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There was a time, not even that long ago, when telling someone you watched anime came with a kind of pre-emptive apology built in; the general masses would think that only nerds of the nerds watched these things, and it was cast as a weird, niche subculture. Not anymore. Between a pandemic that locked an entire generation indoors with nothing but streaming and an algorithm, and a string of theatrical releases that started demolishing box office records, the genre no longer needs anyone’s permission and is simply everywhere now.
Demon Slayer’s Infinity Castle didn’t just perform well for an anime film; it performed like a genuine summer tentpole, beating all the comic book films released last year (including Superman) at the global box office. Chainsaw Man’s Reze Arc did something similar, turning a story about a horny chainsaw-headed devil hunter into a hot pop-culture ticket for people who couldn’t have told you what a shonen was eighteen months earlier. SPY x FAMILY slid into mainstream affection with the ease of a sitcom. Jujutsu Kaisen turned Gojo into a household name. The medium now has the cultural penetration that used to be reserved exclusively for prestige American TV Shows and IPs.
The stigma that used to trail Anime around, the assumption that it was a niche interest for a particular kind of person in a particular kind of bedroom, has largely faded away, and not because anime changed to accommodate the mainstream. If anything, the opposite happened. The mainstream finally caught up to what this format has been quietly capable of the entire time.
With all that in mind, today felt like exactly the right moment to ask a simple, slightly dangerous question: what do people actually consider the best anime ever made? Using IMDb’s own numbers as our guide, we will try to answer that question below.
It should be noted that for this list, we’ll only include titles with over 10,000 user votes on IMDb. Let’s get started.
Attack on Titan tops IMDb as the Highest-Rated Anime Ever.
1. Attack on Titan
Attack on Titan is a profound and gripping exploration of the cycle of hatred, racism, and the brutal realities of war. Isayama’s expertly crafted storytelling, with meticulously planned major plot points from the outset, ensures that the series never fails to deliver shocking reveals and powerful climactic confrontations. The anime features some of the most iconic and nuanced ensemble in modern anime, and the fact that the series is also incredibly action-packed has further helped in driving its success.
Honestly, watching Attack on Titan every week was an unforgettable experience. The anime was everywhere when it first premiered in 2013. While a four-year hiatus did stall its momentum a bit, the Return to Shiganshina arc in 2019 was among the most thrilling and heart-pounding runs I have gotten to watch in any anime or TV show; every week was a genuine event. Unlike many other shows, the series maintained that quality right up to the very end.
And that is the reason Attack on Titan also boasts some of the highest-rated TV episodes on IMDb, with over 60% of its episodes receiving ratings of 9 or higher, firmly establishing it as the Best Anime of All Time on IMDb.
2. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is often rated as the Best Anime of All Time by critics and by most anime review aggregator websites. It is still widely appreciated and loved more than a decade and a half after its climax. Rightfully so, it’s one of the most complete stories in the medium; packed with high-octane action, visceral emotions, exciting intrigue, and plenty of moral and profound philosophical arguments.
Hunter x Hunter is now ranked among the Top 3 Best Anime on IMDb.
3. Hunter x Hunter
Hunter x Hunter refuses to sit inside the typical shonen mould, with every next arc, constantly pushing past where the genre usually stops and daring to go somewhere stranger. It doesn’t just follow the genre’s conventions; it takes them apart and rebuilds them from scratch. Nowhere is that clearer than in the Chimaera Ant arc, an absolute masterclass in storytelling, dissected and celebrated in essays across the internet for years now. You could write entire love letters about its depth, its characters and moral complexity, the sheer emotional weight it carries, and it still probably wouldn’t be enough to do the thing justice fully.
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4. Death Note
Death Note was the introduction to the medium for many, and it certainly is an edge-of-the-seat entrance to the world of anime—an extravagant cat-and-mouse game of epic proportions where everything is at stake.
It’s an anime that many of us love and enjoy, and it is no surprise that it is high up on this list.
5. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is the most recent anime on this list, and it is genuinely impressive that this anime is so highly regarded despite our love for the classics or the anime we grew up watching. It is even the Highest-Rated Anime of All Time on MyAnimeList.
Frieren is markedly different from fantasy shows like The Witcher and Shadow and Bone, but it is certainly the most impressive among recent fantasy outings. Its larger-than-life characters and its rich and emotionally poignant narrative appeal to the human in you and give you this sense of feel-good nostalgia, alongside this sense of appreciation for the world you see on your screen and the world you see outside of it.
Frieren is charming in the softest possible way. Calm, unhurried, mundane by design, and that’s exactly the trick of it, that’s how it manages to bottle the actual essence of the fantasy genre and this strange, beautiful post-war world it’s built around. It plays like slice-of-life on the surface, but is more than willing to snap into intense, gorgeously animated action the moment the story calls for it.
Madhouse nailed the tone here completely, top to bottom, sublime work throughout. Frieren is, without argument, one of the best fantasy shows to come along in years.
6. Cowboy Bebop
Cowboy Bebop blurs boundaries. On the surface, it’s a Space Western, but there are so many different elements blended together throughout the anime. Sometimes, it’s a crime drama, and sometimes, it’s like a buddy-cop show. It is action-packed, but there’s a great sense of romance, loss, and tragedy. Sometimes it’s a film noir, and sometimes it is jazz itself.
This is a genuine classic, one of the first anime to actually break through in the West and stick, and nearly everyone who grew up around it continues to have a deep love for the show. “The Ballad of Fallen Angels,” is certainly one of the most brilliant and artistic episodes of television I have ever seen, an episode that fans of this show will probably never fully shake loose from their memory, however hard they try.
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7. Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War
Many anime fans picked up the series in the 2000s, and by the time its initial eight-year run concluded, we had all grown up with this anime.
In 2012, Bleach went on an indefinite hiatus. And for a decade after that, all the fans of Ichigo and the Soul Society could really do was wait and hope quietly that someday, somehow, it would come back. Ten years is a long time to hold onto something like that. Then 2022 happened, and the wait was finally over: Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War arrived, and it felt less like a comeback and more like a reckoning.
Bleach returned in full, glorious style, richer and more patient than even the manga’s own pacing, with Pierrot delivering production and animation that genuinely earns every bit of the hype. Want to know how the fans actually feel about it? Look no further than the fact that it currently sits as one of the highest-rated anime on IMDb.
8. One Piece
One Piece was winning hearts before the turn of the century, and perhaps the greatest compliment you can give this anime is that even after over twenty-five years on air, it is still managing to do so. New fans are falling in love with this series every day, and the veterans have continued to stick by its side after all this time; a true testament to the quality and longevity of the anime.
It is fair to even argue that, somehow, the One Piece anime has been getting better and better as Toei continues to push the bar on the production. Wano’s stellar adaptation and Luffy’s Gear 5, clubbed together with Netflix’s live-action adaptation, have propelled the anime’s growth worldwide into the next gear, and its IMDb score is further proof of that.
In January 2022, the anime had an IMDb score of 8.7 with over 103,000 ratings,
It currently has an aggregate score of 9 with over 360,000 ratings.
9. Vinland Saga
Vinland Saga sits among the most quietly devastating things the seinen genre has produced, all sweeping historical scope and stunning, brutal action wrapped around something far gentler underneath.
Season 1 doesn’t hold back on the violence, blood on nearly every frame, and yet somehow the thing that lingers longest is never the carnage; it’s the character work threaded through it, some of the best the genre has ever managed. Few debut seasons hit with this kind of narrative force, and WIT Studio deserves every bit of the credit for pulling it off.
Then came Season 2, and against all odds, found another gear entirely, trading spectacle for something even harder to pull off: an earnest character-driven masterstroke. Season 2 was a deeply spiritual journey of self-discovery, packed with powerful and thought-provoking discussions on war, suffering, and the essence of humanity.
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Dragon Ball Z takes the final spot on IMDb’s list of the Top 10 Best Anime of All Time.
10. Dragon Ball Z
Dragon Ball Z is not just an undisputed classic in the world of anime, but it is an undisputed pop-culture classic. So many of us grew up watching Goku’s epic journey as he conquered formidable foes across the universe, and the original series will always be a super special and unique experience for millions. The series introduced much of the world to shonen and anime in general, and features action and characters that were among our earliest and most core memories of the medium.
From the intense showdowns with Vegeta and Frieza to the heart-pulsating battles against Cell and Majin Buu, Dragon Ball Z has delivered countless iconic moments that have left a lasting impact not only on its fans but have also inspired future creators and authors as well, truly defining and marking its authority over a generation.
Source: IMDb.
What do you think of this list of IMDb’s Top 10 Best Anime of All Time? What is your favorite anime of all time? Comment below and let us know.