We’ve made it halfway through the 2020s! Even though there are still contenders to be determined, let’s start building this ranking anyway, shall we? I’ll add to it every year as new Academy Award winners are announced, but if you want more complete decades in the meantime, feel free to go browse.
Some notes on how I do this: while I will comment on whether or not a movie deserved its Best Picture win, whether or not it was a worthy winner cannot in and of itself impact the ranking. Please also note that this is a fluid ranking for me. Obviously, I’ll provide updates when there are new winners but I may also make changes as time passes and I am able to revisit or rethink these movies. It’s my prerogative, so that’s the way it is.
5. Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
I was initially more sold on Everything Everywhere All At Once‘s big win and ranked it higher. My perception of it has cooled quite a bit in the year that has passed. I do still think that something is exciting about what its win represents: that the Academy’s drive to diversify its membership (in terms of race, gender, and age) has radically altered the definition of what constitutes an Oscar movie. Everything probably wouldn’t have even gotten close to the podium had it been released a decade earlier.
Everything is a weird movie. Even at a base level, it has a lot going on. It’s a multiverse movie about a woman whose boring, stressful life is suddenly livened up by sci-fi action movie intrigue, googly eyes, hot dog fingers, and, um, butt plugs. Yeah. A movie with butt plugs became the only movie (so far) to win six of the major categories at the Oscars (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Screenplay). The only major category Everything lost was Best Actor, and it didn’t have a nomination there.
I haven’t even mentioned that the cast is predominantly Asian or Asian American—a wild breakthrough for diversity in American film—or that it has solid LGBTQ+ representation. Let’s hope this leads to better roles and representation in the future.
Ultimately, though, I think this movie’s balls-out bizarreness doesn’t help it sustain an impact. It’s still fun—especially considering that it has no right to work as well as it does. But in the canon of Best Picture winners, it doesn’t feel like it goes too far.
Should have won in 2022: My personal favorite movie of the year was Aftersun, which only managed to muster a nomination for Paul Mescal as Best Actor (he lost to Brendan Fraser). I initially said that Everything would have still gotten my vote, but with the benefit of time I can say that Aftersun stayed with me a lot more.
4. CODA (2021)
A lot of people grumbled when it became clear that CODA was making a late surge during the campaign period for the Academy Awards. At the center of that grumbling is a debate about whether or not the Oscars are intended for serious art-house movies only–a topic that intensifies every year as the Academy is pressured by ABC, which airs the ceremonies, to appeal to a broader range of movie fans. It’s a debate that has been raging to the point where it feels like the Academy is having an identity crisis.
Ultimately, it didn’t feel like anyone would be happy with the outcome because of the two frontrunners, CODA was dismissed as a touchy-feely movie while The Power of the Dog was equally disliked by many for being, get this, too artsy and clinical. Yes, the complaint was that one movie was too emotional while the other wasn’t emotional enough.
It remains to be seen what legacy CODA will have and how it will sit with Oscar fanatics. I worry that people will hate it because they won’t think it feels hefty enough. At the end of the day, it’s a good movie that taps into genuine emotion that audiences respond to. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s certainly not the first time a crowd-pleaser has won Best Picture, and it won’t be the last.
Should have won in 2021: Can we all at least agree that CODA is a good movie first? If we’ve managed that, I can admit that I put it in fourth place in my ranking for 2021 behind Flee, The Power of the Dog, and my first-place finisher: West Side Story, a movie that didn’t feel necessary given how fantastic the Best Picture-winning 1961 adaptation of the musical was, but which found surprising heft and nuance for contemporary audiences.
3. Anora (2024)
Similar to Everything Everywhere All At Once, Anora feels like a movie that benefitted from the recent expansion of the Academy’s voting body. Fifteen years ago, when The King’s Speech took home the big prize, it would have seemed unthinkable for a staunchly independent movie about a sex worker whose impulsive marriage to a wealthy Russian goes bad when his family disapproves and intervenes. Even a year after Oppenheimer, which felt like a modern version of the Academy-approved Best Picture winner, it is abundantly clear that the 2020s represent a bold new era for the Oscars. And that’s exciting.
The first thirty minutes or so of Anora were rough for me. It seemed so plain that the spoiled, insensitive, generally awful Ivan was a terrible candidate for a husband. Anora (or Ani, as she prefers to be called) agreeing to the marriage and expecting it to last felt like a terrible idea. But as soon as a gang of enforcers sent by Ivan’s parents show up and Ivan goes on the run and callously leaves Ani behind to deal with the mess he made, everything suddenly started to gel for me. Suddenly, I was really into the movie. I was laughing at the surprising humor and emotionally invested in what would happen to Ani (and curious about Yura Borisov’s enforcer, who says little but whose expressive eyes reveal a lot about what he thinks about what’s going down).
It quickly becomes clear that behind all of Ani’s bluster and (seeming) confidence, she is desperate. She was promised a happy ending beyond her wildest dreams, and despite all the warning signs, she grabbed onto it. She needed to believe that it was real, and the fact that it only lasted a couple of days feels cruel beyond measure to her. This is masterfully hinted at by Mikey Madison’s incredible, Best Actress-winning performance and by Yura Borisov’s quiet kindness to Ani. By the end, I felt heartbroken for everything she had wanted and everything she had lost.
Should have won in 2024: I still haven’t seen a couple of movies (The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, I’m Still Here, and Nickel Boys, notably) at the time I am writing this, the morning after the Oscar ceremony. I had thought that I was in the bag for Conclave, but in the days since I watched Anora, I can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe that will fade in time–and maybe I’ll think differently after I finish watching the contenders–but for now, I think the right movie got the prize.
2. Oppenheimer (2023)
I’m generally not much of a fan of Christopher Nolan movies, so I was a bit reluctant to see Oppenheimer–even after it debuted to huge box office numbers alongside Barbie in what has popularly been referred to as ‘Barbenheimer.” I knew I would have to see the movie at some point, especially when it became clear that it was emerging as the favorite to win Best Picture, but I wasn’t excited about it at all.
Imagine my surprise that I liked Oppenheimer when I finally got around to seeing it. I don’t love it, but I can get behind it as a best picture winner. Like most Nolan movies, it’s a tricky, dense, and deliberately obtuse movie–and at three hours, its length makes it feel like an endurance test. But somehow, in this case it (mostly) works. Maybe because by the end, all of the time jumps, quick cuts to spatial phenomena, and the massive cast of characters build to a poignant message about science, advancement, war, and peace.
Should have won in 2023: It also feels like we collectively dodged a bullet because we were heading into a danger zone where every Christopher Nolan movie built a sense of resentment if it went unrecognized. Had Oppenheimer not come along, we very well could have ended up in a Martin Scorsese situation–where an increasingly loud contingent of fanboys clamored for him to win an Oscar until he finally did for 2006’s The Departed. Not only do we get to avoid that situation with Christopher Nolan, he got a win for a movie that was worthy of the top prize. So in a sense, everyone wins.
That said, my favorite movie of the year was Society of the Snow. I also have to believe that if Society of the Snow had been an American-made movie, it would have been a bigger contender. But I’m fine with Oppenheimer getting the win.
1. Nomadland (2020)
2020 was an odd year for the Oscars. With a pandemic raging and movie theaters shut down for the majority of the year, studios scrambled. Many movies seen as potential contenders dumped their original release dates and fled for 2021 instead, hoping that there would eventually be a return to business as usual that might help their chances (and their wallets). Many expected that 2020 would end up being a weak year for Oscar under these circumstances–especially when the Academy loosened their rules about streaming (allowing movies that had previously had a planned theatrical release to debut on streaming platforms and still be eligible) and lengthened the eligibility window through February. But while you could certainly make a case that a quiet movie like Nomadland could have been crowded out of any other year instead of becoming the clear frontrunner, the quality of the Best Picture contenders was very high. Some will apply a mental asterisk to Nomadland because of the pandemic, but in my mind, it’s a worthy winner in any calendar year.
Nomadland is quite simply one of the most empathetic movies I’ve ever seen. Following Frances McDormand (who won Best Actress for her troubles) as her character settles in with a community of van-dwelling nomads who have abandoned their traditional lives (most played by actual nomads), it becomes a highly resonant movie about connection, grief, and displacement. Many criticize the movie for omitting its source material’s harsh portrayal of working in an Amazon distribution center, but I feel like emphasizing the human element instead of the political one still tells quite a story (you can find more on the differences here). I love both it and the book it is based on.
Should have won in 2020: For me, it comes down to Nomadland and Minari, another deeply human story about a family of Korean immigrants struggling to start a farm in 1980s Arkansas. Both are great movies that portray sides of the American character usually pushed to the margins, but ultimately I would go with Nomadland for the win.
Other Rankings for the 2020s
Supposedly Fun 
My rankings are a bit different
overall Everything Everywhere All At Once is the one I have watched most and will continue to watch. I think I have already hit my limit with Anora and Oppenheimer . Twice is enough for both.
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