Best Graphic novels

The 25 highest-rated Graphic novels, scored from 5.7K reader ratings.

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Sort byDecadeMinimum ratings25 results

By year of first publication, 1984–2026. The busiest stretch is 2010–2019, with 10. Select a bar to narrow the list.

1
9.09.0 / 10
MausArt Spiegelman531 ratings“Maus” tells a Holocaust survivor’s story as a comic of mice and cats, and the distance of drawing makes the horror clearer, not milder.Our view
2
8.68.6 / 10
Gender QueerMaia Kobabe341 ratings“Gender Queer” is a graphic memoir that makes a long, private search for words about gender and sexuality easy to follow from the outside.Our view
3
8.58.5 / 10
NimonaN.D. Stevenson599 ratings“Nimona” is a funny, odd and warm graphic novel pairing an impulsive shapeshifter with a disgraced knight who insists on his code of ethics.Our view

Why Maus is #1

Maus (Art Spiegelman) scores 9.0/10 from 531 ratings — 0.4 points ahead of Gender Queer in second place.

The score is a weighted average across 3 independent rating sources. A title with few ratings is pulled toward the category average, so a handful of enthusiastic reviews cannot outrank a book that thousands of readers have judged. To keep the list varied, the top 20 holds at most two books from one series and three by one author; the rest follow further down. Method →