Douban’s highest-rated films include 66 titles scoring 9.0 or above, spanning documentaries, animation, silent cinema, literary classics, war dramas, family stories, and modern blockbusters. What stands out is how international the list is: Hollywood landmarks sit alongside Chinese classics, Japanese masterpieces, European art films, and acclaimed works from Iran, Turkey, Thailand, India, and Russia.
Top 10
- Planet Earth — Directed by Alastair Fothergill; starring David Attenborough, Sigourney Weaver — 9.7
- The Shawshank Redemption — Directed by Frank Darabont; starring Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, William Sadler, Clancy Brown — 9.5
- The Cove — Directed by Louie Psihoyos; starring Joe Chisholm, Mandy-Rae Cruikshank, Charles Hambleton, Simon Hutchins, Kirk Krack, Isabel Lucas, Richard O’Barry, Hayden Panettiere, Louie Psihoyos — 9.5
- Inception — Directed by Christopher Nolan; starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Marion Cotillard, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, Lukas Haas, Pete Postlethwaite — 9.4
- Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella) — Directed by Roberto Benigni; starring Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Giorgio Cantarini, Giustino Durano, Sergio Bini Bustric, Marisa Paredes, Horst Buchholz, Lidia Alfonsi, Giuliana Lojodice — 9.4
- The Best of Youth (La meglio gioventù) — Directed by Marco Tullio Giordana; starring Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni, Adriana Asti, Sonia Bergamasco, Maya Sansa — 9.4
- Forrest Gump — Directed by Robert Zemeckis; starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright Penn, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, Sally Field, Michael Conner Humphreys, Haley Joel Osment — 9.3
- Léon — Directed by Luc Besson; starring Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, Gary Oldman — 9.3
- Farewell My Concubine — Directed by Chen Kaige; starring Leslie Cheung, Zhang Fengyi, Gong Li, Ge You, Ying Da, Jiang Wenli, David Wu, Qi Lü, Han Lei, Zhi Yin, Mingwei Ma, Zhenxiang Fei, Yitong Zhi, Chun Li, Hailong Zhao, Dan Li, Di Tong — 9.3
- Schindler’s List — Directed by Steven Spielberg; starring Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagall — 9.3
11–20
- 12 Angry Men — Directed by Sidney Lumet; starring Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Robert Webber, Jack Klugman, Ed Begley — 9.3
- A Letter to Heaven — Directed by Wang Junzheng; starring Shi Chen, Li Ding — 9.3
- The Legend of 1900 (La leggenda del pianista sull’oceano) — Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore; starring Tim Roth, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Bill Nunn, Mélanie Thierry, Alberto Vazquez — 9.2
- WALL·E — Directed by Andrew Stanton; starring Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard — 9.2
- Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo cinema Paradiso) — Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore; starring Salvatore Cascio, Enzo Cannavale, Marco Leonardi, Philippe Noiret, Antonella Attili, Jacques Perrin — 9.2
- The Godfather — Directed by Francis Ford Coppola; starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton — 9.2
- 3 Idiots — Directed by Rajkumar Hirani; starring Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Omi Vaidya, Boman Irani, Mona Singh, Rajeev Ravindranathan — 9.2
- Havoc in Heaven — Directed by Wan Laiming, Tang Cheng; starring Qiu Yuefeng, Fu Runsheng, Bi Ke, Shang Hua, Yu Ding, Li Zi, Liu Guangning — 9.2
- Underground — Directed by Emir Kusturica; starring Miki Manojlovic, Lazar Ristovski, Mirjana Jokovic, Slavko Stimac, Ernst Stötzner — 9.2
- My Father and My Son (Babam ve Oglum) — Directed by Çağan Irmak; starring Çetin Tekindor, Fikret Kuskan, Hümeyra, Serif Sezer, Yetkin Dikinciler — 9.2
21–30
- Le trou — Directed by Jacques Becker; starring Marc Michel, Jean Keraudy, Philippe Leroy, Michel Constantin, Raymond Meunier — 9.2
- Les choristes — Directed by Christophe Barratier; starring Gérard Jugnot, François Berléand, Jean-Baptiste Maunier, Marie Bunel, Kad Merad, Jacques Perrin — 9.1
- My Neighbor Totoro (となりのトトロ) — Directed by Hayao Miyazaki; starring Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, Sumi Shimamoto, Tanie Kitabayashi, Hitoshi Takagi — 9.1
- Fight Club — Directed by David Fincher; starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter — 9.1
- Gone with the Wind — Directed by Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood; starring Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Thomas Mitchell, Hattie McDaniel — 9.1
- Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels — Directed by Guy Ritchie; starring Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Jason Statham, Steven Mackintosh, Sting — 9.1
- Hachi: A Dog’s Story — Directed by Lasse Hallström; starring Richard Gere, Forest (Hachiko), Sarah Roemer, Joan Allen, Robbie Sublett, Erick Avari, Hiroyuki Tanaka, Jason Alexander, Robert Capron — 9.1
- Children of Heaven — Directed by Majid Majidi; starring Hossein Ahamdloo, Seyed Karym Alikhani, Kazem Asqarpoor — 9.1
- Seven Samurai (七人の侍) — Directed by Akira Kurosawa; starring Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Daisuke Katō — 9.1
- The Way Home (집으로…) — Directed by Lee Jeong-hyang; starring Kim Eul-boon, Yoo Seung-ho, Dong Hyo-hee, Min Kyung-hoon, Im Eun-kyung — 9.1
31–40
- City Lights — Directed by Charles Chaplin; starring Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee — 9.1
- Tokyo Story (東京物語) — Directed by Yasujirō Ozu; starring Chishū Ryū, Setsuko Hara, Haruko Sugimura, Chieko Higashiyama, Sō Yamamura — 9.1
- The Bear (L’ours) — Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud; starring Bart the Bear, Youk the Bear, Tchéky Karyo, Jack Wallace, André Lacombe — 9.1
- Landscape in the Mist (Τοπίο στην ομίχλη) — Directed by Theo Angelopoulos; starring Michalis Zeke, Tania Palaiologou, Stratos Tzortzoglou, Eva Kotamanidou, Aliki Georgouli — 9.1
- Nostalghia — Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky; starring Oleg Yankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano — 9.1
- Hachikō Monogatari (ハチ公物語) — Directed by Seijirō Kōyama; starring Kei Yamamoto, Hisashi Igawa, Hairi Katagiri, Tatsuya Nakadai, Masumi Harukawa, Kaoru Yachigusa, Mako Ishino, Taiji Tonoyama, Kiyoshi Katō, Saburō Ishikura, Shigeru Izumiya — 9.1
- It’s a Wonderful Life — Directed by Frank Capra; starring James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers — 9.1
- Teahouse — Directed by Xie Tian; starring 于是之, Zheng Rong, Lan Tianye, Ying Ruocheng — 9.1
- The Kid — Directed by Charles Chaplin; starring Charles Chaplin, Jackie Coogan — 9.1
- Nights of Cabiria (Le notti di Cabiria) — Directed by Federico Fellini; starring Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Franca Marzi, Dorian Gray, Aldo Silvani — 9.1
41–50
- The Silence of the Sea (Le silence de la mer) — Directed by Pierre Boutron; starring Julie Delarme, Michel Galabru, Thomas Jouannet, Marie Bunel, Timothée Ferrand, Jean-Baptiste Puech, Jorg Schnass, Jorn Cambreleng — 9.1
- Harakiri — Directed by Masaki Kobayashi; starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Shima Iwashita, Akira Ishihama, Rentarō Mikuni, Yoshio Inaba — 9.1
- Avatar — Directed by James Cameron; starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel Moore, Giovanni Ribisi — 9.0
- Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し) — Directed by Hayao Miyazaki; starring Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Bunta Sugawara, Takeshi Naitō — 9.0
- Mary and Max — Directed by Adam Elliot; starring Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana, Bethany Whitmore — 9.0
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — Directed by Milos Forman; starring Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Louise Fletcher, Ted Markland — 9.0
- The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) — Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; starring Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Thomas Thieme — 9.0
- The Godfather: Part II — Directed by Francis Ford Coppola; starring Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, John Cazale — 9.0
- Michael Jackson’s This Is It — Directed by Kenny Ortega; starring Michael Jackson, Alex Al, Nick Bass, Mekia Cox, Michael Bearden, Orianthi — 9.0
- Once Upon a Time in America — Directed by Sergio Leone; starring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Jennifer Connelly, Elizabeth McGovern, Tuesday Weld — 9.0
51–66
- Yi Yi — Directed by Edward Yang; starring Wu Nien-jen, Kelly Lee, Elaine Jin, Jonathan Chang, Hsiao Shu-shen, Issey Ogata — 9.0
- Toy Story 3 — Directed by Lee Unkrich; starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton — 9.0
- La grande vadrouille — Directed by Gérard Oury; starring Louis de Funès, Bourvil, Claudio Brook, Andréa Parisy, Colette Brosset — 9.0
- Modern Times — Directed by Charles Chaplin; starring Paulette Goddard, Charles Chaplin, Henry Bergman — 9.0
- My Girl (แฟนฉัน) — Directed by Vitcha Gojiew, Songyos Sugmakanan, Nithiwat Tharathorn, Witthaya Thongyooyong, Adisorn Trisirikasem, Komgrit Triwimol; starring Charlie Trairat, Focus Jirakul, Charwin Jitsomboon, Chaleumpol Tikumpornteerawong, Wongsakorn Rassamitat, Arnudsara Jantarangsri, Nipawan Taveepornsawan, Prem Tinsulanonda — 9.0
- A Perfect World — Directed by Clint Eastwood; starring Kevin Costner, Laura Dern, Clint Eastwood, T.J. Lowther, Keith Szarabajka — 9.0
- Dekalog — Directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski — 9.0
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo.) — Directed by Sergio Leone; starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè, Luigi Pistilli — 9.0
- Memories — Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, Kōji Morimoto, Tensai Okamura; starring Tsutomu Isobe, Kōichi Yamadera, Seizō Iizuka, Shigeru Chiba, Gara Takashima, Ami Hasegawa — 9.0
- The Return (Возвращение) — Directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev; starring Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko, Natalya Vdovina — 9.0
- La strada — Directed by Federico Fellini; starring Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart — 9.0
- A Short Film About Love (Krótki film o milosci) — Directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski; starring Grażyna Szapołowska, Olaf Lubaszenko, Małgorzata Rożniatowska, Piotr Machalica, Artur Barciś — 9.0
- Mirror (Зеркало) — Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky; starring Margarita Terekhova, Oleg Yankovskiy, Filipp Yankovsky, Ignat Daniltsev, Nikolai Grinko — 9.0
- Taare Zameen Par — Directed by Aamir Khan; starring Aamir Khan, Darsheel Safary, Tanay Chheda, Sachet Engineer — 9.0
- Stalker (Сталкер) — Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky; starring Aleksandr Kajdanovsky, Alisa Frejndlikh, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Natasha Abramova — 9.0
- Ulysses’ Gaze (Το βλέμμα του Οδυσσέα) — Directed by Theo Angelopoulos; starring Harvey Keitel, Maia Morgenstern, Erland Josephson, Thanasis Vengos, Yorgos Michalakopoulos — 9.0
A list that crosses eras and borders
The 66 entries range from silent-era works like City Lights and The Kid to contemporary titles such as Inception, Avatar, and Toy Story 3. Animation is strongly represented by WALL·E, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Havoc in Heaven, and Memories. Documentary filmmaking reaches the very top through Planet Earth and The Cove, while classics of human drama and moral conflict appear throughout the list in films like 12 Angry Men, Schindler’s List, The Godfather, Harakiri, and The Lives of Others.
Chinese-speaking audiences also placed remarkable emphasis on works such as Farewell My Concubine, A Letter to Heaven, Teahouse, and Yi Yi, alongside globally celebrated titles from Italy, Japan, France, the United States, Russia, Poland, India, Iran, Turkey, Thailand, and Greece.
Every film here holds a Douban score of at least 9.0, making the list a compact map of widely admired cinema rather than a single-genre recommendation list.