Movie Auditor › Rankings › 1997
Best Movies of 1997, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
95 films from 1997 are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Life Is Beautiful ('1997), at 8.6 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.5. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Life Is Beautiful, 8.6 on IMDb against 58 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Life Is Beautiful '1997 | Comedy / Drama | 8.6 | 80% | 58 | 8.4 | Roberto Benigni |
| 2 | Good Will Hunting '1997 | Drama | 8.4 | 97% | 71 | 8.2 | Gus Van Sant |
| 3 | Princess Mononoke '1997 | Fantasy / Animation | 8.3 | 93% | 78 | 8.3 | Hayao Miyazaki |
| 4 | L.A. Confidential '1997 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 8.2 | 99% | 91 | 7.8 | Curtis Hanson |
| 5 | Titanic '1997 | Drama / Romance | 8.0 | 88% | 75 | 7.9 | James Cameron |
| 6 | Boogie Nights '1997 | Drama / Comedy | 7.9 | 91% | 87 | 7.6 | Paul Thomas Anderson |
| 7 | The Game '1997 | Drama / Thriller / Mystery | 7.7 | 77% | 63 | 7.6 | David Fincher |
| 8 | Donnie Brasco '1997 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.7 | 88% | 77 | 7.5 | Mike Newell |
| 9 | Gattaca '1997 | Sci-Fi / Drama | 7.7 | 82% | 64 | 7.6 | Andrew Niccol |
| 10 | As Good as It Gets '1997 | Drama / Comedy / Romance | 7.7 | 86% | 67 | 7.4 | James L. Brooks |
| 11 | The Fifth Element '1997 | Sci-Fi / Action | 7.6 | 70% | 52 | 7.6 | Luc Besson |
| 12 | Children of Heaven '1997 | Drama | 8.2 | 83% | 77 | 7.9 | Majid Majidi |
| 13 | The Devil's Advocate '1997 | Horror / Drama / Mystery | 7.5 | 65% | 60 | 7.5 | Taylor Hackford |
| 14 | Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion '1997 | Animation / Sci-Fi / Drama / Fantasy / Action | 8.1 | 92% | - | 8.3 | Kazuya Tsurumaki |
| 15 | Jackie Brown '1997 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.5 | 88% | 62 | 7.4 | Quentin Tarantino |
| 16 | Contact '1997 | Drama / Sci-Fi / Mystery | 7.5 | 69% | 62 | 7.5 | Robert Zemeckis |
| 17 | Lost Highway '1997 | Drama / Thriller / Mystery | 7.6 | 70% | 53 | 7.6 | David Lynch |
| 18 | Men in Black '1997 | Action / Comedy / Sci-Fi | 7.3 | 91% | 72 | 7.2 | Barry Sonnenfeld |
| 19 | Face/Off '1997 | Action / Crime / Sci-Fi | 7.3 | 93% | 82 | 7.1 | John Woo |
| 20 | Starship Troopers '1997 | Action / Thriller / Sci-Fi | 7.3 | 72% | 52 | 7.1 | Paul Verhoeven |
| 21 | Open Your Eyes '1997 | Drama / Thriller / Sci-Fi | 7.7 | 87% | - | 7.5 | Alejandro Amenábar |
| 22 | Hercules '1997 | Animation / Fantasy / Comedy / Romance | 7.3 | 83% | 74 | 7.5 | Ron Clements |
| 23 | Funny Games '1997 | Drama / Horror / Thriller | 7.5 | 73% | 69 | 7.3 | Michael Haneke |
| 24 | Taste of Cherry '1997 | Drama | 7.7 | 82% | 80 | 7.7 | Abbas Kiarostami |
| 25 | Grosse Pointe Blank '1997 | Action / Comedy / Thriller / Romance | 7.3 | 82% | 76 | 7.0 | George Armitage |
| 26 | Chasing Amy '1997 | Comedy / Drama / Romance | 7.2 | 86% | 71 | 6.7 | Kevin Smith |
| 27 | Anastasia '1997 | Animation / Fantasy | 7.2 | 83% | 61 | 7.6 | Don Bluth |
| 28 | Amistad '1997 | Drama / Mystery | 7.3 | 78% | 64 | 7.0 | Steven Spielberg |
| 29 | Fireworks '1997 | Crime / Drama | 7.7 | 96% | 83 | 7.7 | Takeshi Kitano |
| 30 | The Full Monty '1997 | Comedy | 7.2 | 96% | 75 | 7.0 | Peter Cattaneo |
| 31 | Happy Together '1997 | Drama / Romance | 7.6 | 85% | 70 | 7.6 | Wong Kar-Wai |
| 32 | Geri's Game '1997 | Animation / Comedy | 7.8 | - | - | 7.6 | Jan Pinkava |
| 33 | Seven Years in Tibet '1997 | Drama | 7.1 | 57% | 55 | 7.2 | Jean-Jacques Annaud |
| 34 | Cure '1997 | Horror / Mystery / Crime | 7.5 | 94% | 71 | 7.6 | Kiyoshi Kurosawa |
| 35 | The Rainmaker '1997 | Drama / Crime / Thriller | 7.2 | 82% | 72 | 7.0 | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 36 | The Ice Storm '1997 | Drama | 7.3 | 86% | 72 | 6.9 | Ang Lee |
| 37 | Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery '1997 | Comedy / Crime | 7.0 | 72% | 51 | 6.6 | Jay Roach |
| 38 | Deconstructing Harry '1997 | Comedy / Drama | 7.3 | 73% | 62 | 7.2 | Woody Allen |
| 39 | Wag the Dog '1997 | Comedy / Drama | 7.1 | 86% | 74 | 6.9 | Barry Levinson |
| 40 | Live Flesh '1997 | Drama / Romance / Thriller | 7.3 | 80% | 69 | 7.0 | Pedro Almodóvar |
| 41 | Cop Land '1997 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.0 | 75% | 64 | 6.8 | James Mangold |
| 42 | Hard Eight '1997 | Drama / Crime | 7.1 | 82% | 78 | 6.8 | Paul Thomas Anderson |
| 43 | Liar Liar '1997 | Comedy / Fantasy | 6.9 | 83% | 70 | 6.7 | Tom Shadyac |
| 44 | Con Air '1997 | Action / Thriller / Crime | 6.9 | 59% | 52 | 6.8 | Simon West |
| 45 | The Edge '1997 | Action / Drama | 7.0 | 63% | 66 | 6.9 | Lee Tamahori |
| 46 | Breakdown '1997 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller / Action | 7.0 | 83% | 74 | 7.0 | Jonathan Mostow |
| 47 | Three Men and a Leg '1997 | Comedy | 7.7 | - | - | 8.0 | Aldo Baglio |
| 48 | Selena '1997 | Drama / Musical | 6.9 | 66% | 67 | 7.7 | Gregory Nava |
| 49 | Lolita '1997 | Drama / Romance | 6.8 | 69% | 46 | 7.1 | Adrian Lyne |
| 50 | Nothing to Lose '1997 | Comedy / Crime / Action | 6.7 | 32% | - | 6.6 | Steve Oedekerk |
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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