6 Near-Perfect on Rotten Tomatoes Movies to Watch This Weekend

1 day ago 8

Sadness and Joy smiling at the console in 'Inside Out'

Published May 8, 2026, 12:51 AM EDT

Anja Djuricic was born in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1992. Her first interest in film started very early, as she learned to speak English by watching Disney animated movies (and many, many reruns). Anja soon became inspired to learn more foreign languages to understand more movies, so she entered the Japanese language and literature Bachelor Studies at the University of Belgrade.

Anja is also one of the founders of the DJ duo Vazda Garant, specializing in underground electronic music influenced by various electronic genres.

Anja loves to do puzzles in her spare time, pet cats wherever she meets them, and play The Sims. Anja's Letterboxd four includes Memories of Murder, Parasite, Nope, and The Road to El Dorado.

A free weekend is a blank slate, and many people use that time to watch a feature film. So, naturally, no one wants to waste their valuable free time on a mediocre movie with questionable impressions — they'd rather be blown away by near-perfect content that feels both classic and brand-new at the same time.

Everyone has a different definition of a near-perfect film, but Rotten Tomatoes is the go-to site for finding an almost flawless pick. Some of these recommendations are timeless classics that many people adore, but if you haven't seen them yet — or want to rewatch something you haven't seen in a long time — here are six near-perfect on Rotten Tomatoes movies to watch this weekend.

1 'The Truman Show' (1998)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95% Certified Fresh

The Truman Show is a sci-fi comedy/drama starring Jim Carrey in one of his most iconic roles. It was written by Andrew Niccol and directed by Peter Weir, and it is a prescient satire on reality television, media manipulation, and the nature of free will. Carrey gives the performance of his career, portraying a heartbreakingly sincere character who never veers into cartoonish territory. Many of the film's themes still resonate with audiences today, particularly in this age of constant screen time and connectivity. The film has a 95% Certified Fresh rating and received three Oscar nominations.

The Truman Show follows Truman Burbank (Carrey), a cheerful, ordinary insurance salesman living a dream life in the idyllic seaside town of Seahaven. What he doesn't realize is that his entire life has been a 24-hour reality TV show broadcast around the world since he was born. Every person and thing in his life, including his wife Meryl (Laura Linney), best friend Marlon (Noah Emmerich), daily events, and even the weather, are paid actors playing scripted roles. When small glitches appear, Truman's carefully constructed reality begins to unravel, and he gradually realizes that things aren't as they seem. The Truman Show is ideal for a weekend of thought-provoking, funny, and emotionally charged entertainment.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96% Certified Fresh

The biopic drama The Social Network is widely regarded as David Fincher's best directorial work. Fincher's dark and sleek visuals, combined with Aaron Sorkin's chatty, poignant screenplay, transform a story about the creation of the world's most famous social media platform into a Shakespearean tragedy with themes of friendship and greed. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross complete the experience with their haunting electronic score, which earned them a well-deserved Oscar. The film was based on Ben Mezrich's novel The Accidental Billionaires, and Sorkin also won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film has a 96% Rotten Tomatoes rating and is endlessly watchable.

The Social Network is set in 2003 and follows Harvard undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). The opening scene depicts Zuckerberg being dumped by his girlfriend, and in a fit of drunken inspiration, he creates a campus website called "Facemash." Its viral success inspires the creation of "The Facebook," a social networking site that takes off across Ivy League campuses. However, as the platform grows, so do the lawsuits, particularly those filed by three classmates who claim Zuckerberg stole their idea, as well as his former best friend and CFO, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield). Fincher's film alternates between depositions and flashbacks, telling a story of ambition, betrayal, and the chaotic start of a billion-dollar empire. The Social Network is ideal for a weekend when you want sharp writing, brilliant performances, and a story that feels (and mostly is) unsettlingly real.

Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

🐦Birdman

🪙No Country for Old Men

FIND YOUR FILM →

What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.

ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.

NEXT QUESTION →

Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?

AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.

AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.

NEXT QUESTION →

What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?

AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?

AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.

NEXT QUESTION →

Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.

AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.

NEXT QUESTION →

What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.

AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.

NEXT QUESTION →

What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.

ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.

AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?

AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.

REVEAL MY FILM →

The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.

Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

3 'Mad Max: Fury Road' (2015)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97% Certified Fresh

Many people believe that George Miller's masterpiece Mad Max: Fury Road is the most perfectly directed action film of our time. He conceived the story in the 1980s, when his Mad Max trilogy was at its peak of popularity, but it was shelved due to production delays, global events, and other unavoidable factors. It's interesting because Fury Road appears to have arrived at the ideal time, when Miller was free to create a sandy, dystopian world with cutting-edge technology and stunning practical effects. The story is told almost entirely through images, the pacing is relentless, and each frame resembles a painting. Fury Road's protagonist, Furiosa (Charlize Theron), has become an icon, and the film has a feminist heart beneath its chrome-plated dusty exterior. The film received six Oscars and has a nearly perfect 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Mad Max: Fury Road is an action sci-fi epic set in a scorched, post-apocalyptic wasteland where water and gasoline are considered currencies. Imperator Furiosa, a war rig driver for the tyrannical Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), devises a desperate plan: she smuggles Joe's five wives out of his fortress and drives them to a fabled "Green Place." The entire war party is pursuing her, and she is joined by a captured loner named Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), who is reluctantly drawn into the chase. Fury Road is a two-hour high-speed chase through the desert with realistic stunts, powerful engines, and minimal CGI. This film is ideal for a weekend when you want adrenaline, spectacle, and pure cinematic bliss.

4 'Inside Out' (2015)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98% Certified Fresh

Bing Bong, Sadness and Joy talking in Inside Out.

For fans of animated films, the last decade has seen some incredible additions to the genre. Inside Out stands out as the ideal animated comedy-drama that appears to be intended for children but also speaks to adults. Inside Out is the most emotionally intelligent animated film ever made, and it focuses on an intriguing topic: why humans need to feel and experience sadness. With this film, Pixar fully intended to make us all cry over a forgotten imaginary friend and reframe depression and low mood as a natural part of growing up, making the film a perfect coming-of-age story. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 98% rating, and it won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay.

Inside Out follows Riley Andersen, an 11-year-old who relocates with her parents from Minnesota to San Francisco, leaving behind her hockey team, friends, and everything she knows. The "control panel" in her head is run by five emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). When Joy and Sadness are accidentally swept into the far reaches of Riley's mind, Fear, Anger, and Disgust take over, and the lost emotions must return to Headquarters before Riley loses her ability to feel happy. Inside Out, with its brilliant voice cast and wonderful life lessons, is the ideal film for a weekend when you want to laugh, cry, and feel profoundly understood; if you have any family nearby, particularly children, this is the perfect choice.

5 'Parasite' (2019)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99% Certified Fresh

Parasite - 2019, Song-Kang-ho eating with family upstairs in the fancy house

Parasite is a brilliant psychological thriller that also serves as a dark satire. Bong Joon-ho's films frequently criticize capitalism and class divides, and Parasite is one of his most effective examples. Parasite is a masterful film that seamlessly transitions between class satire and horror, delivering a powerful plot twist that you never would have expected. Bong's screenplay is tight, with every detail working in its favor, and everything from production design and music to performances is flawless. That makes Parasite not just near-perfect, but actually perfect. It received six Oscar nominations and won four, including Best Picture, making history as the first non-English-language film to do so.

Parasite follows the impoverished Kim family: father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), mother Chung-sook, son Ki-woo, and daughter Ki-jung. They live in a cramped, semi-basement apartment, folding pizza boxes for spare cash, when Ki-woo gets a job as a tutor for the wealthy Park family's daughter. While doing that, he sees an opportunity, and the Kims gradually infiltrate the Parks' household, posing as unrelated, highly qualified professionals: Ki-jung as an art therapist, Ki-taek as a driver, and Chung-sook as a housekeeper. Their plan works perfectly until the former housekeeper returns, revealing a terrifying secret hidden deep within the Parks' modernist home. You'll laugh, be scared, and maybe even cry; schedule Parasite for a weekend when you want something smart, tense, and completely absorbing.

6 'Toy Story' (1995)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100% Certified Fresh

Buzz Lightyear holding Woody while they hover on the air in Toy Story

So, while Toy Story may not fit into the "near-perfect" category due to its 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating, its audience score isn't at its highest, so we can technically still call it an almost flawless film. Toy Story, if you aren't aware, is a classic animated Pixar film for the entire family, and families with children who have free weekends will undoubtedly want to spend every minute with them, making Toy Story the perfect movie to watch in these circumstances; this film is funny, heartwarming, and timeless. Toy Story is well-known as the film that revolutionized animation and demonstrated that CGI could tell emotionally complex stories. It became the first animated film to be nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars.

Toy Story is set in a world in which toys come to life when humans are not around. Woody (Tom Hanks), Andy's favorite pull-string cowboy doll, is the story's protagonist, and Woody's comfortable reign among Andy's other toys is upended when Andy receives a flashy new space ranger action figure for his birthday: Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), who considers himself a true hero on a mission. After being separated from Andy, the rivals must band together to escape the clutches of his sadistic neighbor, Sid, and return home before Andy moves away. Toy Story is perfect for a weekend with the family or a solo nostalgia trip that will make you cry happy tears and reflect.