Every Movie I Saw in 2021
So, that was kind of a weird year, right?
Paradoxically, 2021 was a weird year for movies because it was more normal. There were stretches - probably a majority of the year, or at least close to it - where as a vaccinated and later boosted person I could basically return to the same theater experience that existed before the pandemic, in all its big screen and surround-sound glory. And it was great! Turns out movie theaters are pretty cool, guys!
But all told, I wound up going to the theater for less than a third of the 87 new releases I saw last year. For starters, I wasn’t able to go see any movies in person for the first four months of the year, because, well, basically no movies were getting wide theatrical releases at that point. But even as the movie release schedule normalized itself, moviegoing as an act did not. When the holidays came around, or big events like weddings, I’d usually avoid going out for a while to avoid getting sick before seeing friends and family. But the holidays are also when the bulk of awards contenders get released, and a year of delayed releases meant there was a serious glut of great films coming out this year in November and December.
Ultimately, that meant some films, like Drive My Car and West Side Story, both of which largely passed through my area in mid-December, just couldn’t fit into my schedule. Other times, I was lucky enough to have simultaneous streaming options for movies that I normally would’ve seen at a theater, like The Power of the Dog or The Matrix Resurrections. So while my normal movie-going experience was theoretically available for most of the year, for some periods I had to deliberately put that aside, which felt odd.
But the general setting aside, there were a ton of genuinely great movies this year. And as a particularly pleasant surprise, I get to feel like a real rebel this year, because my number one movie of 2021 is a movie that I haven’t seen pop up any critic’s top 10 or major award nomination list. You might think it would feel lonely to seemingly be a movie’s lone champion in the world, but honestly it feels kinda neat? Also, my choice for Best Actor of 2020 wound up turning in my Worst Performance of 2021. Truly, acting is a land of contrasts.
Anyway, here are all of the new releases I saw in 2021. As with last year, my definition of “2021 release” doesn’t necessarily match up with what you’ll see from IMDB or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, because the film industry was very confused during that late 2020-2021 period of what it actually meant to “release” a film of what years are. As such, you may notice that, uh, the Oscars’ Best Picture from 2020 actually made my top ten for 2021, with a couple other Oscar nominees from last year peppered throughout.
For anybody who needs a good/bad binary for this list, I’d roughly say the dividing line is around the 57-58 mark. Anything above that I’d say I liked, anything below I did not. Please enjoy, and/or get angry about what I over/underrated.
The List:
The Lost Leonardo
Nomadland
The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
CODA
The Power of the Dog
Nightmare Alley
Tick, tick…BOOM!
Passing
Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Parallel Mothers
No Sudden Move
Red Rocket
In the Heights
The Card Counter
Minari
Wild Indian
Things Heard and Seen
Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
The Green Knight
Summer of Soul
Pig
Zola
Quo Vadis, Aida?
A Quiet Place Part II
Luca
The Harder They Fall
Annette
The Matrix Resurrections
The Last Duel
No Time to Die
The Dig
Last Night in Soho
Concrete Cowboy
Spencer
The Lost Daughter
Jockey
Encanto
The Tragedy of Macbeth
The Voyeurs
Titane
Black Widow
Dune
Shiva Baby
Kate
The Velvet Underground
Eternals
King Richard
The Guilty
Those Who Wish Me Dead
Judas and the Black Messiah
Plan B
The Tomorrow War
The Suicide Squad
WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn
Godzilla vs. Kong
Old
Venom: Let There Be Carnage
Jungle Cruise
Malignant
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Roadrunner
Don’t Look Up
C’mon C’mon
F9: The Fast Saga
A Classic Horror Story
Belfast
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Army of the Dead
The Woman in the Window
Raya and the Last Dragon
Being the Ricardos
The Many Saints of Newark
Red Notice
Cry Macho
Gunpowder Milkshake
Dear Evan Hansen
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
Love Hard
The Ice Road
Cruella
Candyman
Without Remorse
I Care a Lot
Halloween Kills
Sweet Girl
Mortal Kombat
And some awards to tie things up:
Best Actress: Tessa Thompson, Passing (Runner-up: Rachel Sennott, Shiva Baby)
Best Actor: Andrew Garfield, Tick..tick..BOOM!; (Runner-up: Oscar Isaac, The Card Counter)
Best Director: Chloe Zhao, Nomadland (Runner-up: Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog)
Best Performance in a Bad Movie: Ray Liotta, The Many Saints of Newark (Runner-up: Jimmy O. Yang, Love Hard)
Worst Performance: John Magaro, The Many Saints of Newark (Runners-up: Gemma Chan & Richard Madden, Eternals)
Best Directorial Deployment of a Frequent Collaborator in a Cameo Role: Herman Munster, Licorice Pizza (Runner-up: Mr. Big, No Sudden Move)
Best Ending: Nightmare Alley (Runner-up: The French Dispatch)
Best Scene: The Auction, The Lost Leonardo (Runner-up: The Fifth Dimension, Summer of Soul)
Best Dog: Monchi, The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Runner-up: Sophie, Red Rocket)
Movies I regretfully was unable to get to: Drive My Car, West Side Story, Flee, The Worst Person in the World, The Forever Purge, Ghostbusters: Afterlife (OK, I don’t really regret missing this one that much), A Hero, The Rescue, Procession, The Humans, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, Identifying Features, The Hand of God, The Disciple, Free Guy, Respect, Stillwater, The Night House, Benedetta, Lamb, The Sparks Brothers, Attica
