21 Best Films of 2021

21 Best Films of 2021

By 2021 the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic was behind us (or so we think?). The majority of us got double vaccinated by the Summer and, if we were lucky, were able to get the booster shot by late fall.  Movie theatres opened again to full capacity and long delayed releases, like No Time To Die, finally got their chance to shine.

At the beginning of 2021 I hardly saw any new films, but by September I had trouble making time to see the vast amount that were available in theatres. I tried going once a week, which is an expensive habit, but that still wasn't enough! I still missed highly anticipated films like House of Gucci and Nightmare Alley.    

This is my incomplete list of favourite films from 2021. As time goes by I will update the list and improve upon it.  

1. West Side Story

2. Benediction 

3. Titane

4. Spencer

5. Power of the Dog

6. Licorice Pizza

7. The French Dispatch

8. Annette

9. Belfast

10. No Time to Die

11. Last Night in Soho

12. Drive My Car

13. Bergman Island

14. Judas and the Black Messiah

15. Flee

16. Where is Anne Frank

17. C'mon C'mon

18. Scenes From a Marriage 

19. Becoming Cousteau

20. Tick Tick...Boom!

21. Dune

The Matrix Resurrections (2021) Review

Title: Matrix Resurrections 
Year: 2021
Director: Lana Wachowski
Country: US
Language: English

Raise your hand if you've heard this; "The Matrix is one of the best sci-fi movies ever made!" Ask yourself, "who is telling me this?" A boomer (55+)  would say Star Wars, a millennial (25-40) might say Inception and a Zoomer (0-24) might say The Force Awakens. Gen-X (40-55) is the biggest supporter of this series and, well, for better and for worse The Matrix Resurrections is made for that audience in mind. 

To find out if his reality is a construct, to truly know himself, Mr. Anderson (Keanu Reeves) will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more.

My Gen-X friends are going to be mad at this review, but The Matrix Ressurections is essentially a not-so-sublte allegory about the Gen X experience of the 2020's. Lots of musings about growing old, being unsure if they've made an impact or if their actions matter. The answer is obviously "Yes! You are still important!" The Matrix was a time capsule for that generation, storing all their moods and insecurities. The Matrix Resurrections is a desperate pat on the back. 

The film is so META...as if that is anything to be proud about when every Hollywood Blockbuster does the same thing (including Space Jam 2!). They play songs from Rage Against the Machine...get it? The Matrix was a video game in The Matrix...get it? He has to make a sequel because Warner Brothers demands it...get it?  Follow the white rabbit?...get it? In 1999 this self-indulgent wink at the audience was cool. Nowadays it's played for laughs. It's a cliche. In 2021 if your entire film is reliant on being meta, you are a hack film-maker. 

Doing the same thing Force Awakens did, but somehow more tediously, Matrix Resurrections is a bit of a speed-run of The Matrix Trilogy re-enacting original scenes in a lazier "meta" way. Like, instead of fighting Mr.Smith in the rain, Neo fights Mr.Smith in an office with the sprinkler system on. 

It's pretty jarring to see Keanu Reeves, star of John Wick,  in a movie with terrible fight choreography, but this is it. The Matrix Resurrections would have been dated in 2001, let alone 2021. It's not only bad, but terribly boring. I pride myself on not getting easily bored by movies, but even during the "action" scenes I felt it crawled to a snail's pace. 

Spencer (2021) Review

Title: Spencer
Year: 2021
Director: Pablo Larrain
Country: UK
Language: English

While Spencer (2021) isn't a true Dickensian tale, its story shares many similar elements of class, privilege and ghosts of the past. The film also shares many themes of George Orwell, such as paranoia and surveillance. The metaphor heavy dialogue can get quite eerie at some points in the film. There is much to admire about this unconventional biopic. 

During her Christmas holidays with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, Diana Spencer (Kristen Stewart), struggling with mental health problems, decides to end her decade-long marriage to Prince Charles.

Written by Stephen Knight, Spencer highlights the inner turmoil Diana is feeling as she is smothered by long held traditions in a royal "family" that treats her as an outsider. It's an artful anti-biopic that takes place entirely within a few days (the writer trusting its audience to already understand the situation) which is filled with saturated cinematography filled with pastel colours that give each scene a dream-like quality and a versatike score that perfectly captures the heartbreaking headspace of Diana. 

Spencer feels like a sharper takedown of the upper class than other visual media like The Crown (sorry Olivia Colman!) which tends to glorify the monarchy. Many actresses have played royalty, most recently Noami Watts took a crack at being Princess Diana, but Kristen Stewart makes the role feel far more authentic. Perhaps the authenticity comes from Stewart having very similar struggles, albeit in the Hollywood system. 

I was incredibly impressed by the slow burn, arthouse feel of Spencer. It is a gloomy, moody film that will ruin any good day you're having, but it is an important, poetic watch.  

Belfast (2021) Review

Title: Belfast
Year: 2021
Director: Kenneth Branagh 
Country: UK 
Language: English

Of all the films at Toronto International Film Festival, Kenneth Branagh's Belfast was my most anticipated, but unfortunately it sold out hours before I could redeem my ticket packages. This film was beloved at the festival, winning the coveted People's Choice Award. This award usually spells a Best Picture win at the Oscars. I personally think Steven Spielberg's West Side Story has it clinched, but I wouldn't be surprised if this won over it. 

In this film, a young boy (Jude Hill) and his working-class Belfast family experience the tumultuous late 1960s. Specifically, the beginning of Ireland's "Troubles". 

Considered Branagh's Roma, Belfast is an autobiographical film about one tumultuous period in his childhood; making it a poignant coming of age story and considerable lament for what Ireland had lost during its decades of strife. The film nostalgically conveys the setting in rich, expressive black-and-white photography. It not only deals with problems in a macro context (the problems within the country) but also micro (the problems within the family) 

Belfast is full with sweetness and warmth, while also giving us a fair amount of tension and turmoil. It's heartbreaking at times, but also has humorous moments. Branagh balances all these emotions fairly well, albeit it can come off as too sentimental considering Irish history gets worse much in the coming decades. The conflict depicted in this picture was thirty years long, lasting until 1998. I am a couple generations younger than Branagh, and I had friends who needed to leave Ireland. 

The worst year of "The Troubles" in Ireland was 1972 and this film is set in 1969. The German equivalent would be setting the film in 1933 and then ending it on a high note. A great film no doubt, but the ending is a bit insensitive. I feel this keeps Belfast from being as great as Roma. Alfonso Cauron's picture doesn't try to tack on escapism for the sake of pleasing an audience. Roma is a more authentic feeling picture.  

Spiderman: No Way Home (2021) Review

Title: Spiderman No Way Home
Year: 2021
Director: Jon Watts
Country: US
Language: English

For some reason, unknown to myself, I have made it my mission to see every movie Marvel puts out. I update my Marvel Movie Ranking on a fairly frequent basis wherein The Eternals, which oddly was met with hate by fans, is at the top of the list. I hoped Spiderman: No Way Home would be near the top, but it seems like the film did not meet the expectations of its hype. 

With Spider-Man's (Tom Holland) identity now revealed, Peter asks Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for help. When a spell goes wrong, dangerous foes from other worlds start to appear, forcing Peter to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.

In No Way Home, Spiderman unlearns the Scooby Doo-esque  lesson about Stranger Danger from Far From Home and well, trusts people who are obviously evil (unlike Jake Gyllenhalal's Myseterio who was secretly evil) instead of trusting the magic wizard who he saved the world with in Endgame. This not only makes the last film & his character arc therein moot, but makes our hero unbelievably stupid to a point that is difficult to identify with.

The only thing No Way Home has going in its favour is the gimmick of "remember this guy??". They hammer the point home with tedious dialogue providing exposition about who they are, just in case you forgot! It's overarching lesson is very shallow, surface level ethics that can't really be applied in real life because people's problems are complicated & they can't be solved by jabbing them with a "make this person better" serum. 

No Way Home is better than Spiderman 3 (2007) but only due the brief appearances of Doctor Strange and the lack of emo Peter Parker "Now dig on this". The film was entertaining and wasn't boring, but it's not a movie I'd spend any more time thinking about. 

The French Dispatch (2021) Review

Title: The French Dispatch
Year: 2021
Director: Wes Anderson
Country: US
Language: English

Whenever a new Wes Anderson film comes out I take great joy in being able to view it. I have enjoyed them all, from his debut Bottle Rocket (1996) to his previous picture Isle of Dogs (2018), and have a decisive favourite with Darjeeling Limited (2007). Covid delayed The French Dispatch for over a year, but I have finally been able to see it!

French Dispatch is set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional twentieth century French city that brings to life a collection of stories published in "The French Dispatch Magazine".

A love letter to journalists made during a period in American history where journalists have been made enemies of the people (if this came out during the Trump administration the point would have really been poignant) The French Dispatch is a poetic, lyrical picture that has a structure like a newspaper. The three stories within are fascinating; they really had me thinking up creative ways to tell strange stories.

I particularly fell in love with The Concrete Prison; a story wherin a self loathing art painter (Benicio Del Toro) is exploited by a greedy capitalist (Adrien Brody). It was quirky, offbeat and had enough inspiration to be its own feature film. 

The French Dispatch is not a film you watch for its narrative or character development. It's a film that defies a label & can't be easily explained because it leaves so much space for free association. This is a worthwhile watch, albeit I do understand the mixed reviews. 

West Side Story (2021) Review

Title: West Side Story
Year: 2021
Director: Steven Spielberg
Country: US
Language: English

Robert Wise's Oscar winning  theatrical version of the 1957 Broadway hit West Side Story has always been a favorite of mine, but fell short of being considered "great". Even 20 years ago. many elements of the film, such as white actors using brownface to play Puerto Ricans, felt very dated. When I first heard Steven Spielberg was remaking an updated version of the film I instantly desired to see it= and I did, in Imax. 

A musical twist on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story is about two people from rival gangs, The white Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks, who fall into a forbidden love affair. 

Steven Spielberg's adaptation/remake does everything a great update should do; it removes many of the original's dated elements, it builds on fan favorite scenes (The song America is given a much more vibrant showcase) and it adds just enough new elements to give this "new" picture a unique flair. Spielberg captures the joy of the Classic Hollywood musical, while fleshing out the primary conflict and adding more social elements. 

West Side Story is the most dazzling film you'll see all year. It will sweep you off your feet with its gorgeous cinematography, brilliant cinematography (all the actors are professional dancers), breathtaking lighting and inspired production design. It's honestly hard to imagine the film not winning Best Picture, along with a ton of other Oscars. 

Perhaps, if I'm being nitpicky, West Side Story could have improved upon the romance, making it more than just a "love at first sight" deal. It could have also made a more bold statement against white supremacy (The Jets are antagonizing The Sharks). Despite this, the film is easily the best of 2021. This version is better than the original and I am shocked that I could think this way.