Paddington 2 ousts Citizen Kane from Rotten Tomatoes top spot

It's official – Paddington 2 is the greatest movie of all time. Or at least, according to Rotten Tomatoes, it is (and we might be inclined to agree).

Citizen Kane has long held the top spot on the review aggregator site, but a newly unearthed 80-year-old review, originally published in the Chicago Tribune in 1941, has put a spanner in the works – Orson Welles' classic movie has been toppled from its 100 per cent score to a mere 99 per cent. And now? The movie with the highest "certified fresh" score is none other than Paddington 2.

"You've heard a lot about this picture and I see by the ads that some experts think it 'the greatest movie ever made,'" reads the review, written by an unknown critic under the pseudonym 'Mae Tinée' (matineé, get it?). "I don't. It's interesting. It's different. In fact, it's bizarre enough to become a museum piece. But its sacrifice of simplicity to eccentricity robs it of distinction and general entertainment value."

Paddington 2 was released in 2017 as a follow-up to 2014's Paddington. Directed and co-written by Paul King, Ben Whishaw voices the titular friendly, marmalade-loving bear, while Hugh Grant plays the movie's villain. It was recently announced that a third movie was in the works.

"It's extremely lovely to be on any list which includes Citizen Kane, but it is obviously quite an eccentric list that goes from Citizen Kane to Paddington 2, so I'll try not to take it too seriously," King told The Hollywood Reporter after the news broke. "I won't let it go too much to my head and immediately build my Xanadu. But I have been cooking up a model just in case."

When asked how Paddington himself might react, King added: "I imagine he’d just crack open the marmalade and have a second sandwich — you’d like to think he wouldn’t get too carried away."

I do hope Mr Kane won't be too upset when he hears I've overtaken him with rotten tomatoes.April 28, 2021

If you've already seen the best movie on Rotten Tomatoes, check out our list of the best movies of 2020 instead.

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related. I help bring you all the latest news, features, and reviews, as well as helming our Big Screen Spotlight column. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.