The Best & Worst of 2021
This time last year things looked pretty bleak for movie theaters. Thankfully, the big take-away from the year 2021 can be that movie theaters are going to be just fine… Sort of.
Warner Bros. owns HBO Max and really screwed with people’s expectations (as did Disney+ to a MUCH lesser extent with the streaming-exclusive release of Pixar’s Luca and the day-and-date PPV release of Black Widow) by sticking to a plan to release all of its movies on HBO Max day-and-date of theatrical release. It even did Denis Villeneuve dirty by releasing Dune a day early on HBO Max. Not only is this confusing for the common viewer, but it changes expectations. As a result, people are far less willing to rush to see mid-budget films in the theater. Case in point: Spielberg’s West Side Story, which he delayed an entire year so people could experience it in the theater. It only made $29.6 million by year’s end against a $100 million budget. Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, an R-rated drama based on a true story, had a budget of $75 million and only made $49 million domestically by year’s end.
Meanwhile, tentpole franchise films came back hard, especially in the last third of the year. All four MCU movies - Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Eternals, and Spider-Man - broke $150 million and make up most of the Top 6 highest-grossing films of the year. F9 was just outside the franchise’s three lowest-grossing films, but still managed to earn close to $175 million domestically. Venom, Ghostbusters, Free Guy, A Quiet Place, and James Bond all round out the rest of the ten highest-grossing films of the year - all breaking $120 million domestically. Compare that to 2020 when only two films broke $120 million (Bad Boys for Life and Sonic the Hedgehog) and to 2019 when the Top 20 films grossed no less than $140 million domestically. But while very few films broke $100 million at the box office in 2021 there is still a significant bounce-back compared to when theaters were opened in 2020, which indicates a growing sense of confidence and interest by audiences in returning. With luck, 2022 will only build on this. But the question does remain how many original and adult-targeted films will succeed.
Adding to the confusion for some in 2021 was the quantity of movies that were bumped from 2020 or ended up getting streaming distribution deals due to the pandemic. There were several films that were intended originally to go to theater that ended up on platforms like Netflix. Some of them got a limited release a week ahead, but most of those were merely to qualify for awards season and one can assume majority of those who saw those films did so on their couch.
It is important to note even I did not get to see every notable film released in 2021. The following films have yet to be considered for the lists you’re about to read: Lamb, Last Night in Soho, The Lost Daughter, Nightmare Alley, Respect, Titane, and the limited release films C’mon C’mon, Cyrano and The Tragedy of Macbeth. So, take what you’re about to read with a grain of salt.
With all of that said, let’s get right to…
The Worst
5. Army of the Dead
I guess there was a lot of anticipation for this zombie movie by Zack Snyder. The director had built a cult around his super hero films and some thought that, since his first film was a well-received remake of Dawn of the Dead, this would be a return to form. Add to it a bunch of buzz about additional movies and other related media and it made Army of the Dead sound like it was going to be epic. Instead we have one of the biggest loads of shit the year had to offer. Look, if you literally removed your brain and watched the film like a zombie, yeah, sure, maybe you’d be able to get some sort of enjoyment out of it. It certainly wants to be cool. But everything Snyder does wants to be cool. Instead you have a bunch of characters with a terrible plan from the start, a subplot that ultimately amounts to nothing, characters who don’t react realistically to anything happening around them, and a ridiculous CGI tiger. Also: zombie baby? Really, Snyder? Again?
4. Tom & Jerry
Okay, so maybe when one hears about a Tom & Jerry movie it’s very easy to get cynical and dismissive. It can be hard to expect much from a movie based on a series of cartoon shorts where a cat gets blown up while chasing after a mouse. Boy did this film live up to the expectations of a bad idea. Of course, they decided to make the film a live action / CGI hybrid. Do you care about any of the real people? No. But Chloe Grace Moretz tries her best to make you care. One creative decision I’ll credit this film for: choosing to make all pets and animals animated. They just are. No explanation. That’s the only creative decision in this mildly embarrassing dud.
3. Space Jam: A New Legacy
The ultimate IP Where’s Waldo smash-up. And I say that with absolute criticism, because they couldn’t even do that right in this film. Okay, so props to LeBron James and the writers to create something decent in the first act: a struggle between a father (who happens in this case to be considered one of the greatest of all time at what he does) to connect and relate to his son (who couldn’t give two shits about what his dad loves). But beyond that this film is awful. James out-acts Don Cheadle, whose character both is one of the most self-aware studio jokes of all time while also making zero sense. The biggest fail: gathering all of the studio’s IP in one place and not only side-lining ALL OF THEM, but failing to allow the audience to take in and see all but 10 in the background played by what appears to be a bunch of Instagram cosplayers. This thing was nearly unbearable.
2. The Woman in the Window
Good god, this film… How can a film directed by Joe Wright (Atonement), written by celebrated playwright Tracy Letts, scored by Danny Elfman, and starring Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie, Julianne Moore, and Jennifer Jason Leigh be such a mess? This is Rear Window for dummies. Almost every problem comes down to the writing (I’ll be gracious and assume Letts was working off an awful novel) and the direction. Absolutely nothing is developed well in this film. It turns into a ‘90s B-level thriller. It is probably the best cast in the most superficial film of the year. There isn’t a damn thing that gels or digs beyond the surface. An absolute waste of millions of dollars’ of talent and decades’ worth of experience.
1. The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Critics hate biopics these days. They find biopics to be full of tropes, overwrought, and often formulaic. That’s why the biopics that focus on a day, week, or month of someone’s life are often given more favorable reviews than those that do not, because most of the time they’re trying to break the mould and do so well. This film is textbook “What Not to Do in a Biopic.” It bludgeons its audience with its message (did you know that the song ‘Strange Fruit’ is about lynching? Well, this film will tell you… no less than 5 times). It has a milquetoast framing device. It covers a few decades of its subject’s life. And at the core of it is an extraordinary performance. Rather than saving the film, that performance becomes absolutely wasted. I sure as hell hope Andra Day is on to better material after this, because she has a lot of potential as an actress. Her success down the road would be the only silver lining to this trash fire of a movie.
Dishonorable Mentions:
Dear Evan Hansen,
How It Ends,
Red Notice,
I Care A Lot
The Best
10. A Quiet Place Part 2
There were quite a few horror films in 2021. Very few were great or lived up to expectations. A Quiet Place Part 2 is my pick for the best. What makes this a worthy sequel is John Krasinski took great care with his script to make sure this didn’t feel tacked on, rather an organic continuation of what came before. As such, it takes places seconds after the 2018 sleeper hit. And it builds upon that film by bringing the surviving family members out in the open and separating them little by little. The notion of doing the opposite of the original film structurally is not new, but it works very well in A Quiet Place Part 2. We also get to see Millicent Simmons’s character come into her own as an absolute bad-ass. A Quiet Place Part 2 was a thrilling break from the pandemic outside the theater doors.
9. Spencer
So, this film almost failed to make the list. But when I look at the crowd-pleasing films in the Honorable Mentions list there was no way I could comfortably argue this performance piece deserves a backseat to any of those films. It isn’t so much that Spencer has an incredible script or tells a particularly compelling story. It’s that Spencer is one of the best character studies of 2021 anchored by one of the year’s best lead performances. Kristen Stewart is a fucking great actress. If she didn’t earn everyone’s respect from her work with Olivier Assayas then she should now. Stewart puts in a very nearly completely convincing performance and transformation as the young Diana, Princess of Wales. And that performance - when Stewart does disappear into Spencer - paints a picture of a unique form of institutional servitude and personal erasure. Some call it trauma. No matter what you want to call it, no matter how you empathize with it, you do empathize. Like Pablo Larrain’s Jackie, Spencer isn’t one of the great films of our time. But it is a really good performance piece that cements Kristen Stewart as one of the most interesting and daring actresses of her generation.
8. Spider-Man: No Way Home
Okay, so why is this Spider-Man movie great? Well… to talk about No Way Home’s greatness is to spoil No Way Home. And yet, the Sony marketing department seems to give no shits about spoiling it as long as it gets butts in seats (was there ever any doubt that people would see a) the next Spider-Man movie and b) the next MCU movie? Where’s the risk?). Within the last two weeks of the year, this film has managed to surpass - no, no, no… triple the domestic box office of every film of 2021. That’s incredible. But not why it’s one of the greatest Spider-Man movies ever made, surpassing 2004’s Spider-Man 2 and 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Without spoiling a damn detail, this film rewards an entire culture’s 20-year experience with the character. Those who have been around long enough to ride that wave will appreciate this film far more than those who weren’t even born yet. It’s also incredibly well-written, managing to avoid cheap walk-ons and make every character matter to the overall story. This is popcorn filmmaking at its best - short of something as transcendent as The Dark Knight. Avengers: Endgame was the culmination of a long journey. And it killed! No Way Home proves that the MCU is far from wearing out and has plenty of surprises up its sleeve. Sony has a tough road ahead measuring up with its own Spidey-tangental universe.
7. Dune
This has got to be some of the best table-setting I have ever seen. Narratively speaking, that’s all this adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune is. And it is one of the best theatrical experiences of the year. I get that this chapter alone cost $165 million plus marketing. I can understand a studio wanting to recoup some of those costs before approving the production of the rest of the story (I don’t understand the choice to undercut those earnings by releasing the film on a streaming service). But I do think it’s a shame we don’t have the next chapter ready to go later this year. Regardless, Dune was the cinematic event many cinephiles had eagerly anticipated throughout the pandemic. Sure, there were literally a dozen other movies more people decided to see (and possibly see again) in the theater in 2021. But all of those (except Jungle Cruise and Free Guy) were sequels. This is an adaptation of a celebrated sci-fi novel. Do you know what the other highest-grossing movie based on a book in 2021 was? Clifford the Big Red Dog. And it earned less than $50 million with a $64 million budget. So… if a 4-quadrant family film can’t succeed during the pandemic then a film like Dune earning over $100 million domestically is a miracle.
6. The French Dispatch
To varying degrees, the last four films by Wes Anderson have been the best of his career. So, news of his next film’s existence is enough to make a cinephile’s week. I am a bit less enthusiastic and more critical of most of his films than others, but still have appreciated his recent work, regardless of any flaws. The French Dispatch, a star-studded anthology film that gives a hipster’s casual nod to the art of writing and some of its best, is one of the most exquisite films of the year despite its emotional distance. Those who have seen it quibble over their favorite of three chapters. But there’s no question about Anderson’s appreciation for New Yorker-like publications and those who consistently work to keep the quality of writing top shelf. If you ever listen to the dialogue in Anderson’s scripts it is clear he has an appreciation for the written word. He loves language and uses it well. Anderson is clearly a student of great writers and this film is his tribute to them. And it may be one of the best films of his career.
5. Tick, Tick… BOOM!
I’ve never heard of Jonathan Larson. I’ve only seen the film adaptation of Rent. Going into this film I thought it was nothing more than a musical biopic about the guy who created Rent. I had no idea that tick, tick…BOOM! was a successful one-man show. In case it isn’t clear, I am not a Broadway connoisseur. Maybe going in to this with such ignorance and so blindly made it easier for my mind to be blown. Maybe knowing just enough to recognize stage legends when I saw them did, too. This film is the best musical of the year - and we actually had quite a few for once! Andrew Garfield already proved himself a powerful actor over 10 years ago in Never Let Me Go and The Social Network. But here he proves himself quite the immense talent as an actor and singer. He is fantastic as Larson. The film itself is engaging and entertaining with some of the best musical performances of the year (yes, better than West Side Story). In the Heights was probably the most fun musical of the year. TTB was the greatest.
4. The Last Duel
I was really looking forward to Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci. The trailer made it my first highly anticipated Ridley Scott film since… I don’t know… the ‘90s maybe. I do think The Martian is a great film, but an exception to his 21st century career. I saw The Last Duel out of obligation to the podcast; it mostly felt like a film that “should” be seen rather than one I “wanted” to see. This film ended up being the better film and one of the best films of Scott’s entire career. We’ve seen the whole Rashomon plot structure before (Rashomon… hello!). But what I didn’t expect is for Scott to present an essential MeToo era film. Making a film about France’s last legal duel to the death is an interesting idea (what happened during the duel? Why were they dueling in the first place?). But to learn the story behind the duel and to use that as a reflection of contemporary patriarchal attitudes and the female experience within it is staggering. The cast is serviceable, but Jodie Comer is the real stand-out here. Not being a viewer of her series Killing Eve, 2021 was a revelation to me with regards to Comer (she also starred in Free Guy) and The Last Duel proved she is an immense talent.
3. Belfast
Belfast is probably the best film that nobody saw in 2021. Loosely based on his own childhood, Kenneth Branagh’s film is quiet and beautiful with loving and gentle performances across the board. The division between Catholics and Protestants in the community is parallel to divisions many kids have born witness to in their communities the past few years. The black and white cinematography by long-time collaborator Haris Zambarloukos rivals most shots throughout the year. And newcomer Jude Hill somehow manages to carry the entire 90+ minutes as a child shed of movie kid composure; sometimes he has meltdowns at the drop of a hat, yet never loses our sympathies or interest. Belfast is the awards season movie to see.
2. Nomadland
Allow me to clear up some confusion before I continue: yes, Nomadland was nominated and won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Actress, and Director for 2020. But that was because the Academy extended its qualifying release rules to include films released through February of 2021. According to Box Office Mojo, the earliest release date was February 19, 2021. So, yes, it qualifies for this list. And yes, it is actually a damn good film. So far, it is director Chloe Zhao’s best film by a long stretch. It is incredibly minimalist without losing a sense of narrative. McDormand blends in with a community of non-actors who had no idea she was a famous actress. We go along with her on this journey as a character whose life was upended by the Recession and left without a home or community. She joins the RV community, a group that simply travels the country, picking up odd jobs to help pay for maintenance costs and food. It is an absolutely beautiful and stirring film. Like its characters, sometimes it’s good to get away from all of the noise and appreciate the quite and intimacy of solitude or, in this case, a little indie drama.
1. Minari
This film suffers from the same sense of confusion as Nomadland. This film wasn’t released until February 12, 2021 (Feb. 11 in New Zealand). And it barely edges out Nomadland in terms of greatness. It’s a beautiful and moving semi-autobiographical story about a family of Korean immigrants moving for the third time in the United States. This time they settle in the south east so the patriarch of the family (an excellent Steven Yeun) can build the farm of his dreams. Things really come alive once his wife’s mother comes to live with them played by Yuh-Jung Youn, who deservedly won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Alan S. Kim is the anchor in this film, a bed-wetting adolescent with a heart murmur. His reactions to parental discipline and his atypical grandmother are the pulse of the film. The heart of it all is a beautiful story about an immigrant family and the American Dream. It is an extraordinary and moving flick and no film for the rest of the year came close to touching its quality and beauty.
Honorable Mentions:
The Suicide Squad,
In the Heights,
No Time to Die,
Nobody,
Free Guy,
The Harder They Fall,
Encanto
That finally puts the year 2021 to bed! Be sure to check out the latest episode of The Movie Lovers that looks at the year as a whole and counts down our favorite films from the year.
What do you think are the best films of the year? Comment below!