Buzz
While earlier generations had Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert to guide their movie choices, today's cinephiles often turn to Rotten Tomatoes. According to the Los Angeles Times, 36 percent of American moviegoers consult this popular review site, which compiles reviews from across the media to calculate the ‘fresh’ or ‘rotten’ ratings for films and television shows, before heading to the theater. To determine the best films of the 21st century so far, IndieWire sifted through Rotten Tomatoes’ archives, creating a list of the site’s highest-rated films for every year since 2000.
Based on Rotten Tomatoes data, Jordan Peele's critically acclaimed and (widely popular) Get Out took the crown for 2017, scoring an impressive 99 percent positive from 295 reviews. It edged out other top contenders from the year, including The Big Sick, Dunkirk, Wonder Woman
Barry Jenkins’s Academy Award-winning Moonlight was 2016’s standout, receiving a stellar 98 percent rating from 305 reviews. In 2015, Mad Max: Fury Road topped the list, followed by Boyhood, Gravity, and Argo in 2014, 2013, and 2012, respectively. Some major franchise films also made their mark, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 2 leading in 2011, The Dark Knight dominating 2008, and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers taking the spotlight in 2002.
As expected, Pixar led the charge, with films like 2001’s Monsters Inc, 2003’s Finding Nemo, 2004’s The Incredibles, 2007’s Ratatouille, 2009’s Up, and 2010’s Toy Story 3 surpassing both animated and live-action films in their respective release years. Aardman Animations’ stop-motion comedy Chicken Run was the only non-Pixar animated film to make the list, claiming the top spot for 2000 with a 97 percent rating from 170 reviews. The 2005 slot was taken by the documentary Murderball, which covered wheelchair rugby and scored 98 percent from 138 reviews, while 2006’s favorite was The Queen.
While Rotten Tomatoes isn't always the most precise measure of a film's quality, the site's ratings provide a general sense of how professional critics felt about the film as a whole.
