The 21 Best Films of 2021: Part Two -The Top Ten of the Year

We’ve covered eleven movies already that were pretty damn good, and yet even they weren’t the cream of the crop that came out of this last year. So let’s proceed with the final countdown. Here they are, the ten greatest films of 2021!
 
10. The Sparks Brothers -directed by Edgar Wright

This was a sensational year for music documentaries: Questlove’s Summer of Soul, Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back -both of which in releasing and remastering unseen footage, are important works of historical record in addition to exemplary films. But if raising awareness is the key function of the documentary, then none this year succeeded more than The Sparks Brothers by Edgar Wright -a film about an obscure musical act that turned on audiences everywhere for the first time to their work, myself included. Wright’s film isn’t just a standard life story tribute to Ron and Russell Mael, the duo who have been making eclectic pop music on the margins of the mainstream since the 1970s. He plays around with the structure of the form in perfect marriage with the irreverent sensibility of Sparks. But the tone never deviates out of the realm of affection, Wright and every one of the talking heads he interviews expressing wholeheartedly the profound influence and importance of these artists. And the film certainly renders them endearing enough -these misfits of the pop world who’ve always just made the music they wanted, chart success be damned! You can’t say it’s not inspiring. 

9.C’mon C’mon -written and directed by Mike Mills

It’s still difficult to articulate exactly how C’mon C’mon is so powerful for such a humble and simple movie. Maybe it’s the frankness and appealing naturalism that is carried in spades, or the earnestness in how it addresses its’ very specific family issues. Surely it’s not just the black and white photography or Mills’ mild observational direction -standard by now of indie fare. It’s something the film is saying in its comments on child psychology and building relationships with children, understanding what they’re going through and what they’re anxious about. More so, it may be the way the film says those things, it’s documentary-like approach and careful attention to detail, its’ deference to universal notions of childhood and parental relationships in favour of the highly specific. Its’ the wonderful writing by Mills that takes the subject seriously and intellectually; and the sensitive performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Gaby Hoffmann, and Woody Norman that inhabit real people faced with real stress, who struggle and learn and demonstrate a determinism to pull through. Sweet, moving, thoughtful, funny, just a little eccentric and subtly impassioned. C’mon C’mon C’mon C’mon C’mon…
 
8. Benedetta -written by David Birke and Paul Verhoeven, directed by Paul Verhoeven

Yeah, I’m as surprised as you are that a Paul Verhoeven movie is on my top ten list in 2021. But Benedetta might honestly be one of his best, sold as a formula gay nuns story when its’ really an intensely sharp and stringent critique on the corrupting power of the church; the ways its’ rigid structure and dogma not only stifle  and warp sexuality and self expression, but perpetuate a psychology of toxic piety. Based on a true story, the film explicitly shows how in the confines of a 17th century convent, a womans’ understanding of herself and the world is entirely defined by an indoctrinated system of fanatic devotion, politicking, and perceived acts of God -and exploiting these is the only escape. The film is erotic too of course, in very consciously taboo ways -Verhoeven daring the Catholic church’s ire with some of his imagery. But there’s purpose there beyond to shock. Virginie Efira gives a magnificent performance, with Daphne Patakia and Charlotte Rampling excellent alongside her. The film abounds in beautiful art direction too, and as the bubonic plague works its’ way into the plot, it even has a thing or two revealing to say about pandemics -a full year before our current one.
 
7. Nine Days -written and directed by Edson Oda

A late addition but certainly worthy: a creative existential musing on the meaning of life and death, the value of humanity, and those personal joys that make it worth the hardships. Birthed out of complex feelings towards the suicide of first time director Oda’s uncle, Nine Days is a very small Big Ideas film in the vein of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life, but with subtly different ideology and a tempered degree of self-awareness. The minimalism of its’ atmosphere only accentuates its’ conversation on the complexity of life on Earth -all the bad, the good, the unexplainable. Winston Duke’s Will, who chooses which souls get to live on Earth, is shaken by an unexpected death -it’s up to Zazie Beetz’s Emma to restore his faith. The movie doesn’t dispel the evils of the world, it addresses them for their horror, but tries to argue instead for the good, resting those laurels in intimate moments of pleasure, excitement, serenity. And it does a very good job of that. Oda’s script, and the performances by Duke, Beetz, and Benedict Wong really capture a degree of the complexity that makes our lives worthwhile. And that ending, on a gorgeous limitless desert vista, as passionate and poetic as can be, is as intoxicating as any more robust movie spectacle.
 
6. West Side Story -written by Tony Kushner, directed by Steven Spielberg

Speaking of robust movie spectacles, it’s about time I officially joined the bandwagon in declaring that Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story is an improvement on the original -that extremely rare thing in Hollywood! The fact so few chose to see it doesn’t change that, this is nothing short of a miracle movie that takes the foundation of the classic musical and expands on it, tweaks it in almost all the right ways. The song sequences are exhilarating, as much so as the songs themselves -their staging is crisp and exciting in new, inventive ways that utilize environment and the camera to great ends. The cast is marvellous as well: Rachel Zegler, David Alvarez, the great Rita Moreno, and especially Mike Faist and Ariana DeBose. At it’s heart it maintains the strength of that driving romance, while shifting the context around it, layering it with greater meaning. Part of this is casting genuine Latine actors, part of it is exploring themes of gentrification and classism in addition to the racial politics that have always been there. In all of this the film is largely stupendous, an update on a story already a retelling of a classic that feels as fresh and necessary as any film could hope to be. There’s a place for West Side Story!
 
5. Annette -written by Ron and Russell Mael, and Leos Carax, directed by Leos Carax

Sparks had a really big year in 2021! First, Edgar Wright’s documentary shone a spotlight on them of a kind they’d never experienced, and a few months later they went to Cannes with the art film musical they had been trying to make for more than a decade. All eyes were on them, and boy did they leave an impression. Partnering with French auteur Leos Carax, their combined vision, Annette, is one of the strangest, most hypnotic movie musicals ever made. A dreamlike tour through the pitfalls of celebrity and ego, as a comedian and a singer nurture the talents of their young daughter -who just happens to be a marionette- this film is rife with bewildering tonal, narrative choices, and evocative imagery alike. Carax’s sensibility, with his unique theatrically and satirical approximation of our world, absolutely fits with the eccentric, bombastic yet playful music of the Mael brothers. And Adam Driver continues his streak of exciting performances with one here that is as oddly arresting as it is daring. For all its’ broadness though, for its’ heightened reality and operatic storytelling, the film makes for a cogent and quite often damning comment on celebrity culture, grooming, and toxic male entitlement. Its’ insights into human nature and society are certainly not as artificial as its’ aesthetic; and it’s those kind of contrasts that make for richer cinema.
 
4. The French Dispatch -written and directed by Wes Anderson

When Wes Anderson gets it just right, there are no more immersive, comfortable films to lose yourself in. The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun is one of those films -and one of his most perfect: a seeming apotheosis of his signature style and yet fresh, new and inventive all the same. Drawing from years of admiration for the New Yorker and its’ human interest stories, his idiosyncratic cinematic gazette is rife with novel ideas in its visual language, format, and structure. The usual devices are there, from the writing to the editing, but are expressed with renewed flare, energy, and colour. The manner in which colour is applied to these vignetted stories is charming and stirring, to say nothing of the performances themselves from a who’s who of great actors, both veterans and newcomers to Anderson’s peculiar word. Everything about the film is innately lovely: its’ atmosphere and production values, its’ poignant themes and humourous commentary, the lyrical dialogue and the breathtaking spontaneity. The way it discusses its’ nuances in art and philosophy, winking though sincere, is soulful and moving in a way no other movie this year has achieved. That ponderous curiosity of Andersons’, his utter fascination with both the ideas he brings up and the aesthetics around them, is a sweetly irresistible contagion. And I adore every minute of it.
 
3. Titane -written and directed by Julia Ducournau

No movie has been made that is quite like Titane, and no movie ever will be made like it either. It is a brilliant, bravura work of a singular insane artistry that arrived this past year with such certainty and daring that it astounds the mind not only that it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, but that it exists at all. And the world of film is better for it. Ducournau’s unflinchingly transgressive story of a homicidal woman impregnated by a car who then transforms and impersonates the lost son of a dysmorphic fire chief is unbelievable in just about every frame. It’s intense and shocking, disturbing and uncomfortable, yet beautiful and awe-inspiring as well. Because beneath its’ shimmering surface of vibrant texture, exquisite visuals, explicit style, and outstanding body horror, Titane is about the complexities of sexuality, identity, gender, and love, as Agathe Rousselle in perhaps the best performance of the year, shifts androgynous through many forms whilst striving to understand her authentic self, her authentic body and its’ pleasures. It is inspiring at times, genuinely emotional -the dysfunctional but tender connection between her and Vincent Lindon’s father figure becoming the great aromantic love story of 2021. It is these things and still a freaky, subversive trip of a movie, unwieldy and chaotic in a way that oozes boundless creative ambition and fearlessness with all the stamina of an exhaust fume coming off of a sexy racing car.
 
2. Drive My Car -written by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi

The vibes as they say, the vibes. Drive My Car has such a profoundly mesmerizing, thoughtful mood, quiet and lulling and palatable -the perfect context for a film of meditation and reflection. That’s a lot of what happens, much of the most defining action taking place subtly or between scenes and without immediate comment. It’s a perfect translation in this respect of Haruki Murakami’s short story, which is quite literally just of a man contemplating his late wife’s infidelities and the nature of their marriage from the backseat of his car -occasionally talking openly with his young new driver. Hamaguchi’s adaptation expands on this magnificently in a three hour dramatic epic about loss and the complex nature of relationships. He enriches the characters’ lives abundantly, asks further fascinating questions, interrogates love and art and loneliness, and connects them intimately. At the centre is Hidetoshi Nishijima, who deserves every Best Actor accolade, as he delivers the most heartfelt textured performance of the year. At his side though, Tôko Miura is almost just as exceptional as his dispassionate companion, with her own traumas to work through. And I’d be remiss not to mention the terrific work from  Park Yoo-rim, Reika Kirishima, and Masaki Okada as well. I also just love how this film portrays the world of Japanese theatre, how it ties in the work of Chekhov to its’ character drama. It’s a decidedly gorgeous movie that captures so much raw feeling with little fanfare, and you just want to bathe in its’ atmosphere, especially on those nighttime drives. Sometimes it’s the unassuming, quietest movies that speak most loudly.
 
1. The Green Knight -written and directed by David Lowery

What is honour? What does it take to be honourable and what is it worth? These are just some of the questions asked by The Green Knight, the retelling of a classical Arthurian legend that is the best movie of 2021. More than any superhero film it challenges notions of heroism through the parameters of medieval chivalry. It presents a knight with lofty aspirations, but severe naivete and fear, forcing him through tasks that test his endurance, his resolve, and his strength of character -in all capacities of which, he is weak and vulnerable. Dev Patel plays all these facets with the utmost consideration for the psychology of his larger than life figure brought down to human proportions. He’s a man on a mission out of obligation and duty, deeply uncomfortable with facing his own mortality -and it translates all the more through the perturbing eeriness much of the movie is clouded in. And yet, The Green Knight keeps true to the values of the old epic, its’ tenets are taken seriously, and ultimately its’ message is valuable, as Sir Gaiwan comes to his fate in maturity. For being made on a budget, the film looks incredible, Lowery pouring every resource and exciting filmmaking tool at his disposal into making it the most intoxicating, visually rich fantasy film since perhaps The Lord of the Rings. There’s heaps of creativity in the ecstatic colours and sensational evocative imagery. In their own extremely provoking characters, Alicia Vikander and Ralph Ineson deliver almost as well as Patel; and I can’t get enough of the music by Daniel Hart, by far the greatest score of the year. This is how you reinvent mythology, and I can’t wait to revisit it several times in the years to come!

So there it is, the 21 Best Movies of 2021. I hope we can see more of their calibre in 2022, perhaps even better! As dim as things may be, great cinema is still being made. These movies and others that came close are proof of that. I hope to see more folks enjoying their ilk in this new year -it may be more important than ever.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch/