Rotten Tomatoes is collecting every new Certified Fresh movie into one list, creating our guide to the best movies of 2021. Among them you'll find blockbusters (Shang-Chi), documentaries (Lily Topples the World), awards contenders (The Green Knight), the cutting-edge in horror (The Night House).
Movies achieve Certified Fresh status by maintaining a steady Tomatometer score of at least 75% after a minimum number of reviews, with that number depending on how the movie was released. For wide releases (of which there were significantly fewer this year, as you can imagine), the minimum number of reviews is 80. For streaming or limited release movies, that number is 40. And finally, it's 20 reviews for movies premiering on television. Across all release types, each movie needs at least five of its reviews to be published by Top Critics. Once a movie goes Certified Fresh, the only way to lose it is by dropping below 70%.
