Movie Auditor › Rankings › 1988
Best Movies of 1988, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
111 films from 1988 are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Grave of the Fireflies ('1988), at 8.5 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.4. Biggest split between audiences and critics: The Big Blue, 7.5 on IMDb against 35 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grave of the Fireflies '1988 | Animation / Drama / War | 8.5 | 100% | 94 | 8.4 | Isao Takahata |
| 2 | Cinema Paradiso '1988 | Drama / Romance | 8.5 | 90% | 80 | 8.4 | Giuseppe Tornatore |
| 3 | Die Hard '1988 | Action / Thriller | 8.2 | 94% | 72 | 7.8 | John McTiernan |
| 4 | My Neighbor Totoro '1988 | Fantasy / Animation | 8.1 | 94% | 87 | 8.1 | Hayao Miyazaki |
| 5 | Rain Man '1988 | Drama | 8.0 | 88% | 65 | 7.7 | Barry Levinson |
| 6 | Akira '1988 | Animation / Sci-Fi / Action | 8.0 | 88% | 68 | 7.9 | Katsuhiro Otomo |
| 7 | Who Framed Roger Rabbit '1988 | Fantasy / Animation / Comedy / Crime | 7.7 | 96% | 83 | 7.5 | Robert Zemeckis |
| 8 | Mississippi Burning '1988 | Drama / Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.8 | 79% | 65 | 7.7 | Alan Parker |
| 9 | The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! '1988 | Comedy / Crime | 7.6 | 88% | 76 | 7.3 | David Zucker |
| 10 | Time of the Gypsies '1988 | Drama / Crime / Fantasy / Romance | 8.1 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Emir Kusturica |
| 11 | A Fish Called Wanda '1988 | Comedy / Crime | 7.5 | 96% | 80 | 7.2 | Charles Crichton |
| 12 | Beetlejuice '1988 | Fantasy / Comedy | 7.4 | 83% | 71 | 7.4 | Tim Burton |
| 13 | A Short Film About Love '1988 | Drama / Romance | 8.1 | 95% | - | 7.8 | Krzysztof Kieślowski |
| 14 | Midnight Run '1988 | Comedy / Crime / Thriller | 7.5 | 95% | 78 | 7.2 | Martin Brest |
| 15 | Dangerous Liaisons '1988 | Drama / Romance | 7.5 | 91% | 74 | 7.2 | Stephen Frears |
| 16 | The Vanishing '1988 | Thriller / Mystery | 7.6 | 96% | - | 7.4 | George Sluizer |
| 17 | The Last Temptation of Christ '1988 | Drama | 7.5 | 82% | 80 | 7.2 | Martin Scorsese |
| 18 | The Land Before Time '1988 | Animation / Drama | 7.4 | 65% | 66 | 7.2 | Don Bluth |
| 19 | Big '1988 | Fantasy / Drama / Comedy | 7.3 | 98% | 73 | 7.2 | Penny Marshall |
| 20 | The Thin Blue Line '1988 | Crime / Documentary | 7.9 | 100% | 79 | 7.7 | Errol Morris |
| 21 | The Big Blue '1988 | Romance / Drama | 7.5 | 62% | 35 | 7.4 | Luc Besson |
| 22 | A Short Film About Killing '1988 | Crime / Drama | 7.9 | 91% | - | 7.6 | Krzysztof Kieślowski |
| 23 | Dirty Rotten Scoundrels '1988 | Comedy / Crime | 7.4 | 89% | 68 | 7.1 | Frank Oz |
| 24 | Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown '1988 | Comedy / Drama | 7.5 | 94% | 85 | 7.4 | Pedro Almodóvar |
| 25 | They Live '1988 | Sci-Fi / Action / Thriller | 7.2 | 86% | 55 | 7.3 | John Carpenter |
| 26 | Willow '1988 | Fantasy / Action | 7.2 | 53% | 47 | 7.0 | Ron Howard |
| 27 | The Bear '1988 | Drama | 7.7 | 88% | 60 | 7.1 | Jean-Jacques Annaud |
| 28 | Coming to America '1988 | Comedy / Romance | 7.1 | 71% | 47 | 6.9 | John Landis |
| 29 | Running on Empty '1988 | Drama / Romance / Crime | 7.6 | 81% | 67 | 7.4 | Sidney Lumet |
| 30 | Dead Ringers '1988 | Thriller / Horror | 7.2 | 86% | 86 | 7.1 | David Cronenberg |
| 31 | The Unbearable Lightness of Being '1988 | Drama / Romance | 7.2 | 86% | 73 | 6.8 | Philip Kaufman |
| 32 | The Adventures of Baron Munchausen '1988 | Fantasy / Comedy | 7.1 | 90% | 69 | 7.0 | Terry Gilliam |
| 33 | Stand and Deliver '1988 | Drama | 7.3 | 89% | 77 | 7.8 | Ramón Menéndez |
| 34 | The Accused '1988 | Crime / Drama | 7.1 | 93% | 65 | 7.1 | Jonathan Kaplan |
| 35 | Alice '1988 | Animation / Fantasy | 7.4 | 95% | - | 7.4 | Jan Švankmajer |
| 36 | Bull Durham '1988 | Comedy / Romance | 7.0 | 97% | 73 | 6.6 | Ron Shelton |
| 37 | Eight Men Out '1988 | Drama | 7.2 | 87% | 71 | 6.8 | John Sayles |
| 38 | Gorillas in the Mist '1988 | Drama | 7.1 | 84% | - | 7.0 | Michael Apted |
| 39 | Scrooged '1988 | Fantasy / Comedy / Drama | 6.9 | 72% | 38 | 6.8 | Richard Donner |
| 40 | Another Woman '1988 | Drama | 7.2 | 59% | - | 6.8 | Woody Allen |
| 41 | Ariel '1988 | Drama / Romance / Crime | 7.4 | - | - | 7.1 | Aki Kaurismäki |
| 42 | Hairspray '1988 | Comedy | 7.0 | 98% | 77 | 6.8 | John Waters |
| 43 | Police Story 2 '1988 | Action / Crime / Thriller | 7.0 | 84% | 68 | 7.1 | Jackie Chan |
| 44 | Bird '1988 | Drama / Musical | 7.1 | 81% | 78 | 6.8 | Clint Eastwood |
| 45 | Dragons Forever '1988 | Action / Comedy / Romance | 7.1 | 67% | - | 7.2 | Sammo Hung |
| 46 | As Tears Go By '1988 | Drama / Crime / Romance | 7.0 | 85% | 67 | 7.0 | Wong Kar-Wai |
| 47 | Bloodsport '1988 | Action / Drama | 6.8 | 48% | 29 | 7.1 | Newt Arnold |
| 48 | Tucker: The Man and His Dream '1988 | Drama | 6.9 | 82% | 76 | 6.7 | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 49 | Young Guns '1988 | Western | 6.8 | 43% | 50 | 6.7 | Christopher Cain |
| 50 | Working Girl '1988 | Comedy / Romance / Drama | 6.8 | 85% | 73 | 6.6 | Mike Nichols |
Our catalog covers roughly the 8,800 most-rated films on TMDB, so lesser-known titles may be missing. Order uses a confidence-weighted IMDb score so a perfect score from a handful of votes does not beat a well-established classic; the scores shown are the raw ones.
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