Image via Amazon Studios Ruben Stone (Riz Ahmed) is touring with his partner Lou (Olivia Cooke) when his hearing suddenly begins disappearing. He is a drummer, a recovering addict, and someone whose emotional stability depends on music and the life they have built together. A doctor tells him the damage is severe and further exposure could make it worse. Ruben hears only the possibility of getting his old life back. Riz Ahmed commits to the panic without making deafness itself the villain. Sound of Metal’s sound design shifts between muffled noise, vibration, mechanical distortion, and silence, placing the audience inside Ruben’s changing experience rather than observing it from a safe distance. At a rural deaf community led by Joe (Paul Raci), he learns sign language and begins connecting with people who reject the assumption that they need fixing. Ruben still sells his equipment to pursue cochlear implants, hoping technology will return him to Lou and music. The result sounds harsh and artificial, and their reunion reveals that both have changed. His last decision is beautifully simple because he removes the processors and sits still. For once, Ruben stops trying to outrun silence. It’s beautiful. 2 'Another Round' (2020) Image via Nordisk Film Distribution Another Round is basically an experiment. Four teachers decide to test a theory that human beings are born with a blood-alcohol level slightly too low. They begin drinking during work hours, tracking their intake as if they are conducting legitimate research. Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), stuck in a deadened marriage and sleepwalking through his history classes, quickly feels sharper, warmer, and more connected to his students. The experiment is funny at first because Mads Mikkelsen and the rest of the cast understand the excitement of adults suddenly rediscovering spontaneity. Drinking loosens Martin’s personality and gives him temporary access to the person he misses being. It also damages judgment, relationships, and a friend whose dependence is far more serious than the group admits. The film avoids a simple anti-alcohol message since Danish drinking culture, celebration, masculinity, and friendship are woven deeply into the story. Martin’s dance at the graduation celebration holds joy, grief, freedom, and danger in the same body. Mikkelsen launches himself toward the water, and the image offers release without pretending anyone has solved the problem. 1 'The Father' (2020) Image via Sony Pictures Classics Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) believes he is living independently in his London flat. His daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) keeps visiting, caregivers appear and disappear, furniture changes, and people he recognises insist they are someone else. The film provides no stable viewpoint outside his experience. Viewers have to navigate the same confusion, anger, suspicion, and terror that dementia is creating inside him. Anthony Hopkins reaches places far beyond technical brilliance. His character can be charming with a new caregiver, cruel toward Anne, proud of his intelligence, frightened by a missing watch, and suddenly helpless when the world stops making sense. Anne has this separate heartbreak. She loves her father, resents what caring for him has taken, and feels guilty for imagining a life beyond the responsibility. The final breakdown strips Anthony of age, authority, and every defence he has used against fear. He asks for his mother and says he is losing his leaves. Hopkins does not decorate the pain. He becomes a scared child inside an old man’s body, and it is almost unbearable to witness. The Father Release Date December 23, 2020 Runtime 96 minutes