My 10 favorite films of 2021
Let's crown the best in cinema from last year.
As I said, last year was kind of a cluster for catching up with movies. But that’s okay; while I understand why critics rush to get their end-of-year lists out by Christmas and why access to screeners allow them to, I often find it a bit silly. Most audiences won’t have been able to see many December entries until early in the next year (my local critics society in Detroit awarded the best picture to Cyrano, which doesn’t open here until the end of February). And there are few better ways to spend the cold, bleak moviegoing month of January than catching up on the best films of the previous year.
I caught up on several films this month, but surprisingly only three entries that I saw during that time made it on this list (however, two of them are my top entries). This was another solid year of cinema, and there’s still much I wasn’t able to get to. That’s fine; it’s FOMO that makes us cram everything in, and one thing I’ve been learning through the We’re Watching Here podcast is that great films are great films even years or decades later.
And so, let’s take one last look at the cinema of 2021, and round up my ten favorites, followed by some runners up.
10. Spencer
I have zero interest in the royal family, and never had much curiosity about Princess Diana. Maybe that freed me of some baggage when going into Pablo Larrain’s latest, which I was able to approach less as a biography and more as the psychological horror story it is. Kristen Stewart ably captures the terror and paranoia of a woman losing her sense of identity, who doesn’t know how to interact with the common people she grew up alongside or the family she’s married into; only when she’s with her son does Diana show some peace. It’s a fraught and often dizzying portrayal of the crushing power of fame, expectations and institution.
9. Dune
The big-screen experience I’d been missing for two years. Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel is an immersive and tactile sci-fi fantasy. While the theaters weren’t lacking for large-scale entertainment this year — I enjoyed Godzilla vs. Kong and Spider-Man: No Way Home quite a bit — Dune was the only one to fully transport me. On the biggest screen and with the loudest sound, it was nearly overwhelming, and Villeneuve is unafraid to go weird and disinterested in spoon-feeding his audience. Dune is a reminder that big budgets and existing IP can still offer potent and imaginative combinations.
8. Don’t Look Up
Had Don’t Look Up come out two years earlier, I may have dismissed Adam McKay’s apocalyptic satire as a bit much. But following two years of a pandemic in which science was scoffed at even as our ignorance bit us in the ass, I find that its biggest challenge is that the satire isn’t always able to keep up with our reality. McKay’s latest is not a polemic trying to change people’s minds about impending climate disaster; it’s a long scream of frustration about being past the breaking point. It’s also hilarious, holding a mirror up to a vapid society that would rather indulge in celebrity gossip than very real threats. McKay’s cast, including power hitters Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill aren’t afraid to go broad and silly, and the film hits notes of real sadness and reflection in its final moments. I understand why it’s not for everyone, but I fall firmly on its side.
7. Tick, tick…BOOM!
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s talent is almost unfair. This year alone, we received an engaging adaptation of his musical In the Heights courtesy of John Chu, and Miranda supplied the music to the fantastic Disney hit, Encanto. All that, and he still had time to make his directorial debut with this engaging, emotional and energetic adaptation of Johnathan Larson’s stage play. Andrew Garfield is fantastic as Larson, capturing the manic despair of feeling like you have so much to say and so little time. The musical numbers are vividly rendered and imaginative, and the film manages to be a testament to the creative mind and the importance of failure without dismissing the pricklier sides of its protagonist. The only shame is that this is a Netflix film that enjoyed a bare bones theatrical release; this is a film I would have loved to share with a packed crowd.
6. The Tragedy of Macbeth
Joel Coen adapting Shakespeare’s tragedy starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand works exactly as well as that sentence would imply. The minimalist, black-and-white take on the play is a visual feast, anchored by performers who take great joy in sinking their teeth into the material. Coen, in his first film without brother Ethan, delivers an abridged version of the play, but the trimmed material, combined with the stark visuals, highlights how closely the story’s themes of ambition, ineptitude and imperfect crime tie into the work the Coens have created throughout their career. This also gets bonus points for the way Stephen Root says “urine.”
5. West Side Story
If I have one regret about Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, it’s that he didn’t do it sooner, as I would love to know I have decades full of musicals to look forward to from him. The director has been such a master of rhythm, movement and emotion over the last 50 years that it’s no surprise he takes to the form so well. His adaptation is timely without losing its classicism. It’s gritty and rough, but colorful and imaginative in the same blush. It’s funny, moving, exciting and tragic, and Spielberg gets great performances out of his cast, including Rachel Zegler as an astonishing Maria, Ariana DeBose’s feisty Anita, and Mike Faist’s fated-for-tragedy Riff. Spielberg seems invigorated by the challenges posed by taking on the musical and, in the end, this may emerge as the definitive cinematic depiction of the story. In a great year for musicals, this towered above them all.
4. Pig
The trailers hinted that this might be John Wick with pork, but it has more in common with Babette’s Feast (with pork). Michael Sarnoski’s tender drama about a man searching for his stolen truffle pig seems to be going in a pulpier direction in its opening act, which features Nicolas Cage being beaten down by meth heads and visiting a fight club for restaurant workers. But while the movie brushes up against violence, it doesn’t indulge. Instead, Pig is a gentle and thoughtful exploration of grief, grace and healing. Nicolas Cage delivers the type of performance that reminds us of why he has an Oscar on his shelf. Alex Wolff makes a great partner for him as his guide to the big city, who also is changed by his encounters. The film’s final passages are beautiful and moving, and its final shot earns its tears. I’m not saying that Cage couldn’t pull off John Wick-style movie where he avenges his pet pig; I am saying I’m thankful we got this instead.
3. The Green Knight
Is David Lowery’s adaptation of the timeless myth the closest I’ll come to knowing what drugs feel like? It’s a trippy visual feast, full of images pulled from the pages of folklore and heavy metal albums. It’s a sometimes inaccessible medieval tale about confronting mortality and destiny that doesn’t feel the need to explain its talking foxes, naked giants or forest resurrections. It washed over me in theaters, an incredible flood of sight and sound, and sent me scouring online for theories and explanations (I did not read the legend in college). Dev Patel gives one of his great performances as the lead, and the film’s musings on heroism, death, fate and ambition resonate even after its fantastic final seconds. Lowery is one of the most exciting filmmakers working, constantly shifting his style and pushing his talent. The Green Knight is one of his best works.
2. The Power of the Dog
A week after watching Benedict Cumberbatch pick up a paycheck in Spider-man: No Way Home, I watched him deliver perhaps his best performance in this engrossing and surprising Western from Jane Campion on Netflix. Cumberbatch creates a charismatic yet fearsome character in this examination of toxic masculinity, but he also has secrets and vulnerabilities that are revealed along the way. The film is a deliberate bit of work that slowly reveals what it has on its mind, culminating in a series of power struggles, revelations and betrayals that aren’t fully understood until the movie’s final scene. Campion has often been interested in power dynamics, particularly between the sexes, and this is one of her best works, benefitting from the gorgeous New Zealand locations (subbing for Montana) and standout performances from Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-Mcphee.
1. Mass
Fran Kranz’s intimate, one-room drama explores parental grief and healing with kindness and compassion in a way I’ve seen few other films do. The film concerns two couples who have lost sons in a school shooting, one child was a victim, the other the shooter. The families meet in a church basement to talk, not with any expectation of forgiveness or restitution, but just to stumble toward some sort of understanding or step toward healing. The film uses this situation to explore how we construct the conversations that allow us to move forward, and how sometimes that construct is a flimsy, tenuous thing, understood only in the moment of processing. Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton give acting masterclasses here, and the script quietly examines the role of the church in facilitating impossible conversations and providing transcendence and peace in the midst of turmoil. This is riveting, masterfully acted material, approaching situations that feel almost unbearable with grace, empathy and tenderness. This is the best film of 2021.
Runners-up: Derek DelGuadio’s In and Of Itself, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, In the Heights, The French Dispatch, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and The Matrix Resurrections