The Top-Rated Movie in Every Country

Want to impress your friends with your knowledge of foreign films but don’t know where to start? This map from Vouchercloud provides a good starting point. The UK-based voucher site used public reviews from IMDB to create a map showing the best-rated movie produced in nearly every country. (As it turns out, some nations, like North Korea, don’t have much of a film industry.)

Films featured on the map were either produced, filmed, or linked in some way to the country in which they are listed. Judging by the map, drama appears to be the most popular genre worldwide, with the top movies from 39 countries being classified as such. Comedy is the second most popular genre, followed by adventure, crime, biography, action, and animation.

The newest releases from 2018 to appear on the map include The Wild Pear Tree (from Bosnia and Herzegovina), Dying to Survive (China), Ekvtime: Man of God (Georgia), Goodachari (India), Yowis Ben (Indonesia), Deception: Oo Pel Dan Myin (Myanmar), Dilan 1990 (Singapore), and Ahlat Agaci (Sweden).

Of course, a few familiar titles also make an appearance: The top movie in the U.S.—as well as the top-rated movie on IMDB’s site in general—is writer-director Frank Darabont’s 1994 drama The Shawshank Redemption. Other big box office hits include Casino Royale (claimed by the Bahamas) and The Dark Knight (UK). Many of the films on the map have ties to more than one country, such as Fight Club (1999), which is set in the U.S. but is listed as Germany’s top-rated film. Similarly, First They Killed My Father (the 2017 film directed by Angelina Jolie) was primarily shot in Cambodia.

If you want to get a jump start on your viewing party, Jolie's movie about the Khmer Rouge is available on Netflix streaming (at least for American viewers), as are Punjab 1984 (Canada’s top film) and Room (Ireland’s top film).