2021. What a great year, personally and for the world, and—
Yeah, I know. It was shitty. But there were some good movies! I swear! And here are twenty that particularly tickled my fancy.
20. Nobody
Based on the evidence from this short, sharp action-fest, we should’ve known that a mere heart attack could never have felled the great Bob Odenkirk. Bob plays a boring suburban husband with a shady past, and, well, you can figure out the rest. The bus fight is one of the year’s best action scenes (more impressive than a superficially similar scene in the mega-budgeted Shang Chi), Bob kicks all the arse, and it’s all worth it just to see an elderly Christopher Lloyd toting gigantic weapons.
19. Mass
File under “excellent films I will never watch again”, actor Franz Kanz’s debut as writer/director is mostly a four-hander with two couples—Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton, and Ann Dowd and Reed Birney—hashing out the aftermath of a school shooting in which one couple’s son was a victim and the other couple’s son the killer. Magnificent acting from all concerned, particularly Dowd, but fair warning—it’s emotionally brutal.
18. Dune
I wasn’t as enamoured of Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic as some, but it’s impossible to deny that this is a mighty impressive piece of large-scale filmmaking. Largely humourless and sometimes questionably paced, but packed with nice performances (Zendaya, as usual, absolutely radiates warmth in a small role that will be expanded in the upcoming second part) and full of unique sights and sounds.
17. V/H/S 94
Just plain old grisly fun, the latest entry in a series of horror anthologies of extremely variable quality features four standalone short films plus a framing device tying it all together. All the segments are great, but special mention goes to Timo Tjahjanto’s The Subject, a completely crazy first-person thriller following the “adventures” of a robot-human hybrid.
16. The Humans
Family, am I right. Stephen Karam’s adaptation of his own play has a typical setup of a family gathering for Thanksgiving dinner, but a couple of things elevate this far above the typical filmed stage play: first, and I fucking hate saying this, but… the apartment it takes place in is a character itself (and so is NEW YORK CITY!), a living, breathing organism that seems to have very strong opinions on the goings-on. Second, this has Richard Jenkins, one of the best, most effortless actors alive, as well as Steven Yeun and Beanie Feldstein, another two current favourites. A fairly straightforward drama that seems constantly on the precipice of exploding into horror.
15. The Velvet Underground
While I fully grasp their influence and originality, I can’t claim to have ever been a big fan of the Andy Warhol-blessed band that helped launch Lou Reed and John Cale, among others. Nonetheless, Todd Haynes’ excellent documentary is a visual and sonic feast that manages to give you some idea of why the New York-based art-noise collective remains so revered.
14. The Sparks Brothers
See above—I’ve never paid much attention to the influential art-pop outfit Sparks, and I have continued to do so after seeing Edgar Wright’s documentary (look, they sound good, but there’s way too much to dive into at this stage of my life). But this is still a joyful, bouncy, innovatively presented look at a couple of likeable weirdos whose dedication to their muse is positively inspiring.
13. We Need to Do Something
The third film on this list set almost entirely in one location, I hesitate in saying too much about Sean King O’Grady’s deeply unsettling horror because the surprises are half the fun. All you need to know is that a family of four shelters in their house’s impressive bathroom as a huge storm hits the area, and then… some stuff happens. Weird stuff. All four main performers are excellent, but special mention to Sierra McCormick, completely unrecognisable from one of my favourite films of the past decade, The Vast of Night.
12. Passing
Another directing debut from an actor, Passing is Rebecca Hall’s adaptation of a novel about two Black women in the 1920s: Tessa Thompson, upper-middle-class Harlem housewife to doctor Andre Holland (firmly placing this in The Knick universe), and Ruth Negga, who is “passing” as a white woman while married to Alexander Skarsgård’s virulent racist. Lushly shot in soft black-and-white, Passing manages the neat trick of feeling languid yet tense as hell—an impressive and personal debut from Hall, herself a biracial woman “passing” in the entertainment industry.
11. The Power of the Dog
Benedict Cumberbatch, in one of the best performances of the year, snarls and scowls through Jane Campion’s neo-western as Phil Burbank, hyper-masculine brother of Jesse Plemons’ sweet-natured George. Into the picture come Kirsten Dunst’s Rose and her son Peter, played by the exceptional Kodi Smit-McPhee, and, let’s just say that Peter’s aforementioned masculinity might be covering for something in his past. A fascinating companion piece of sorts to Campion’s The Piano, The Power of the Dog boasts unbeatable performances and lovely New Zealand vistas (get fucked, Montana).
10. Last Night in Soho
The second Edgar Wright movie on my list, Last Night in Soho turned out to be a pretty divisive little film, with even many Wright fans finding it unpleasant and/or dull. For me, this time-hopping Giallo-inspired horror was pure cinema, packed with the stylish but seamless practical filmmaking tricks Wright is known for, and kept me completely enthralled for two hours. Maybe it won’t hold up on repeated viewings as well as most of Wright’s other films, but I was spellbound in the theatre, and I kinda figure that’s what movies are for. Right? Maybe. Fuck it. It was cool.
9. The Card Counter
A taciturn man writes in a journal about the crushing weight of the world. Almost no one ever smiles. Violence explodes at the end. I could probably be writing about half a dozen different Paul Schrader-scripted films, but this is the latest, and it’s one of the best. Oscar Isaac plays the self-monikered William Tell, an expert gambler formerly imprisoned for reasons that don’t become entirely clear until later in the movie, Tye Sheridan is a young protege of sorts he picks up on the way, and an against-type Tiffany Haddish is the usual Schrader woman who doesn’t actually get to do much but is compelling anyway. Schrader is a fucking wreck of a human being (stay away from his Facebook page, for the love of fuck), but he’s irritatingly good at this.
8. The Lost Daughter
Another fantastic directorial debut from an actor, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s elliptical The Lost Daughter rides mainly upon yet another extraordinary performance from Olivia Colman—probably the second-best performance I saw all year; we’ll get to the best in due course—but is an incredibly assured first effort in almost every respect. Colman is Leda, an academic from “Cambridge, near Boston”, attempting to take it easy on a Greek island. There’s actually not much more to the plot than that, but at every turn along the way we’re confronted by the damaging societal expectations of womanhood and motherhood and left shaken and stirred. (No, No Time to Die didn’t make my top twenty, though it was decent.)
7. Nightmare Alley
Guillermo del Toro’s remake/redo of the 1940s movie and novel, Nightmare Alley at times felt like a movie made just for me, a shot of noir straight to the vein. A seldom-better Bradley Cooper is the prototypical noir drifter with a shady past who floats into the orbit of a carnival full of freaks and grifters—but that’s just the beginning of the story. There are typically brilliant performances from Cate Blanchett, Richard Jenkins (him again), and Willem Dafoe as well as Cooper, but for me this is mainly a film of vibes, a colourful yet shadowy world that felt so rich I wanted to bathe in it all winter long.
6. Summer of Soul
The Harlem Cultural Festival, a huge musical gathering that covered six weekends, took place in 1969—the same year as Woodstock—was popular and highly publicised at the time, and then seemingly vanished entirely from the collective consciousness. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, drummer for The Roots and a personal hero of mine, attempts to correct the record with this lively, joyous document that combines incredible concert footage featuring the likes of Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, and Sly & the Family Stone with latter-day reminiscences from those who bore witness. Positively swimming with good music and good feelings, but my main takeaway was that Gladys Knight is still fine as hell.
5. Licorice Pizza
For the first time in a long time, a film from the great Paul Thomas Anderson in which no character feels the entire weight of the world on their shoulders. Licorice Pizza floats by like a gentle summer breeze, focusing on—despite what the advertising might indicate—a young woman played by a luminous Alana Haim, particularly her oddball friendship with wise-beyond-his-years teen Cooper Hoffman, son of the dearly missed Philip Seymour Hoffman. Some have been, perhaps understandably, put off by the idea of an apparently good-natured movie about what is a pretty fucking inappropriate relationship, but know that said relationship is almost entirely chaste and never really develops into full-blown romance. Just in case you were wondering. Oh, and Bradley Cooper is funny as fuck.
4. Annette
Just your typical pop musical about a toxic relationship in which one of the main stars is a puppet, Leos Carax’s latest is, to put it mildly, “not for everyone”. But if it works for you, as it did me, the rewards are plentiful. Sparks—yes, them again—provide the music for a fourth-wall-smashing tale about a “comedian”, Adam Driver, an opera singer, Marion Cotillard, and their daughter… a puppet. I won’t say anything else, because discovering this film and its turns is a beautiful experience.
3. No Sudden Move
Almost on the opposite end of the spectrum is Steven Soderbergh’s razorblade heist-gone-wrong noir. Arguably features nothing you haven’t seen before, but from Ed Solomon’s tight script, to the flawless performances from the likes of Don Cheadle and Jon Hamm, to Soderbergh’s faultless direction and cinematography, suggesting danger lurking just on the edge of the wide frame, every element slots together perfectly. Not only one of the year’s best, but one of the finest ever films from one of our most eclectic directors.
2. Pig
“Ha ha,” said everyone when the storyline of Michael Sarnoski’s debut feature came to the attention of Twitter. “It’s like John Wick, but they stole Nicolas Cage’s pig! This’ll be a right hoot!” Little did they know. This is a gentle, moving, lyrical film about love and loss, and Cage, delivering the year’s best performance, has never been better. The biggest surprise of the year, and yes, you WILL love the pig. I have little more to say. Just let it happen to you.
1. The Matrix: Resurrections
Perhaps I was lying just now when I said Pig was the surprise of the year. I certainly had
hopes for this belated, arguably unwanted sequel to the original Matrix trilogy. I hoped it would be a fun little reboot that delivered some of the old magic and was a bit more fun than the previous two films. I hoped to see some nifty action, though I knew it was unlikely to change the game in the same way the first film did.
I mainly hoped it just wouldn’t suck. The Wachowskis are artists who have arguably missed more than they’ve hit, but they remain such unique voices that they feel NECESSARY in this time of largely anonymous blockbuster filmmaking. They take big swings. We need that. Certainly, the absence of Lily Wachowski this time around set off alarm bells for some—was Lana just trying to make a buck, perhaps aware that, after multiple flop films, returning to the series that made her name was probably the only way she’d command such a large budget ever again?
I’m done speculating. I don’t care. The Matrix: Resurrections slipped right through my defences and left me thrilled, delighted, and moved. It’s actually very little like the previous three films—this is distinctly the work of an ageing artist, one who’s given up on looking “cool” and realises that love is ultimately what matters. This is a
dorky film. It’s silly, meta, sometimes sloppy, less formally slick than the older films. It’s also overwhelmingly, disarmingly sincere, and I wanted to hug it. This is why I go to movies. This is why art matters. And for reminding me of that, The Matrix: Resurrections is the best film of 2021.
