10 Greatest Movie Masterpieces of the Last 30 Years, Ranked

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Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) sitting behind a table and spreading his arms in Inglourious Basterds.

Jeremy has more than 2200 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
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In all honesty, there’s no particular reason to look at the last 30 years over any other period of time. No reason at all. Essentially, there are good movies released just about every year. Every decade, too. Down below, things are only going to be focused on the last 30 years, though, and there aren’t going to be many movies, either, so you probably won’t come away from this, at the end of it all, very happy.

Mad Max: Fury Road, and Parasite? Oh no, they're not here. Neither is La La Land, nor Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, even though those two movies are pretty great and could also count themselves as masterpieces, or close to it. Even Kill Bill and Ratatouille miss out; it’s ruthless. You won’t be happy, again, as a warning, but that’s what happens when there’s no good reason to outline certain films from a certain period of time. (Okay, there is a good reason, and that reason will be spelled out if you take the first letter from all previous sentences and line ‘em up).

10 'The Dark Knight' (2008)

Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight.

Perhaps the superhero movie of the 21st century so far, The Dark Knight elevated the whole genre considerably in 2008, albeit Iron Man, from the same year, is also worth an honorable mention, given it kick-started the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Dark Knight didn’t have the same kind of direct legacy, though its influence can be felt in other ways, particularly when it comes to other superhero movies that went for a darker/more intense sort of thing in its wake.

None went dark and gritty quite as well as The Dark Knight, though, and this one is more than just grimness and intensity for the sake of it. The Dark Knight is also exciting and unafraid to be broadly entertaining alongside the more complex and weightier things it tackles, so it’s a great blockbuster and is also a bit more ambitious than your average blockbuster. Whatever, main thing is it’s great, and that’s something that probably goes without saying, but in any event, words have just been said. Is what it is.

9 'Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India' (2001)

Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India is about as exciting as a movie about cricket is ever going to get, to the point where it’s genuinely enthralling and surprisingly moving, even if you don’t usually care about the sport in question. To compare it to another epic, it’s a bit like Seven Samurai, but set in India, and instead of preparing for a battle against bandits, various villagers have to learn how to play cricket so they can best a team of tax-happy Englishmen in a very high-stakes game of cricket.

Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India has a group of endearing heroes and some very easy-to-dislike villains, alongside some well-established stakes.

The whole thing is nearly four hours long, but Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India is so well-paced that there are honestly movies about half its length that feel like they take longer to get through. It’s good, clean storytelling, with a group of endearing heroes and some very easy-to-dislike villains, with stakes well-established, and a skill at hitting the sorts of beats you might expect, but not in the ways you might expect them to be hit. That is to say, it remains unusually suspenseful, even if so much of it plays out like a well-oiled and familiar kind of sports movie.

8 'Inglourious Basterds' (2009)

Mélanie Laurent in Inglourious Basterds.

It’s hard to fault Inglourious Basterds, to the point where it’s almost understandable (or at least only slightly cocky, on the part of Quentin Tarantino) why the movie ends with a character declaring something he’s just done to be his “masterpiece.” As a thriller set during World War II that playfully rewrites history, sometimes gets darkly comedic, and also proves truly intense at other points, Inglourious Basterds is shockingly smooth sailing.

It shouldn't work as well as it does, but all the right pieces were here and all placed in the perfect order, somehow, with a massive cast of actors (and some surprising decisions casting-wise) all being balanced well, too. As long as you don’t mind a bit of the old on-screen ultra-violence, Inglourious Basterds is basically a must-watch, and perhaps the best thing Tarantino’s made in the last 30 years, too.

7 'City of God' (2002)

A young Black man turning around in City of God

It’s amazing how many moving parts there are to City of God, even to the point where saying “There are so many moving parts in the story it tells” feels misleading, since there are actually a few stories being told here all at once. Most of the film takes place in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, with different chapters focusing in on different individuals who all have their lives impacted by crime in one way or another.

The protagonist is someone who wants to get out of the favelas, though, and he does have some proximity to each chapter of City of God. It’s all done in a fast, stylish, uncompromising, and persistently intense way, all the while never spiraling out of control or getting too chaotic/messy for its own good. It’s remarkable stuff, and another movie that’s difficult to find many problems with, even if you're willing to get nitpicky.

6 'Toy Story 2' (1999)

The only movie from Pixar entirely disqualified from appearing on this ranking would be Toy Story, given it’s more than 30 years old. There would be some other ones disqualified for falling short of being masterpieces, of course, but not as many as you might expect, since there are a fair few Pixar movies that do pretty much feel perfect.

Toy Story 2 is one of them, or the most high-quality of them, and so here it is. It’s almost like The Empire Strikes Back of animated movies, hitting all the beats the first movie did in an even stronger way while adding a great deal by way of new ideas, characters, and interesting things for the characters already introduced to do. It’s one remarkable family film, and is, of course, so much more than “just” a family film.

5 'Magnolia' (1999)

While not the most popular film to single out as Paul Thomas Anderson’s best, there’s an argument to be made that Magnolia is. The best thing to point to, when making such an argument, is how ambitious Magnolia is, as well as how emotionally hard-hitting it proves to be, all the while containing a lot by way of everyday drama and also a lot by way of characters and storylines, generally speaking.

Everything takes place over the course of about a day, other than the prologue, which covers a great deal of time, and the whole thing proves satisfying, even if all the threads don’t come together very neatly or expectedly (by design). Magnolia feels like a movie made with a great deal of confidence, and most of the big swings it takes end up being hits, to the point where any missteps or debatable flaws barely register against the enormity of the stuff that works.

4 'All of Us Strangers' (2023)

Andrew Scott standing on a train and looking empty in All of Us Strangers (2023)

The way All of Us Strangers begins is pretty different to the way it ends, and it’s the kind of thing where the stuff that happens at the end really makes the stuff at the start more meaningful, but you also don’t want to say too much when trying to recommend it. There are only a few characters, and of them, most seem to appear mysteriously, and the revelations concerning such appearances take a while to arrive.

So, it’s a slow burn, but it’s very much worth sitting with, since the lead-up is quietly moving and atmospheric in its own way, and then the payoffs, so to speak, hit unfathomably hard. It’s always risky to say, “Yeah, this movie will be a classic some decades from now,” though with All of Us Strangers, the odds do feel in its favor.

3 'Princess Mononoke' (1997)

Ashitaka on top of a ram aiming a bow and arrow in Princess Mononoke

Spirited Away is the easier pick, but Princess Mononoke might well be the more interesting Hayao Miyazaki movie, so here it is. In all honesty, though, both are equally incredible fantasy films, though different sorts of fantasy movies. Spirited Away is a bit more family-friendly and kind of a coming-of-age thing, while Princess Mononoke is grander in scope, thematically a bit more mature, and also a film with a strong (but not preachy) environmental message.

It's nuanced and thought-provoking, though you can also enjoy it in a more straightforward way if you're not feeling all that concerned with thinking too much. Princess Mononoke works on both fronts, or maybe even some other fronts as well, and that can be said about many great (and easy-to-revisit) films, animated or otherwise. However you want to classify it, Princess Mononoke is peak.

2 'Uncut Gems' (2019)

In Uncut Gems, there is a lot of yelling, a lot of profanity, and a generally pervasive feeling of discomfort throughout, which can make it something of a tough sit, particularly if you're after something that’s not a large amount of effort to watch. But if you don’t mind feeling stressed, and want to see something that’s about as intense as any movie’s ever gotten in the past 30 years or so… well, here it is.

Uncut Gems is a thriller that’s also a bit of a dark comedy, but then it’s pretty heavy and sad when you step back and think about it, since it’s about a man digging himself into a hole (or maybe multiple holes, somehow) with very little knowledge regarding how to ever get out. It’s a downward spiral for just over two hours, feeling like absolute chaos, and something that, overall, is beyond visceral and stomach-churning.

1 'Pan's Labyrinth' (2006)

The Pale Man showing off the eyeballs on the palms of his hands in 'Pan's Labyrinth'.

Pan’s Labyrinth is both one of the best monster/fantasy movies of all time and one of the greatest war films ever made, all at once. The story concerns a young girl dealing with a difficult life under a new and overbearing stepfather, and there’s also so much real-world violence around her, with everything motivating her to escape into a darkly fantastical world that’s got some similarities to reality.

It's nightmarish and bleak stuff on both fronts, and in both worlds, but then at the same time, Pan’s Labyrinth is also beautifully made and not a total downer 100% of the time… just quite a bit of the time. But it’s a carefully done downer. It’s Guillermo del Toro’s masterpiece, and even though he’s still very much active at the time of writing (and has made a fair few other great movies), Pan’s Labyrinth probably won’t ever be topped. And maybe that's okay.

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