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2021 Year End Wrap Up

Top 10 Films of 2021

What follows are Nathan’s picks of the best films of 2021.

1. Midnight Mass

Directed by: Mike Flanagan

Premise: An isolated island community experiences a religious revival when a young priest (Hamish Linklater) takes over pastoral duties at the local church. Miracles begin happening in the community, belying an ominous secret.  

Why It Made the List: With the rise of streaming services, the limited series has become a fixture of our entertainment options. Some of those series should have been a standard feature film but the limited series does offer the opportunity to make movies in a different way. Midnight Mass exemplifies the potential of the miniseries format. This is a large and ambitious story and the episodic structure gives the filmmakers the time to develop the characters and subplots and allow them the space to evolve. And Midnight Mass needs that space because it is an ambitious story. The film centers upon the residents of Crockett Island, a community where life revolves around the local Catholic parish. A young priest arrives and shortly thereafter miracles begin happening to the parishioners, inciting a religious revival among many of the townspeople. The religious aspect of the story is delt with intelligently. It’s easy to imagine a version of Midnight Mass that’s a cheap Catholic hit piece. Not this film. Although Midnight Mass is critical of faith and devotion, the filmmakers clearly take notions of spirituality and grace seriously. That’s exactly what makes the subsequent horror so distressing. The film implicitly asks whether we would recognize a miracle if we saw it and furthermore questions our ability to distinguish between good and evil. That proves difficult and Midnight Mass achieves something unique in its genre. The horror is transcendent and heartbreaking. The stakes of this story aren’t just a matter of life and death but of moral cognition. Midnight Mass dramatizes the struggle to be a moral person when the institutions invested in shepherding that morality become corrupted. This has remarkable applicability not only to religious life but to many aspects of contemporary society. Midnight Mass dramatizes those issues brilliantly. This film is a masterpiece that nudges the reconfiguration of what cinema can do and be in the age of streaming and it is the best film of 2021.

2. Judas and the Black Messiah

Directed by: Shaka King

Premise: Based on true events. Set in late 1960s Chicago, William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) is recruited by the FBI to join the Black Panthers as an informant. O’Neal gets close to Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya).

Why It Made the List: It is tempting to view Judas and the Black Messiah through the specific cultural and political lens of the moment. And in some ways that is unavoidable. Judas and the Black Messiah has an unmissable political agenda; the filmmakers set out to convince us of the righteousness of Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers. But even in a more neutral context, Judas and the Black Messiah would be a startling and evocative film because it is so masterfully produced. This is a morality play, much like William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, and it marvelously draws out that tension. William O’Neal is the Judas of the title, a black man coerced into working for the FBI while embedded in the Black Panther organization. O’Neal doesn’t start out with any overt politics of his own but proximity to the movement forces O’Neal to confront his own stake in the struggle. As O’Neal, LaKeith Stanfield’s performance achieves something remarkable: he makes a snitch empathetic. Daniel Kaluuya is well cast as Fred Hampton and he captures the Black Panther chairman’s charisma and intelligence. The moral conflict of the story is designed to evoke our own sense of righteousness. O’Neal’s growing discomfort with his deceit and Hampton’s fanatical commitment to his cause irresistibly stir the viewer’s own moral passions. Judas and the Black Messiah is as effective a political drama as The Battle of the Algiers and Battleship Potemkin and it is so successful as a polemic because it is such a well-executed drama.

3. The Green Knight

Directed by: David Lowery

Premise: Adapted from the Arthurian legend. Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) has recently been knighted by King Arthur. Wishing to prove himself, Gawain accepts a challenge from the magical Green Knight on the understanding that he must sacrifice himself on the anniversary of their fight.

Why It Made the List: One of the early promises of the digital revolution was the potential to free creators to realize their imaginations on screen. But a few decades on, so many Hollywood spectacles look more or less the same. Filmmaker David Lowery adapted a story from the distant past to break through the malaise of the homogenized filmmaking present. The Green Knight features remarkable craftsmanship. The production design has an organic look that captures the difficulty of the time period but the locations are also fanciful in the timeless fashion of Arthurian legend. Cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo mixes naturalistic and highly stylized images in a way that feels of a piece with each other. The titular Green Knight is a seamless fusion of Ralph Ineson’s performance and a mix of practical and digital elements. Daniel Hart’s music mixes elements familiar from this kind of Arthurian period adventure with unusual instrumentation and the sound mix supports the film’s eerie supernatural vibe. The dialogue is also musical. It has a sound that invokes the poetry of an earlier era but contains the wit and humanity we’d associate with contemporary dialogue. But The Green Knight isn’t just style. This is a story about honor, courage, and sacrifice. Dev Patel plays Sir Gawain with swagger as well as vulnerability. Gawain willingly travels to what will almost certainly be his death and that journey brings him face to face with the values of knighthood. That soulfulness and insight combined with the film’s cinematic craftsmanship makes The Green Knight one of the best pictures of the year.

4. The Night House

Directed by: David Bruckner

Premise: A recently widowed woman (Rebecca Hall) investigates her late husband’s life after his suicide. She discovers an identical house in the woods nearby and begins to suspect that a supernatural presence is haunting her home.

Why It Made the List: Trauma was a major theme in movies of 2021 especially in the horror genre. But no film dealt with the topic as well or as viscerally as The Night House. A widow looks for a rational explanation for her husband’s suicide, leading her to uncover her husband’s secrets and sending her down a path of despair. The Night House is primarily a ghost story with the widow believing that the spirit of her deceased spouse is still present in her house. The haunting might be real or it might be a psychological delusion and the filmmakers do an excellent job maintaining the ambiguity; every shadow could be a supernatural presence. The haunting is paralleled by the widow’s investigation of her husband’s private life. Her discovers unsettle her understanding of who he was, leading the widow to question her reality. This detective story is intertwined with the haunting and developments in each subplot complicate the other. The story threads of The Night House coalesce in Rebecca Hall’s performance. She’s a woman pushed to the brink and Hall takes her character to places that are extraordinarily dark but also brutally honest and vulnerable. Hall’s performance and the skillful filmmaking visualize the way grief and depression can overtake and rearrange our sense of reality. In doing so, The Night House becomes a unique kind of horror. Going beyond the popup scares of a haunted house or the terror of untimely death, The Night House plumbs the limits of rationality and the existential horror of despair.

5. Red Rocket

Directed by: Sean Baker

Premise: A washed up porn performer (Simon Rex) returns to his hometown in Texas and reunites with his estranged wife (Bree Elrod). He meets a teenage girl (Suzanna Son) and starts grooming her for the porn business.

Why It Made the List: The American movie industry is in the business of fantasy. Even cynical stories or tales of terror quite frequently take place against a background of uncommented upon affluence. Poverty is rarely part of the American moviemaking oeuvre. Sean Baker sets his pictures at the cultural margins where the dreams and realities of American life chafe against each other. 2021’s Red Rocket is one of Baker’s most incisive works. Like his other films, Red Rocket contrasts beauty and decay. The settings are well photographed but the action unfolds against dilapidated structures. The characters are trashy but they are not regarded in a condescending or exploitative way. The picture is led by Simon Rex as Mikey, a veteran of the pornographic film industry who comes crawling back to his hometown. Rex plays Mikey as a smooth operator but he’s also a fraud and a fascinating mix of despicability and desperation. Suzanna Son is cast as the seventeen-year-old girl who catches the pornographer’s eye. Son possesses a youthful naivete and a crafty ambition. Together with Rex, they are a pair of hustlers indulging one another’s delusions. Much of the rest of the cast are amateur or inexperienced actors and the filmmakers get tremendous performances out of them, in particular Ethan Darbone as the neighbor who becomes Mikey’s hanger-on. Red Rocket is a tragicomedy of aspiration and desperation that puts a brutally honest mirror up to American life. This film is a portrait of the death throes of American empire set on the decaying streets of a small Texas town. 

6. Spencer

Directed by: Pablo Larraín

Premise: During Christmas of 1991, the British royal family gathers at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart) copes with the pressures of royal life and weighs whether to dissolve her marriage.

Why It Made the List: At this moment there have been several dramas about twentieth century British royalty and high society but none of them are quite like Spencer. This film is a portrait of a woman trying to break free from a toxic family and a poisonous media environment. The title of Spencer refers to Princess Diana’s maiden name and she spends the film trying to reclaim her life and identity from an institution. Spencer is a damning depiction of the British royal family who come across dangerously emotionally stunted and totalitarian in their control over every aspect of Diana’s life. But the press is never far away either, trapping Diana between the stern eye of her in-laws and the leering gaze of tabloid photographers. This atmosphere of oppression and paranoia is cultivated vividly on screen. The film is shot in a way that is subtly claustrophobic and captures what life in a media fishbowl does to the psyche. Kristen Stewart stars as Princess Diana and it is an astonishing performance, in part because of the way Stewart physically resembles the former princess but also in the way Stewart conveys this woman’s inner conflicts. She’s not allowed big dramatic gestures but Stewart conveys Diana’s desperation with panicked subtlety. She’s psychologically drowning and Diana must escape before the pressure destroys her. Spencer is a challenge to the genre of royal dramas, questioning the adulation that so many of these stories have heaped onto this family and interrogating what a celebrity culture does to its subjects.

7. The Father

Directed by: Florian Zeller

Premise: An adaptation of the stage play. An elderly man (Anthony Hopkins) copes with dementia. His daughter (Olivia Colman) tries to find a caretaker but he refuses assistance from anyone.

Why It Made the List: Cinema has a unique ability to communicate another person’s point of view in a vivid and immediate way that is unique among art forms. The Father capitalizes on that quality, putting the viewer in the mindset of a dementia patient. Events are presented out of sequence or they are reenacted in ways that are inconsistent and make the truth uncertain. Multiple actors play identical characters which simulates the way in which dementia patients might not recognize an otherwise familiar face. By presenting the issue this way, The Father makes us empathize with the patient and angry or violent behavior that seems erratic from the outside is made rational. Anthony Hopkins plays the title role in The Father and this is one of his best performances. Actors playing ill characters, especially mentally ill patients, sometimes play too hard for our sympathy. Hopkins gradually earns our empathy as we understand his confusion. Also impressive are Olivia Colman and Rufus Sewell as the daughter of Hopkins’ character and her husband. Colman and Sewell capture the exasperation of coping with a mentally ill family member and the actors and the moviemakers do not soften the burden. Too often Hollywood martyrs the ill and their caretakers. There is no romance to The Father. It doesn’t try to sentimentalize dementia or idealize the difficulty of caring for a loved one. But the harshness of The Father is not cruelty. It’s honesty. The filmmakers use all the aspects of cinema to create an unsparing look at dementia and the heartbreak it causes.  

8. Drive My Car

Directed by: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

Premise: A widowed theater director (Hidetoshi Nishijima) prepares a production of Uncle Vanya. The theater company assigns the director a driver (Tôko Miura) and they bond during their commutes.

Why It Made the List: Drive My Car is one of the most ambitious and carefully structured films of 2021. The picture is quite long and has an austere style but the picture is well worth the investment of time and attention. Filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi has constructed an intricate drama about grief but the film doesn’t merely wallow in sadness. Drive My Car is about the ways in which we process and hold onto grief and how those obsessions shape patterns of behavior and the narratives that define our lives. Yūsuke, an actor and theater director played by Hidetoshi Nishijima, is caught in a self-flagellating cycle. His production of Uncle Vanya is a way of revisiting and relitigating his unresolved feelings about his late wife. Meanwhile, Yūsuke is assigned a driver played by Tôko Miura and her skills behind the wheel are connected to her own difficult past. Communication is an essential part of Drive My Car. The actors recruited for the play speak various languages and they must learn to see past the superficiality of the dialogue to get at real meaning. The content of the play and the repetition of rehearsal parallels the way the characters are caught in patterns of behavior. The filmmakers visualize the conscious and unconscious eccentricities of their characters and explore their problems but Drive My Car does that in ways that are never cloying or overly obvious. The film digs deep into its ideas and characters while retaining a delicate touch, leading to a conclusion that is so affecting precisely because of its restraint.

9. The Last Duel

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Premise: Based on historical events. In fourteenth century France, a noble woman (Jodie Comer) is sexually assaulted by knight Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver). Her husband (Matt Damon) challenges Le Gris to a duel to the death.

Why It Made the List: Ridley Scott is a prolific filmmaker but several of his best movies have been historical sword and shield pictures including Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven. It’s a genre that allows Scott to flex his filmmaking talents. The Last Duel recreates medieval Europe with an unsparing sense of the difficulty and brutality of life at that time. The film also showcases Scott’s skill for action. The titular duel is a brutal fight that is expertly staged and earlier battle scenes have a flavor of desperation and fear. But The Last Duel differentiates itself with details we haven’t regularly seen in these kinds of period pieces. The script, credited to Nicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon, adopts a smart and novel approach that is aware of both economic and gender politics. Many stories about knights focus on ideals of honor and duty but the conflicts of The Last Duel are tied to money and politics in an era in which women’s sexuality had an explicit financial and political value. The film also has an impressive narrative structure. It essentially tells the story three times, with each iteration playing out from a different character’s perspective. But the story is told economically with the filmmakers focusing on the key moments of each version. Principal actors Matt Damon, Adam Driver, and Jodie Comer adjust their performances in each narrative, playing scenes just slightly differently to account for the shifting perspective. The sophisticated storytelling and the nuanced performances of The Last Duel expand the possibilities of what historical filmmaking can be.

10. West Side Story

Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Premise: An adaptation of the stage musical. White and Puerto Rican gangs battle for control of the streets in a New York City borough. Maria (Rachel Zegler) and Tony (Ansel Elgort) fall in love and their relationship pushes the gangs to a showdown.

Why It Made the List: Steven Spielberg has spent the late period of his career working in new genres and filmmaking formats. The challenge seems to have rejuvenated his filmmaking vitality. Spielberg’s West Side Story is his most visually exciting movie in years. The camera movement and the choreography of the dancers are masterfully blocked. The musical numbers are exciting action sequences but they also advance the story and develop the characters. Even the decision to omit English subtitles in the Spanish speaking scenes gives this version of West Side Story a cinematic verve by emphasizing the visuals. It’s a fusion of old and new Hollywood. The original West Side Story sprang from an earlier era of moviemaking and Spielberg pays homage to Hollywood’s Golden Age while reimagining the material for the contemporary audience. Screenwriter Tony Kushner has added new details that add texture and context to the story. It’s still Romeo and Juliet in 1950s New York City but 2021’s West Side Story makes the familiar material contemporary but not anachronistic. The tribal element is brought forward and the film plays as a warning of the ways racial animus destroys and debases everything it touches. West Side Story was always a tragedy but in this version the tragedy isn’t just Tony and Maria’s ill-fated romance. It’s also the unfulfilled dream of a post-racial America that still hasn’t materialized and seems nearly as faraway now as it did in the post-war era. In a year that saw a lot of musical dramas, West Side Story stood above the rest. 

Honorable Mentions

What follows are films that were either runners up to the Top 10 list or other pictures that came out in 2021 that are worth mentioning.  

Belfast – Kenneth Branagh’s ode to his childhood is a charming and beautifully made film.

Benedetta – Paul Verhoeven’s latest movie was a bonkers piece of nunsploitation.

Blue Bayou – A politically-minded drama about the United States’ immigration system that was an effective family drama with a vivid feel for its New Orleans setting.

Censor – This horror film was a clever play on the Video Nasties era.

Dune – Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel was a beautifully produced piece of science fiction.

The Harder They Fall – One of the coolest movies of 2021, Jeymes Samuel’s western provided shoot-’em-up action, interesting characters, and an intelligent take on the genre.

In & of Itself – Performer Derek DelGaudio and filmmaker Frank Oz created an unusual fusion of a concert documentary and a standup act.

Last Night is Soho – Edgar Wright’s homage to giallo cinema and to 1960s London was a marvelous piece of filmmaking craft. Its story was a little too wobbly to make the top ten list.

Licorice Pizza – Licorice Pizza was Paul Thomas Anderson’s most accessible film since Boogie Nights.

The Lost Daughter – The Lost Daughter is a compelling character study and a complicated examination of a woman negotiating motherhood and her career.

The Mauritanian – This legal drama about Mohamedou Ould Slahi embedded a political agenda within an engaging story.

The Mitchells vs the Machines – One of the best animated films of 2021.

National Champions – This drama about NCAA sports stopped short of the goal line, but it was a compelling and provocative drama about student athletics and exploitation.

Nightmare Alley – Guillermo del Toro’s remake of Nightmare Alley was a beautifully crafted film with a compelling story about the power of illusion and the willingness to believe.

No Time to Die – The Daniel Craig era of James Bond came to a surprisingly emotional conclusion with one of the best films in the franchise.

Our Friend – This exceptional cancer drama was a complex story of friendship.

Passing – Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut is a fascinating web of identity politics.

Pig – An unusual film about what we value in life.

Power of the Dog – Jane Campion’s western possessed texture and depth.

Saint Maud – A mix of spiritual meditation and psychological horror.

The Sparks Brothers – Edgar Wright’s tribute to the band Sparks was a fun retrospective documentary.

The Suicide Squad – The best superhero film of 2021.

Swan Song – Swan Song is an excellent example of the possibilities of science fiction to dramatize the relationship between humanity and technology.

Titane – One of the most bizarre films of 2021, Titane creatively dramatized gender roles and the relationship between people and machines.

Together Together – One of the underappreciated films of 2021, Together Together explored the complexities of the relationships between men and women with thoughtfulness and good humor.

The Tragedy of MacBeth – Joel Coen’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play had a unique visual style that made the material accessible.

The Velvet Underground – Todd Haynes’ documentary about The Velvet Underground brought cinematic style to the retrospective genre and delved into the details of a fascinating subject.

The White Tiger – The White Tiger subversively turned the Horatio Alger formula on its head.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League – After years petitioning Warner Bros., fans of filmmaker Zack Snyder finally got the director’s version of Justice League and it was a great improvement upon the theatrical cut and the best of Snyder’s three DC films.

Good Buzz List

These are films that were released in 2021 and have strong word of mouth, and in some cases award nominations, but Nathan was unable to see them in time for the year end summary.

Battle at Lake Changjin – This Chinese film was a drama about a decisive battle during the Korean War. The film was a huge box office success in China.

Changing the Game – A documentary exploring the lives of transgender high school athletes. The film has been recognized by a lot of film festivals.

Mass – A drama about families reeling in the aftermath of a school shooting. Mass has been praised for its screenplay and the performance by Ann Dowd.

Quo Vadis, Aida? – A Serbian film set during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s focusing on the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. The film was nominated for numerous awards including International Feature Film at the 2021 Academy Awards.

Shiva Baby – A comedy about a woman contemplating the direction of her life while sitting shiva. Filmmaker Emma Seligman and actress Rachel Sennott have been celebrated for their work.

The Truffle Hunters – A documentary about a group of men who scour the woods in northern Italy for the Alba truffle. The Truffle Hunters was nominated for the Jury Prize at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Great Performances

This is a list of some of the great performances in 2021, although not all of them were in great movies. 

Army of Thieves – The goofy characters spiced up this heist story, in particular Matthias Schweighöfer, Guz Khan, Ruby O. Fee, and Stuart Martin.

Belfast – The entire cast of this film was terrific but especially Jude Hill, Judi Dench, and Ciarán Hinds.

Blue Bayou – Justin Chon, Alicia Vikander, and Sydney Kowalske made the family story vivid and heartbreaking.

Bruised – Halle Berry was great as an MMA fighter getting her life and career back on track. Danny Boyd Jr. was also impressive as her son.

City of Lies – Johnny Depp gave one of his better performances in this film as disgraced Los Angeles police detective Russell Poole.

Crisis – Gary Oldman and Evangeline Lilly were outstanding in this average drama about the opioid crisis.

C’mon C’mon – Woody Norman and Joaquin Phoenix were a likable pair.

The Dig – Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes injected their characters with depth and vulnerability.

Don’t Look Up – Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and Mark Rylance were quite good in this film.

Drive My Car – Hidetoshi Nishijima and Tôko Miura were standout actors in a great movie.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye – Jessica Chastain was much better than the film containing her performance.

The Father – Anthony Hopkins conveyed the experience of dementia and Olivia Colman was quite good as his daughter.

Finch – Tom Hanks was the only human being on screen in this dystopian drama. The performance by his AI companion was a wonderful fusion of special effects and actor Caleb Landry Jones.

The Green Knight – Dev Patel was well cast as Sir Gawain. Ralph Ineson’s performance in the title role was a harmony of acting and special effects.

Here Today – Billy Crystal impressed as a man suffering from dementia.

I Care a Lot – Rosamund Pike and Peter Dinklage were outstanding in this uneven satire.

A Journal for Jordan – Chanté Adams and Michael B. Jordan’s visceral romantic chemistry made this movie work.

Judas and the Black Messiah – Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield were terrific in this life-based drama.

King Richard – Will Smith provided one of his most convincing and interesting performances.

The King’s Man – Rhys Ifans committed to the role of Grigori Rasputin in an otherwise terrible film.

Land – Robin Wright carried much of this film.

The Last Duel – Jodie Comer, Adam Driver, and Matt Damon carefully gauged their performances in the multiple versions of this narrative. Harriet Walter and Ben Affleck were also quite good in supporting roles.

Last Night is Soho – Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy were a great pair in this ghost story.

Licorice Pizza – Newcomers Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim were great in this film which also had notable supporting performances by Bradley Cooper and Sean Penn.

The Lost Daughter – Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley are well matched as the older and younger version of the same character.

The Mauritanian – Tahar Rahim, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jodie Foster brought intelligence and complexity to this legal thriller.

National Champions – A lot of great performances in this film particularly from Stephan James, J.K. Simmons, and Uzo Aduba.

The Night House – Rebecca Hall threw herself into this tale of grief, paranoia, and despair.

Nightmare Alley – The entire cast was terrific with especially great performances by Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett.

Our Friend – Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson, and Jason Segel were outstanding in this cancer drama.

Passing – Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga brought out the complexity of their character’s internal lives.

Pig – Nicolas Cage surprised with one of his most focused and controlled performances.

The Power of the Dog – The entire cast was terrific including Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Kirsten Dunst.

Red Rocket – Simon Rex allowed himself to be an unapologetically despicable character. The supporting cast was also impressive and gave the movie a vivid life.

Respect – Jennifer Hudson was well cast in a movie that failed to do justice to her performance or the legacy of Aretha Franklin.

Spencer – Kristen Stewart has been rightfully praised for her performance as Princess Diana. Also impressive are Sean Harris and Sally Hawkins.

Swan Song – Mahershalla Ali was terrific in dual roles and he had a likable relationship with Naomi Harris.

Swan Song – Udo Kier gave one of the underappreciated performances of 2021.

The Tender Bar – Not a great movie but Ben Affleck and Lily Rabe were quite good in supporting roles.

tick, tick … Boom! – Andrew Garfield played songwriter and playwright Jonathan Larson.

Together – James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan were deliciously mean to one another in this pandemic comedy-drama.

Together Together – Ed Helms and Patti Harrison explored the nuances of relationships and were supported by amusing side characters played by Julio Torres and Sufe Bradshaw.

The Tragedy of MacBeth – Denzel Washington provides one of his best performances in the title role. Francis McDormand was also impressive as Lady MacBeth.

West Side Story – Rachel Zegler and Ariana DeBose distinguished themselves as actors as well as singers.

The White Tiger – Adarsh Gourav was magnetic in the lead role.

The World to Come – Vanessa Kirby and Katherine Waterston shared a vibrant love story in this period romance.

Worth – Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, and Amy Ryan conveyed different aspects of trauma.

Zola – The entire cast was great including Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, and Colman Domingo.

Bottom 10 Films of 2021

What follows are the very bottom of the cinematic heap for 2021.

1. Breaking News in Yuba County  

Directed by: Tate Taylor

Premise: A meek woman (Allison Janney) is suddenly widowed. She makes it appear as though her husband has been kidnapped as a way to gain fame. Meanwhile, her husband’s criminal business partners start looking for a duffle bag of missing cash.

Why It Made the List: In the quarter century since Fargo many filmmakers have tried to emulate the Coen brother’s mix of violence and humor. A lot of those projects came up short but few failed as spectacularly as Breaking News in Yuba County. It goes wrong in virtually every way. The story is a mess with too many subplots, none of them interesting, and a large roster of miscast actors. The performers are sabotaged by a lousy script and flailing direction. There is no coherent vision behind the movie. Breaking News in Yuba County is a hodgepodge of clashing tones that feels desperately random. Parts of the movie look and play like a sitcom but other moments are brutally violent. Instead of creating a funny or shocking contrast it’s just off-putting. Breaking News in Yuba County is also an ugly looking film with a visual style that is flat and uninteresting. It’s a bizarre viewing experience but not in a way that’s entertaining. It’s just extraordinarily sloppy. It doesn’t appear that anyone behind the camera had any idea what they were doing and that utter lack of craftsmanship or care makes Breaking News in Yuba County the worst film of 2021.  

2. Chaos Walking

Directed by: Doug Liman

Premise: Set on a colonized planet, a young man (Tom Holland) lives in a village with no women. The planet’s atmosphere causes the men to hear and see each other’s thoughts. The arrival of a female space traveler (Daisy Ridley) upsets the balance of power in the community.

Why It Made the List: Nearly every year Hollywood tries and fails to launch a new young adult fantasy series and Chaos Walking was the big loser of 2021. This is franchise building gone wrong. People and locations that have no relevance to this story are shoehorned into the opening chapter. Meanwhile the characters of this film are generic, the plotting is random, and even its novel concept comes to nothing. The filmmakers were so caught up in laying the groundwork for the series that they failed to make a coherent movie and killed this franchise before it even started.

3. Seaspiracy

Directed by: Ali Tabrizi

Premise: A documentary about the harm that human beings are inflicting on the oceans. The film alleges that commercial fishing is wiping out ocean ecosystems and polluting the sea and that ecological organizations are mostly feckless.

Why It Made the List: There’s a lot to be said about the environmental crisis and its threat to civilization. Seaspiracy is absolutely unhelpful. The film is a litany of false or cherry-picked claims strung together by shallow emotional appeals. The filmmakers didn’t do their homework and Seaspiracy is so inaccurate that numerous marine biologists and fisheries experts spoke out against it. Far from illuminating the issue, Seaspriacy obfuscates and distorts the realities of ocean conservation, making it that much harder to combat the real sources of environmental catastrophe.

4. Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City

Directed by: Johannes Roberts

Premise: Based on the video game. Set in 1998, a woman (Kaya Scodelario) returns to her hometown where the Umbrella Corporation is closing its pharmaceutical research facility. A chemical leak turns the city’s residents into monsters.

Why It Made the List: The Milla Jovovich-starring Resident Evil series was not great cinema but those films could be trashy B-movie entertainment. Welcome to Racoon City is just incompetent. From the disjointed opening to the anticlimactic non-ending, this picture is a mess of incoherent storytelling and zombie cliches. The characters are indistinguishable. The film looks ugly but not in a way that’s scary and the special effects are sloppy. The Resident Evil reboot is a slapdash piece of crap that only exists to exploit an intellectual property. 

5. Aileen Wuornos: American Boogywoman

Directed by: Daniel Farrands

Premise: Very loosely based on the life of Aileen Wuornos. In the late 1970s, Wuornos (Peyton List) marries a wealthy older man (Tobin Bell) but her violent and erratic urges get the better of her.

Why It Made the List: Aileen Wuornos: American Boogywoman comes from filmmaker Daniel Farrands who previously wrote and directed 2019’s The Haunting of Sharon Tate. While his Aileen Wuornos film is not quite as crass as his Sharon Tate effort it is just as sloppy and stupid. Allegedly based on true events, nothing in American Boogywoman is believable, least of all the relationship between Wuornos and her husband. As Wuornos, actor Peyton List gives a performance so far over the top that she recalls Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest.

6. Thunder Force

Directed by: Ben Falcone

Premise: An astral event has given super powers to people with psychotic personalities. A genetic scientist (Octavia Spencer) reunites with her childhood friend (Melissa McCarthy) and they each receive treatments that make them superheroes.

Why It Made the List: Thunder Force is another cringingly unfunny Ben Falcone-Melissa McCarthy collaboration. Melissa McCarthy is paired with Octavia Spencer but they have no comic rapport. The whole joke is the idea that Melissa McCarthy could be a superhero. The filmmakers bring nothing to the genre and Thunder Force is entirely dependent on McCarthy turning the obnoxiousness up to eleven. It’s one lame joke after another strung together by a plot that makes no sense. Thunder Force is further evidence that Melissa McCarthy is becoming the new Adam Sandler.

7. Karen

Directed by: Coke Daniels

Premise: A black couple (Jasmine Burke and Cory Hardrict) moves into a wealthy neighborhood and are a target of harassment by their white neighbor (Taryn Manning).

Why It Made the List: The climate change allegory Don’t Look Up got a lot of flak—some of it deserved—for its political pretentions and blunt messaging. But 2021’s Karen was so much worse. The moviemakers tap into recent racial controversies in an attempt to make a grand political statement. The result is nearly a parody of itself. Characters speak like outraged Twitter users and the acting is cartoonish. This utterly ham-fisted attempt to make a socially conscious thriller only highlights what Get Out did so well.  

8. Locked Down

Directed by: Doug Liman

Premise: A couple (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anne Hathaway) lives in London under lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. Facing the end of their relationship, they consider stealing a valuable diamond.

Why It Made the List: A few films tried to exploit the pandemic and Locked Down was among the worst of them. The picture wastes the talents of Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anne Hathaway on a half-baked heist story. And for a film that was produced in the middle of a pandemic, Locked Down has remarkably little relevance to reality. It doesn’t even get the social distancing and masking requirements right. All this film does is trivialize the financial and emotional hardship we’ve experienced the last two years. 

9. The King’s Man

Directed by: Matthew Vaughn

Premise: A prequel to 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service. Set during World War I, English gentleman Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) forms an independent spy organization that intervenes in the war on behalf of the Allied Powers.

Why It Made the List: The Kingsman prequel nobody wanted managed to be stupider and clumsier than anticipated. The pacing is slow, the action is boring, and none of the actors behave as though they are in the same movie. But The King’s Man wasn’t just inept. It stupidly and distastefully posits that World War I was the result of a conspiracy machinated by a shadow organization. When the evil mastermind is finally exposed all that’s revealed is that the filmmakers trivialized the horrors of World War I for nothing.

10. Music

Directed by: Sia

Premise: A recovering addict (Kate Hudson) discovers that she is now the guardian of her autistic half-sister.

Why It Made the List: Music is easy to pile onto because of its wacky musical sequences. The song and dance numbers are certainly cringe inducing but much more egregious is the way Music uses its disabled and minority characters. The supporting characters aren’t people. They’re props. Music is about a selfish character who proves herself a good person by doing the bare minimum and like their protagonist, the filmmakers of Music carry on as though they are doing something altruistic while exploiting the people they pretend to care about.

Trends of 2021

Grief and Trauma

For whatever reason—maybe a side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic—a lot of 2021 films dealt with the aftermath of trauma.

Musicals

The musical genre is having a resurgence. Not all of these films were good but the sheer number of titles was impressive.

Music Documentaries

In addition to musical drama, we also got a lot of music documentaries in 2021.

Nostalgic Movies

Several films recreated specific eras in order to bask in the styles and sensibilities of an earlier era.

Retro-Sequels and Fan Service

Many sequels played the audience’s nostalgia especially for intellectual properties from the 1980s.

Westerns

The Western has continued its comeback mostly on television but several feature films were released as well.

Great Horror Films

We continue to enjoy a renaissance in the horror genre both in quality and quantity.

Possible Cult Movies

It’s virtually impossible to predict which films will become cult titles but a few movies of 2021 just might if they find their audience.

Pandemic Cinema

Filmmakers explored life during coronavirus with mixed results.

A Note About Qualifying Films: Due to the pandemic, some Hollywood award shows have changed their qualifying dates these past two years. Sounds of Cinema adhered to the calendar year for this summary. As a result, a few of the movies listed here were in the running during the previous year’s Hollywood awards cycle and a few titles that have awards buzz this year were omitted because they were released in 2022.