Every Country’s Best Rated Movie (According to IMDB)

Lord of the Rings. A Roman Holiday. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Some films are so iconically tied to where they are from, it’s hard to separate them.

IMDB (The Internet Movie Database) rates every film out of 10, according to public vote. The site’s ‘country of origin’ function lets you filter titles by country, so you can see all films produced, filmed or otherwise credited to each location.

We used this tool to figure out the top-rated film from every country in the world, according to the public.

Surprisingly, there were a few films that were linked to countries for less than obvious reasons, such as Fight Club (1999), set in America, being listed as Germany’s top-rated movie.
Song of the Sea (2014) was the top-rated film from Luxembourg although it is based on Irish and Celtic characters.
Room (2015) was both filmed and set in Canada but due to a co-production with Ireland, it comes out as Ireland’s best movie.
Iceland’s top movie is Dancer in the Dark (2000), starring national treasure Björk.

Every film a classic

Some of the films that make the list will come as no surprise - South Korea’s Parasite (2019), or Poland’s The Pianist (2002), for example. These critically acclaimed films are loved in their home country and worldwide!

The top rated film from Iceland, Dancer in the Dark (2000) features national treasure Bjork; and it’ll come as no surprise that Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) is the top rated film from New Zealand. Brazil’s top rated film, City of God (2002), centres around the country’s iconic favelas; many of the actors are residents of real-life favelas in Rio de Janeiro, too.

The highest rated

The top rated film on the list is Bangladesh's Jibon Theke Neya, a 1970 satirical drama. This movie gets a whopping 9.4 stars, beating out other popular titles like The Shawshank Redemption (9.3 stars) and The Dark Knight (9.0 stars).

The other most highly rated films on the list include:

The Chaos Class (Hababam Sinifi) (1975): Turkey - 9.3 stars
Maya Bazaar (1957): India - 9.2 stars
Zana (2019): Kosovo: - 9.1 Stars

The top rated film from the UK is superhero classic The Dark Knight (2008), with 9 stars.

The lowest rated

The lowest-scoring film on the list is Contract Killers, the 2008 action flick from Trinidad and Tobago, which came in with only 4.5 stars.

Other less popular films on the list include:

Wrong Cops (2013): Angola - 6 stars
Viva Riva! (2010): Democratic Republic of Congo - 6.2 stars
New York, I Love You (2008): Bahrain - 6.2 stars

The average score across the board was 7.9 stars.

The country of origin for some films may surprise you

Plenty of top rated films are ‘from’ multiple countries; due to different filming locations, production sites or funding.

You might be surprised to discover Fight Club (1999) is the top rated film from Germany - the film’s international funding means both America and Germany are listed as countries of origin.

Room (2015), is set in Toronto but makes the list as the top rated film from Ireland. It was co-produced by the Irish Film Board and based on the eponymous book by Canadian-Irish author, Emma Donoghue.

Other surprising co-productions include Paris, Je t’aime (2006), the top rated film from Liechtenstein; and the follow up film, New York, I Love You (2008); the top rated film from Bahrain.

Most popular genres

Drama is the most popular genre on the list, making up 41% of these top-rated movies. As well as 58 dramas, there were:

19 comedies
17 adventure films
15 biographies
13 action films
11 crime films
5 animations

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo) is the only western on the list, featured as the top rated film from both Italy and Spain.

Interestingly, some genres have no representation:
0 horror
0 science fiction
0 documentaries

An oldie, but a goodie?

Are contemporary films more highly rated, or do countries stick to the classics?

The most popular year for top rated films was 2018, suggesting it’s newer films that rake in more popular votes - 111 of the list are 2018 films. It’s worth mentioning that a few of these are double ups, with Capernaum featuring as the top rated film from Cyprus, Lebanon and Qatar; and The Wild Pear Tree coming in as the top rated film from both the Republic of North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

There’s a handful of 2019 films on the list too, including:

Truth and Justice (Estonia)
Zana (Kosovo)
The Rifleman (Latvia)
Parasite (South Korea)
My Thoughts are Silent (Ukraine)

The oldest film on the list is The Courtyard of the Ballads (Portugal) released in 1942, followed by Maya Bazaar (1957) from India, and Macario (1960) from Mexico.

An honorable mention for 2004 as another popular year for filmmaking - 10 different films appear on the list from that year:

Song of the Sea (Belgium)
Interstellar (Canada)
Maikol Yordan Traveling Lost (Costa Rica)
Difret (Ethiopia)
Kya Dilli Kya Lahore (Fiji)
The Good Lie (Kenya)
Kyrgyzstan (Queen of the Mountains)
Luxembourg (Song of the Sea)
Mauritania (Timbuktu)
Russia (The Fool (II))

Films with multiple countries of origin

The film that features the most on the list is The Message, an 1976 Islamic epic drama chronicling the life of the prophet Muhammad. This makes the list as the top rated film from found countries; Kuwait, Libya, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. (The film was also co-produced in the UK and Lebanon, too).

The full data

Notes on the data

Data from IMDB's user scores. Examined country by country in August 2020. Only feature films with over 1000 votes were counted.

You’ll find a variety of comedy, crime, drama films on movie packages from brands such as NOW TV, Amazon Prime, Sky and Virgin Media.

Stream all about it!

Many of these classics can be found on your favourite streaming services. We've got loads of discounts on our streaming page, or you can head straight to the NOW TV discounts, Virgin discounts or Amazon voucher pages.

While you're at it — what's a good film night without a takeaway? Head to our takeaway discounts page to save on your movie dinner, or check out the Just Eat vouchers, Uber Eats vouchers and FoodHub voucher pages to save!

Share this post