Steven Soderbergh's 8 Best Movies, Ranked

Posted October 25, 2026 • by movie guru

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Heists, spies, a ghost and a pandemic that got way too real. Soderbergh's best, ranked by movie.guru score. Ocean's fans should sit down for this.

The top pick beats both heists and the drug war epic. Bring receipts.

8
Presence (2024)4.8
A ghost movie shot as the ghost. Bold, divisive, cheap.
Critics gave it 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences gave it a C+ CinemaScore. A reported $2M budget, and it still made $6,900,044 domestic. Cheapest flex here.
7
Contagion (2011)5.7
It aged into the rewatch nobody wanted but everybody did.
A B− CinemaScore in 2011, then the whole planet came back for it. 335,080 IMDb votes later, it's the most uncomfortable movie night in Soderbergh's catalog.
6
Ocean's Thirteen (2007)6.0
A victory lap. Smug, shiny, and totally fine with that.
A reported $85M budget, a B+ CinemaScore and 391,738 IMDb votes. Clooney, Pitt and Damon basically get paid to hang out, and nobody minded.
5
Black Bag (2025)6.7
The sharpest spy movie here is really about a marriage.
96% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 85 on Metacritic, but audiences beat just 44% of movies. Blanchett and Fassbender at a dinner table is scarier than most gunfights.
4
Ocean's Eleven (2001)7.4
The coolest movie on this list, and it's only fourth.
A 7.7 on IMDb from 686,534 voters. The blended score says fourth. The Guru's Take says 8.4. The suits stay perfect either way.
3
The Christophers (2025)7.8
The Soderbergh movie you skipped is his third best.
95% on Rotten Tomatoes and only 6,824 IMDb votes. Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel, and yes, James Corden. Still great.
2
Traffic (2000)8.0
A drug war epic that never drops a single thread.
An 86 on Metacritic, the highest on this list, on a reported $48M budget. Del Toro and Cheadle carry it like it's nothing.
1
Erin Brockovich (2000)8.3
Better than Traffic, better than Ocean's, better than all of it.
The only A CinemaScore on the list, and audiences rank it above 85% of movies. Julia Roberts and a stack of legal files out-scored the heist crew with an 8.3.

Change my mind. Rank these from most to least rewatchable. Wrong answers only.

$271.64 says somebody types 'Ocean's Eleven at FOURTH?' before they even scroll to the top pick.

Current mood: ready to fight about it

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