The 21 Best Films of 2021: Part One -Eleven Finalists

2021, for as objectively not great as it was, was a pretty great year for movies -as little as most of them made in box office receipts. Sure it was another year of Disney and Marvel dominance, but there was a lot worth seeing around the tentpoles, many of which did not get the attention they deserved. For this reason, I’m deciding again not to limit myself to a typical top ten of the year list. I saw nearly one hundred movies this year, and a lot of them were really good. 

Even just talking about the best 21 of 2021 means leaving out some gems on the margins like Nightmare Alley (written by Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan, directed by del Toro), House of Gucci (written by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna, directed by Ridley Scott), Last Night in Soho (written by Edgar Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, directed by Wright), Spider-Man: No Way Home (written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, directed by Jon Watts), Candyman (written by Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld and Nia DaCosta, directed by DaCosta), and The Humans (written and directed by Stephen Karam).

We in the online film spaces can tend to have a fatalistic view of the direction cinema is headed in. With how much the principal market is being monopolized, artists being increasingly marginalized, theatres on the decline -to say nothing of the fewer and fewer places for small, non-franchise, or otherwise alternative films  -things can look depressing. But if there are legitimate fears for the future of the movie industry, cinema is still as alive as ever -if you only know where to look and desire to seek it out (precious few do, but that’s another conversation). A lot of the movies on this list, which will be broken into two parts, gave me hope for the future of movies -even as the landscape around them is increasingly terrifying. We must ensure more movies like them can be made.

As usual, it’s disappointing that this list is incomplete. The most notable absence is probably Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, which for whatever reason is showing nowhere in my accessible vicinity (it’s playing just about everywhere else in Canada which frustrates me immensely!). If what I’ve been hearing is true from other critics and just general vibes, it will likely place in my top ten. Other movies I’m still waiting for are Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, Joe Wright’s Cyrano, and Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle. With any luck, I’ll get to see these movies sooner than I had to wait for Nomadland last year. Possible oversights notwithstanding, let’s get started on the best movies of 2021:
 
21. Judas and the Black Messiah -written by Will Berson and Shaka King, directed by Shaka King

Just because this film qualified for and won Oscars already doesn’t mean it can be excused from a list of great movies from 2021. It DID come out in 2021 after all, and here the rules set by last years’ Awards ceremonies don’t count. Judas and the Black Messiah was powerful in large part off the back of Daniel Kaluuya’s Oscar-winning performance as Fred Hampton. It creates a picture of the Black Panther leader that is more nuanced than both he and his organization have historically been allowed. The history depicted by King is likewise one not seen before in its rightful context and for that it is thrilling. There’s catharsis in how it unequivocally shines a spotlight on the FBI’s machinations to assassinate Hampton, and in its’ clarifying the purpose of the Black Panther Party and what it stood for. The drama itself is also just highly compelling, the dynamics between Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield’s  William O’Neal, the various efforts of unity in Chicago, and the game being played by the whites in power -it is taking back a shielded history, and is quite right to do so.
 
20. The Matrix Resurrections -written by Lana Wachowski, David Mitchell, and Aleksandar Hemon, directed by Lana Wachowski

In a movie culture so inundated with reboots and sequels, it’s nice to see one come along that is aware of how shallow that cycle is. There was no reason for a fourth Matrix movie and Lana Wachowski was aware of that, yet she took it upon herself to make one and make it in the way she wanted to without at all caring about the expectations of fans. The result has of course divided the internet, but beneath the superficiality of plot and continuity points, Wachowski’s film is a razor-sharp critique of the devaluing of art and humanity, and a treatise on the power of love, both of another and the self. It makes a proud statement that no other movie of its scope has made in years. And it is of course breathtaking in its’ visual spontaneity and creativity. The Matrix Resurrections is a sequel that re-contextualizes the original, re-frames the direction of the franchise -which is upsetting for some. But it is a breath of fresh air when such a thing is so rare among mass studio blockbusters.
 
19. Spencer -written by Steven Knight, directed by Pablo Larraín

We are in the Kristen Stewart Renaissance, and Spencer is perhaps the greatest proof of that. Her performance as the former Princess of Wales is utterly transfixing in a way that completely redefines what her critics deem her capable of. It is an intimate, aching portrait of Diana’s anxieties and psychology, as she grapples with the pressures put upon her by the public, the royal institution, and the lens of history itself -all of which are supremely unfair to her. The narrative keeps shrewdly abreast of actual events, while authentically depicting the world in which she moved. A claustrophobic yet agoraphobic world -heavy and hypnotic, controlled to the finest detail and unbelievably lonely. Larraín’s moody atmosphere and disarming choices that blend reality with a kind of hallucinatory nightmare beautifully illustrates the prison of both Diana’s circumstances and her mind. And yet there’s a grace and warmth in how he portrays her relationship to her children, to her favourite dresser -and for all the trauma and melancholy and our overhanging knowledge of her fate, he grants the film ultimately a sense of hope. No greater tribute could there be.
 
18. Pig -written and directed by Michael Sarnoski

One of the oddest films of the year and yet one of the most quietly profound, this out-of-nowhere indie gem delivers on exactly what its’ audience doesn’t know they need. The premise is almost comical-sounding: Nicolas Cage plays a reclusive truffle forager in the backwoods of Oregon, whose beloved pet pig is stolen, and so he embarks on a quest into the shady underbelly of Portland with a reluctant Alex Wolff to find it. Yet the movie is constantly surprising in the directions it goes with this mission, the layers of tone it peels back, and the revelations along the way. Cage gives his best performance in years as this mysterious former chef with great power of reputation but a tragic estrangement from that life. Pig is in fact quite a sad film, a deep film, as it deals with notions of loss and trauma and compromise -that scene in the restaurant with the one-time employee is brutal. There is small joy though still to be found in that core driving passion, a spark that will never vanish. It’s the abiding message Sarnoski leaves you with -an intense one for such an unassuming movie.
 
17. The Forgiven -written and directed by John Michael McDonagh

The Forgiven still hasn’t secured a distributor and release date (or release model, let’s be honest) since its’ premiere at TIFF back in September. And that actually checks for a movie by a filmmaker whose successes have only really been discovered by those film fans who would watch a festival circuit. This is a movie that deals with the lingering sins of colonialism in an upfront way that I haven’t seen before -as it forces a wealthy xenophobic white man in Morocco to reckon with the consequences of a severe accident and cultural offence. Reckoning, as I noted, is a McDonagh staple -and Ralph Fiennes’ David is certainly made to undergo one as he travels deep into the desert to stew in the severity of his crime, confront its’ implications and his responsibility in this land. All the while, his wife (Jessica Chastain) and their posh friends bask in the fruits of pillaged, exploited North Africa -brilliantly linking politics of today with that pervading history of Western imperialism. It is a smart, intense, highly relevant and provoking film that I look forward to more people getting the chance to see.
 
16. In the Heights -written by Quiara Alegría Hudes, directed by Jon M. Chu

The first of three great musicals of 2021, In the Heights felt like the relief most of us needed when it hit in the spring, as COVID cases were down, vaccines were up, and the future was looking bright. It’s boundless optimism and lust for life resonated so strongly then and I don’t think it has subsided too dramatically. Feel-good musicals do after all have their place, and this one delivered while also maintaining that social consciousness of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s original 2008 show. But as it contends with gentrification, the expulsion of Dreamers, and other modern realities for the Latin-American community in New York, it’s sweet nature and infectious affirmation persists through stupendous musical numbers staged with inventive and fantastical vibrancy by an exceptional Chu. Obviously, the movie hits huge as a triumph of cultural representation, its’ cast a collection of terrific Latin-American performers on the rise (most notably Anthony Ramos). And yet it is Olga Merediz as the community matriarch Abuela Claudia, who walks away with this film -carrying both its’ best song and most powerful emotional beat. It was the movie musical that made movie musicals great again -just in time for them to die at the box office.
 
15. The Power of the Dog -written and directed by Jane Campion

Nobody who sees this movie will ever forget the name ‘Bronco Henry’. His influence cascades over the entire story, in every act and comment, every facet and ideal of Benedict Cumberbatch’s toxic rancher gleefully tormenting psychologically his new sister-in-law while taking her timid son under his wing. All because his idol Bronco Henry taught him to. Campion’s study of  the destructive power of fragile, abusive masculinity at the end of the old west era is one of the great films yet made on that subject -a piece which intricately explores the mindset of toxic male behaviour, the relationship between standards of classical machismo and homoeroticism, and how the repression of personality in that veneer of idealized maleness is a prolonging cycle of psychological harm. As she interrogates this, Campion makes her film typically stunning, shot with all that grandness yet intimacy she brought to The Piano all those years ago. Her tone is gritty and tense, yet soft, even as she deals with such a hard character. And the performances she draws out of Cumberbatch, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Kirsten Dunst are high watermarks in each of their careers.
 
14. The Last Duel -written by Nicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon, directed by Ridley Scott

The fact the conversation around this movie never died down in spite of how poorly it performed at the box office says something about its’ unusual power. This was a film that got under peoples’ skins, whether they watched it or not, and is sure to have some staying power as a result. The Last Duel is not a movie for mainstream audiences -certainly not in today’s film climate- as it deals in and portrays difficult subject matter that is by design uncomfortable. But what it has to say, it needed to. The story of a womans’ sexual assault being politicized in fourteenth century France for the sake of the honour of two men while her agency is trodden on, speaks firmly and with astonishing conviction to our current  reckoning with structural misogyny. Much has been made of the film choosing to show the mens’ sides of the story, but doing so is vital to understanding the points of view that allow such a culture to perpetuate. There’s a surprising amount of nuance to this film that is at the same time a thoroughly rich, entertaining, and compelling medieval drama directed by a man at home in that world.
 
13. Petite Maman -written and directed by Céline Sciamma

I dare anyone to find me a cuter movie that came out last year than Petite Maman, Céline Sciamma’s minimalist, tender enactment of childhood fantasy. It’s not just that the two girls cast to play mother and daughter as contemporaries are the most adorable child actors in a good few years, but the whole atmosphere of the piece is just so quaint and comforting -which is an interesting thing given how much of the film is about loss. It’s an understated loss, that of the one girls’ grandmother (the others’ mother), but it does have an abiding effect. Yet it’s also what bridges the relationship between the two, allows for a better understanding of one another. I love that sense of anxiety the film evokes over the mothers’ own medical issues, and the authentic, nostalgic air that pervades much of the girls’ interactions and play in that idyllic though isolated house in the woods. There’s a magic at work too that Sciamma keeps ambiguous and subdued, though irresistibly charming like an early Miyazaki movie. A thoroughly lovely, inauspicious little work of art.
 
12. The Mitchells vs. The Machines -written by Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe, directed by Mike Rianda

The manic creative energy that radiates off the screen in Sony Animation’s The Mitchells vs. The Machines outpaces the next ten best animated movies of the year put together. It is a cornucopia of imaginative, awe-inspiring zany visuals and the story that goes along with it is more than wacky enough itself. This film was put together by some of the same team that did Into the Spider-Verse though guided by creatives from TV cartoons like Gravity Falls, resulting in a movie with a beautiful aesthetic wildness to match an endlessly funny script dotted with careful spots of heart. It is after all a movie about family, finding understanding across generations, and celebrating weirdness and self-expression, that just happens to be set against the backdrop of an A.I. apocalypse. In addition to the fun satire of the tech industry and the youtube-sphere, a stream of clever off-the-wall gags and bizarre detours, it finds time for that honest sincerity and even earns its’ emotional beats. It is unbelievable something like this was allowed to be made by a major studio, even in animation, and I hope Sony makes room for more visionary experiments like it.
 
11. Dune -written by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth, directed by Denis Villeneuve

For my money this was the blockbuster event of the year, and though my review of it was lukewarm in some aspects, on second viewing  I found those issues not so prevalent -and indeed buried under the weight of what is so exciting and captivating about Villeneuve’s interpretation of the landmark science-fiction novel by Frank Herbert. Scope accounts for a lot, the film feels gigantic and truly is best experienced on the biggest of screens. It’s not only the visuals that bring this but the grandiose politics and still resonant themes of colonialism, the well-executed organic world-building and the strength of the characters, even if some are afforded less attention than they deserve. It’s a fantastic cast led by Timothée Chalamet, who is certainly better in the role of Paul Atreides than I initially gave him credit for. The set-pieces are stunning, the action is tight, and the magical elements of the universe are rendered well, hinting at larger possibilities and a kind of science-fiction we see so rarely in movies. Villeneuve has deserved a big hit ever since Arrival, and I’m glad he’s finally gotten it -I can’t wait for Part Two!

In the meantime, there’s a part two of this list coming shortly!

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