What do you remember about going to the theater 10 years ago? Probably spending less on tickets, for starters—the average price in 2015 was $8.43, compared to the 2025 average ticket price of around $11.50. But what about the movies themselves? It's an odd year to try to summarize, a fact reflected by Richard Brody in his assessment of the best films of 2015 for The New Yorker: "This has been one of Hollywood's worst years in my memory, but it has been a terrific year for movies over all."
It's true, as Brody noted in his piece, that many of the greatest directors of the era sat 2015 out, or had nearly completed films that had to wait for release until the following year. It's also true, though, that franchise movies triumphed at the box office—the top three films were "Jurassic World," "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," and "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Nowadays, we've come to expect this kind of IP box-office dominance, but at the time it was still something worth remarking on. As The Guardian put it, "Sequels and franchises make 2015 the year of the mega-movie."
Some of those giant blockbusters were among the year's best-reviewed films. But there were also plenty of more under-the-radar flicks that only true cinephiles made it to theaters to see. To find the true top titles, Stacker compiled a list of the best 2015 movies of all time based on our own Stacker score, a weighted index split evenly between IMDb user rating and Metascore. The top movie on this list has a Stacker score of 100; the remaining movies are ranked relative to it. To qualify, the film had at least 10,000 IMDb user votes and a Metascore. Any ties were broken by number of IMDb votes.
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OMDb
1 / 20- Stacker score: 89.7
- IMDb user rating: 7.1 (votes: 41,000)
- Metascore: 86
- Director: Sean Baker
- Actors: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Karagulian
- Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes
- Rating: R
- Box office: $702,354
OMDb
2 / 20- Stacker score: 89.7
- IMDb user rating: 7.6 (votes: 339,000)
- Metascore: 81
- Director: Steven Spielberg
- Actors: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda
- Runtime: 2 hours 22 minutes
- Rating: PG-13
- Box office: $72,313,754
OMDb
3 / 20- Stacker score: 89.7
- IMDb user rating: 7.7 (votes: 1.0 million)
- Metascore: 80
- Director: J.J. Abrams
- Actors: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac
- Runtime: 2 hours 18 minutes
- Rating: PG-13
- Box office: $936,662,225
OMDb
4 / 20- Stacker score: 90.3
- IMDb user rating: 7.5 (votes: 33,000)
- Metascore: 83
- Director: Brett Morgen
- Actors: Kurt Cobain, Wendy O'Connor, Don Cobain
- Runtime: 2 hours 12 minutes
- Rating: TV-MA
- Box office: N/A
OMDb
5 / 20- Stacker score: 90.3
- IMDb user rating: 7.6 (votes: 326,000)
- Metascore: 82
- Director: Ryan Coogler
- Actors: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson
- Runtime: 2 hours 13 minutes
- Rating: PG-13
- Box office: $109,778,883
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OMDb
6 / 20- Stacker score: 90.9
- IMDb user rating: 7.7 (votes: 516,000)
- Metascore: 82
- Director: Denis Villeneuve
- Actors: Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro
- Runtime: 2 hours 1 minutes
- Rating: R
- Box office: $46,889,293
OMDb
7 / 20- Stacker score: 90.9
- IMDb user rating: 7.8 (votes: 519,000)
- Metascore: 81
- Director: Adam McKay
- Actors: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling
- Runtime: 2 hours 10 minutes
- Rating: R
- Box office: $70,259,870
OMDb
8 / 20- Stacker score: 91.4
- IMDb user rating: 7.8 (votes: 25,000)
- Metascore: 82
- Director: Ciro Guerra
- Actors: Nilbio Torres, Jan Bijvoet, Antonio Bolívar
- Runtime: 2 hours 5 minutes
- Rating: Not Rated
- Box office: $1,329,249
OMDb
9 / 20- Stacker score: 91.4
- IMDb user rating: 8.0 (votes: 42,000)
- Metascore: 80
- Director: Alex Gibney
- Actors: Paul Haggis, Jason Beghe, Spanky Taylor
- Runtime: 1 hour 59 minutes
- Rating: Not Rated
- Box office: N/A
OMDb
10 / 20- Stacker score: 91.4
- IMDb user rating: 7.2 (votes: 78,000)
- Metascore: 88
- Director: Duke Johnson, Charlie Kaufman
- Actors: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan
- Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Rating: R
- Box office: $3,759,286
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OMDb
11 / 20- Stacker score: 91.4
- IMDb user rating: 8.0 (votes: 978,000)
- Metascore: 80
- Director: Ridley Scott
- Actors: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig
- Runtime: 2 hours 24 minutes
- Rating: PG-13
- Box office: $228,433,663
OMDb
12 / 20- Stacker score: 92.6
- IMDb user rating: 8.3 (votes: 21,000)
- Metascore: 79
- Director: Evgeny Afineevsky
- Actors: His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Said Ismagilov, Bishop Agapit
- Runtime: 1 hour 42 minutes
- Rating: Not Rated
- Box office: N/A
OMDb
13 / 20- Stacker score: 93.1
- IMDb user rating: 7.8 (votes: 57,000)
- Metascore: 85
- Director: Asif Kapadia
- Actors: Amy Winehouse, Mitch Winehouse, Mark Ronson
- Runtime: 2 hours 8 minutes
- Rating: R
- Box office: $8,413,144
OMDb
14 / 20- Stacker score: 93.1
- IMDb user rating: 7.5 (votes: 156,000)
- Metascore: 88
- Director: John Crowley
- Actors: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson
- Runtime: 1 hour 57 minutes
- Rating: PG-13
- Box office: $38,322,743
OMDb
15 / 20- Stacker score: 94.3
- IMDb user rating: 7.1 (votes: 36,000)
- Metascore: 94
- Director: Andrew Haigh
- Actors: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James
- Runtime: 1 hour 35 minutes
- Rating: R
- Box office: $4,247,285
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OMDb
16 / 20- Stacker score: 95.4
- IMDb user rating: 7.3 (votes: 150,000)
- Metascore: 94
- Director: Todd Haynes
- Actors: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson
- Runtime: 1 hour 58 minutes
- Rating: R
- Box office: $12,711,491
OMDb
17 / 20- Stacker score: 95.4
- IMDb user rating: 8.1 (votes: 472,000)
- Metascore: 86
- Director: Lenny Abrahamson
- Actors: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridgers
- Runtime: 1 hour 58 minutes
- Rating: R
- Box office: $14,677,654
OMDb
18 / 20- Stacker score: 97.7
- IMDb user rating: 8.1 (votes: 1.2 million)
- Metascore: 90
- Director: George Miller
- Actors: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult
- Runtime: 2 hours
- Rating: R
- Box office: $154,280,290
OMDb
19 / 20- Stacker score: 99.4
- IMDb user rating: 8.1 (votes: 524,000)
- Metascore: 93
- Director: Tom McCarthy
- Actors: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams
- Runtime: 2 hours 9 minutes
- Rating: R
- Box office: $45,055,776
OMDb
20 / 20- Stacker score: 100.0
- IMDb user rating: 8.1 (votes: 882,000)
- Metascore: 94
- Director: Pete Docter, Ronnie Del Carmen
- Actors: Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black
- Runtime: 1 hour 35 minutes
- Rating: PG
- Box office: $356,461,711
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