The 30 Best Movies of the Last 30 Years

I will tell you the dirty little secret about these “X Best Movies of X Years” lists: They’re anything but definitive. No one has seen every movie released in a year or a decade or a genre across all of history. Netflix released like 40 movies just last month! There is simply too much stuff to watch to digest it all. And even if it’s accurate to the writer’s perspective, that’s all it is; one person or a couple of writers’ (hopefully informed) opinion.

So best-of lists aren’t really about “the best.” They’re ultimately about the person reading them, and movies of the last year or ten years or even 30 years that they might have missed and can catch up with now thanks to the ever-expanding world of streaming. And hey, that sounds like such a good idea, let’s do that: A list of the 30 best (or “best”) movies of the last 30 years.

It’s an eclectic group of titles. My list features fiction and non-fiction films, American blockbusters, and foreign arthouse fare. There are movies so sad they will make you cry, and comedies so funny they will … also make you cry, but, like, for totally different reasons. (I cry at movies, okay? Leave me alone.) There 30-year-old titles below, and there are movies that are movies that were barely released 30 weeks ago.

And now here are my picks for the best films of the last three decades. If you haven’t seen some of them, they’re worth seeking out. And if you’ve seen them all, well, maybe it’s time to make and share your own list.