Top Films across different countries

When you were asked to find the most highly touted films of all time, what would you do to do that? What about the top films across different countries?

Probably go to IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes.

What if you asked someone in France? In China? In Russia?

A portion of them woul probably go to their country’s equivalent of those sites.

Were you curious how the top films differ through those sites? No worries, let’s dive in and take a look at the top films across different countries.

	IMDb	Douban (China)	Naver (Korea)	Mubi (UK)	Allocine (France)	KinoPoisk(Russia)	FilmWeb(Poland)
#1 Movie	The Shawshank Redemption (1994) – 9.3	The Shawshank Redemption (1994) – 9.7	Top Gun Maverick (2022) – 9.77	Portrait of a Lady On Fire (2019) – 9.2	Forrest Gump (1994)	The Green Mile (1999) – 9.2	The Shawshank Redemption (1994) – (8.76)
# of American movies in top 20	19/20	10/20	8/20	3/20	20/20	17/20	17/20
#1 Domestic Movie	The Shawshank Redemption (1994) – 9.3	#2 Farewell My Concubine (1993) – 9.6	#3 Dear Grandma (2015) – 9.23	#9: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – 9.0	#59 La Verite (1960）	#13 Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future (1973) – 8.8	#18 The Pianist (2002) – 8.23 (Co-produced with UK, Germany and France)
Highest rated film that’s part of a series/franchise	#2. The Godfather (1972) – 9.2	#19 A Chinese Odyssey Part Two – Cinderella (1995) – 9.2	#10 Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna (2020) – 9.51	#2. The Godfather (1972) – 9.2	#5. The Godfather (1972)	#5 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) – 8.9	#4 The Godfather (1972) – 8.59
#1 Film (2000-2009)	#3. The Dark Knight (2008) – 9.0	#7 Spirited Away (2001) – 9.4	#20 The Classic (2003) – 9.44	#4 The Gleaners and I (2000) – 9.2	#7 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)	#5 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) – 8.9	#9 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) – 8.34
#1 Film （2010-2015）	#9 Inception (2010) – 8.8	#9 Inception (2010) – 9.4	#2 Dear Grandma (2015) – 9.23	#42 Winter Sleep( 2014) – 9.0	#15 Django Unchained (2015)	#9 Intouchables （2011）- 8.8	#2 Intouchables （2011）- 8.61
#1 Film （2016-）	#32 Parasite (2019) -8.5	#18 Zootopia (2016) – 8.2	#1 Top Gun Maverick (2022) – 9.77	#1 Portrait of a Lady On Fire (2019) – 9.2	#24 Coco (2017)	#11 Coco (2017) – 8.8	#17 Joker (2019) – 8.24
#1 Foreign Film (No American)	#20 City of God (Brazil) (2002) – 8.6	#5 Leon (France) (1994) – 9.4	#5 Capharnaum (Lebanon) (2018) – 9.59	#1 Portrait of a Lady On Fire (France) (2019) – 9.2	#25 Your Name (Japan) （2016）	#9 Intouchables (France)（2011）- 8.8	#7 Life is Beautiful (Italy) (1997) – 8.29
#1 Animated Film	#21 Spirited Away (2001) – 8.6	#7 Spirited Away (2001) – 9.4	#2 Klaus (2019) -9.71	#12 My Life as a Courgette( 2016) – 9.2	#8 The Lion King (1994)	#11 Coco (2017) – 8.8	#23 The Lion King (1994) – 8.21

Top films across different countries (US, China, Korea, UK, France, Russia, Poland)

Disclaimers

I used Mubi for the UK rankings since it’s a streaming service based in the UK. France also has SensCritique but I decided to only include one entry per country.

Categories

#1 Movie

The top movie on IMDb is The Shawshank Redemption and the top 19 movies were all American. The big surprise is A Portrait of Lady On Fire for Mubi’s #1. It has a solid rating of 8.1 on IMDb but not nearly the level of appraisal received on Mubi. It’s interesting the French site Allocine had Forrest Gump at #1. Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring tops the other French site, SensCritique. Russia is also unique with Green Mile at #1, but the film ranks highly on all the other sites as well.

# of American movies in the top 20

Mubi, Naver, and Douban had the least amount of American movies in the top 20. Those rankings had a rather mixed bag of films in terms of production countries. The only non-American movie to make the top 20 was City of Gods at exactly #20.

Highest rated film that’s part of a series/franchise

Films of the Godfather trilogy and the Lord of the Rings trilogy would probably be expected to fit in this category. Those franchises did not rank highly on the Chinese and Korean sites. Douban’s highest non-standalone film was a domestic film in the Chinese Odyssey series. Naver’s highest film that’s part of a franchise was Digimon Adventure： Last Evolution Kizuna at #10, part of the Japanese media franchise Digimon that originated in the 1990s.

Highest rated film from 2000-2009

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is the highest rated film on most sites. While IMDb ranked the Dark Knight a little bit higher and Spirited Away was Douban’s choice for the era. Mubi and Naver in general tend to have the most digressions from the other lists as they chose The Gleaners and I and the Classic for the top films of the decade, which scored 7.8 and 7.7 respectively on IMDb. The top movies for this time period had an average ranking of about 8.

Highest rated film from 2010-2015

Inception and Intouchables were the popular choices for this category. Naver went with the domstic film Dear Grandma while Mubi went with the Turkish film drama Winter Sleep. The top movies for this time period had an average ranking of about 13.

Highest rated film from 2016-Present

Some of the most diverse opinions are probably here, with Pixar animated film Coco being the only consensus between two of the sites. Parasite in general ranked very high among all the sites. The top movies for this time period have an average ranking of about 15.

Highest rated non-American foreign film

This is the only section on the list where there was no consensus among any of the sites. Naver’s pick was the Lebanese film which also ranked highly at 8.4 on IMDb. Nonetheless, it was a unique choice as the film do not appear in the top 50 for most of the other lists. Douban’s choice of the French film Leon was interesting in the same sense. Most rankings had at least one non-American and non-domestic film on the top 5. The top movies for the section have an average rankng of about 10.

Highest rated animated film

Without a doubt, the most highly touted animated films among all the sites were Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away, Pixar’s Coco, and Disney’s Lion King. The Japanese film directed by Makoto Shinkai Your Name and Disney’s Zootopia also rank highly on a lot of the lists. Again, Naver and Mubi had the most unique choices with the Indie Film Klaus at #2 and the Swiss stop-motion My Life as a Courgette at #12.

Afterthoughts on top films across different countries

It’s interesting to notice the first decade of the 21st century fared much stronger than the the 12 years that followed in terms of average film rankings. Could we possibly attribute it to the fact we look at older films with rose-tinted glasses? Or was the films from 2000-2009 just a bit more classic in general?
Researching top films across different countries was an interesting project. It shows how us how different cultures perceive films differently. It also makes us curious wonder if there are more than just cultural factors that caused the difference. Could it be the way a certain film is marketed and distributed in a country? Or maybe it has to do with the popularity of a franchise? On the flip side, it’s also amazing to see how some films are well loved regardless of which region it’s presented in.