The Best Movies Of 2021
The Best Movies Of 2021
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Here are the best movies of 2021, a year that saw cinemas return, streaming continue to rise, and across both some great movies big and small release.
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After a year in which theaters started to come back while streaming continued its rise (and the line between them became more blurred than ever before), these are the best movies of 2021. The movie industry remains in something of a state of flux, one that it was likely heading towards regardless but was brought about much sooner thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. The first half of 2021 continued to see box office struggles amid ongoing theater closures, while Warner Bros. and Disney both offered up different attempts at co-releasing movies in theaters and on streaming services, to varied results.
But while studio execs may have been concerned with issues around day-and-date releases, industry shaking events like Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit, and a slate of films that continued to be shuffled and delayed, there were also plenty of chances to be reminded of the most important aspect of the business: movies are pretty great! The best movies of 2021 range from mega blockbusters that are parts of huge franchises, to quiet indies that few people talked about but everyone should see; whether they got all the hype or none of it, their quality speaks for itself.
Of course, ongoing alongside this remain issues with accessibility, especially at the end of the year: many of the season’s awards contenders, and with that films that could well end up on best of lists, including new movies from Paul Thomas Anderson, Guillermo del Toro, and more, have only had limited theatrical releases or are still to come. This list will be kept updated as new films release and are seen, but as it stands here’s Screen Rant’s best movies of 2021.
12. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
After no new Marvel movies released in 2020, the MCU looked to come back strong in 2021, with decidedly mixed results at opposite ends of the spectrum: Black Widow was an average installment hurt by MCU formula, Eternals was an ambitious effort that nonetheless fell flat, and Spider-Man: No Way Home is wonderful in ideas but mixed in end product. In between those two was Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which was much fresher than the other 2021 offerings for reasons that extend beyond introducing the MCU’s first Asian superhero. The steps forward it takes for representation and inclusivity within the MCU, and Hollywood as a whole, are massive, but they’re given extra weight by just how good the end-result is.
In some ways, Shang-Chi feels like a throwback to days when the MCU was smaller; it has cameos and setup, but it’s largely unburdened by them and free to tell its own story. That, in turn, allows for an approach to really focus on its characters and familial themes, which are among the deepest Marvel has delivered in recent years. Mixing martial arts influences with its fantastical settings allows Shang-Chi to stand apart as its own unique corner of the MCU, offering up some stunning action sequences that rank among the best in Marvel’s shared universe, but it’s the journey Simu Liu’s hero goes on that makes it special. Shang-Chi’s relationship to his father, Wenwu (Tony Leung), and sister, Xialing (Meng’er Zhang), gives this an emotional core and allows the story to shine brightest when its more about family drama than it is massive villains (if Shang-Chi stumbles, its in its final act and the emergence of the Dweller-in-Darkness), while Katy (Awkwafina) adds a layer of humor that many Marvel movies have misjudged. Amidst the multiversal shenanigans of bigger movies, Shang-Chi isn’t necessarily changing the MCU, but this should be the film that helps provide a blueprint for what it does going forward.
11. Censor
2021 has delivered some notable horror movies among its biggest franchises – Halloween, Candyman, and Saw all came back in various ways – but one of the best horror movies of 2021 is a much more low-key affair. Censor, from debut director Prano Bailey-Bond, follows a woman called Enid, who works for the British Board of Film Classification. While a story about censorship during the “Video Nasty” era suggests something more akin to a documentary than scares, Censor delivers a haunting tale of loss and longing that spirals into more fantastical, and gruesome, elements.
Censor does a great job of recreating the sights and sounds of its era, whether that’s the dreary cutting rooms that echo 1980s Thatcherism, the shocking footage Enid has to spool through, or how the imagery invokes the giallo cinema of its time, but this is so much more than a horror movie coasting by on nostalgia (which is a good job, given its target audience there would be rather niche). Similarly, Censor is a horror movie that does a great job of showing why people are so captivated by the genre, finding in the disturbing imagery that Enid – and with her, viewers – are forced to endure some long-wished for answers alongside a sense of escapism from the every day. The movie is incredibly tight, refreshingly coming in at under 90 minutes in length, and yet in that time it packs in a spooky, sombre story that tackles trauma, bursts with violence, and sees fantasy and reality bleed together to startling effect. Censor is at once a throwback British horror and yet very modern in its approach, and that makes it an ideal horror movie for 2021.
10. Luca
It’s true that Pixar’s movies of the last five years or so haven’t matched the rather remarkable level of consistent quality that helped make the studio’s rise so incredible, but there are few companies making films – live-action or animated – who know how to make emotional, human drama that’s relatable to adults and children alike, and so beautifully captures reality while allowing fantasy escapism at the same time. Luca does all of that and then some; a movie about sea monsters who come to land, are faced with fear, and yet find friendships, it’s a poignant and important story that serves as strong LGBTQ+ allegory, but also more plainly for all human connections and how people can either be accepted for who they are or othered for what you think.
As with most Pixar movies, Luca looks absolutely stunning, beautifully creating the Italian Riviera in ways that will leave audiences longing for a vacation, and crafting its sea monsters with a sense of that old Pixar magic. To that end, the movie is fun and creative, and as Luca, Alberto, and Giulia forge their friendship while battling against the antagonistic Ercole, it does what the studio has always done: captures an inherent part of life, in this case growing up and finding a place in the world, but does so in a way that’s sweet, heartfelt, and purely joyous.
9. West Side Story
If there is one lesson from2021’s West Side Story, it is that it’s never wise to underestimate Steven Spielberg. Ever since his remake was announced, there have been question marks over the project: as with all remakes and reboots of beloved classics, there’s been consternation that he wouldn’t be able to top the original, while, as his first musical, there were perhaps doubts over whether or not he could deliver. Spielberg’s West Side Story may not necessarily outdo the 1961 version, but it’s a major triumph that it can stand right next to it, at once a love letter to that version and yet a re-imagining that updates and improves some areas, whether that’s musically (Spielberg’s lead actress can sing), geographically (by shooting on location), or in terms of its representation and approach to race.
Much of what Spielberg’s version great can apply to the original; its Romeo & Juliet story remains timeless, its songs iconic. And yet Spielberg imbues a lot of freshness and feeling into this: West Side Story 2021 breezes through at an astonishing pace, and that’s because of how much its director makes it feel alive, perfectly capturing the highs and lows, the ecstasy and inevitable agony, of Tony and Maria’s whirlwind romance. The imagery is vibrant, the staging perfectly blends its stage influences with the look and sound of a true blockbuster, and while there are rightly criticisms over Ansel Elgort’s involvement, he himself is outshone by West Side Story’s astonishing lead actress, Rachel Zegler as Maria, who helps to give this not only its great musical values, but also so much of the heart that pulls it all together as one of the best movies of 2021.
8. The Mitchells vs. The Machines
That team behind Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse bring the same gleeful energy to The Mitchells vs. The Machines. This may not be a comic book world, but it comes to life in much the same way, with a story and characters that leap off the screen thanks to its jaw-dropping and ceaselessly inventive animation. The stunning work on screen, whether it’s the clever meshing together of 2D and 3D animation techniques, or the way words are scrawled on the screen, would be enough to ensure The Mitchells vs. The Machines was a noteworthy film, but its the heart and love packed into it that turns it into one of the best movies of 2021.
A simple family road trip turns into a battle against the robot apocalypse, and along the way viewers get a story that is almost non-stop funny, whether that’s creative visual gags or razor-sharp satire, The Mitchells vs. The Machines is fun for all the family, including the dog. At its center, though, is the story of the Mitchells themselves, and sweetest of all the father-daughter relationship between Rick and Katie (who are wonderfully brought to life by Danny McBride and Abbi Jacobson, respectively, among Mitchells vs. Machines’ impressive cast); it’s a dynamic that at once is both relatable and yet unique, high in concept and yet grounded in universal themes of love and understanding, and that helps make The Mitchells vs. The Machines look and feel like one of the year’s most beautiful offerings.
7. Pig
The basic elevator pitch for Pig, a Nicolas Cage movie in which he stars as a loner who lives in the woods and returns to his past when the eponymous swine is stolen from him, sounds like it could go wrong in several different ways. Is this just another John Wick ripoff? Is it merely a Nic Cage movie that’s an avenue for him to do more weird acting? Instead, the end result is one of the most quietly affecting dramas of 2021, and one of Cage’s best performances in years. It’s a film that speaks to the wordless sorrow of grief, of how you try to make sense of it all and move on, and how life can never be the same after you’ve lost.
In Pig, Cage’s Robin Feld has to return to his Portland roots after his prized truffle pig is stolen, but the film is about so much more. It’s about the cost of devoting oneself to your passion; it’s about the pain of loving the one person (or pig) you truly care about; it’s about the magical, moving quality food can have; it’s about remembrance, how a person deals with the past and uses it to inform their future. Pig is sad and melancholy, but it also finds a renewed sense of life for its protagonist, turning it into one of the most remarkable and best movies of 2021. Yes, it’s a film about Nic Cage and a pig, but it belies all of the jokes that invites and instead turns in a mournful drama that examines those things in life that genuinely have meaning, and what value is placed on things in their absence. It may be titled after an animal, but Cage’s drama astoundingly gets to the core of the human condition.
6. F9
2021 marked the 20th anniversary of The Fast and the Furious, and it did so with a celebration of one of modern cinema’s most improbable franchises. F9 is an absolutely ridiculous movie, but it absolutely knows that; everything in the film is done with, at the very least, a wink and a nod to the audience, and it’s so unabashed in embracing just how outlandish its become that it is impossible not to get swept away in it all. It may not be claiming any Oscars, but no Best Picture nominee is going to be pulling off F9’s stunts from magnet cars to rocket fuelling its way into space, and really, who’s the true winner there?
In lesser hands, Fast & Furious 9 would risk being too over the top, too ridiculous, too focused on globetrotting, jaw-dropping action sequences that push the limits of what the franchise has achieved before. It would, perhaps, be too fast and too furious. Justin Lin’s direction, however, ensures that the set-pieces are stunning, but also that everything coasts along wonderfully; F9 may not pause for breath, but it never leaves you feeling tired either. Vin Diesel completes Dominic Toretto’s transformation into a superhero, the expanded supporting cast – including an ever game John Cena and the return from the dead of Sung Kang’s Han Lue – all play their roles brilliantly, and, of course, it’s held together by the franchise’s emotional core and unifying theme that ensures it’s not just a series of stupid stunts: family.
5. Shiva Baby
Not quite the best movie of 2021, but almost certainly the most stressful, Shiva Baby is like Uncut Gems’ younger, funnier cousin, but no less anxiety-inducing for that. The story follows Danielle (Rachel Sennott) a young woman at a shiva who has to navigate the presence of both her ex-girlfriend and the rich married man she’s been having an affair, who is attending with his perfect wife and their screaming baby. The comedy drama is mostly contained to a single setting, and yet never runs out of room for either a pitch-perfect joke or a moment to make you sweat.
Director and writer Emma Seligman, who makes her feature debut with Shiva Baby, turns that location into a haunted house of challenges for Danielle to overcome. It hones in on both the Jewish details of its story and the expectations of what a young woman should be doing with its life to brilliantly showcase expectations placed upon her, the increasingly claustrophobic shiva serving as a literal representation of just how stifling that is, as she moves from old women asking prying questions to her parents wondering what’s going on to the wife of her sugar daddy becoming increasingly suspicious. Shiva Baby isn’t a thriller in the traditional sense, but it feels like one, leaving both its protagonist and the audience squirming.
4. The Last Duel
Unfortunately, The Last Duel bombed at the box office, but poor performance and Millennial-blaming aside, this is the Ridley Scott movie of 2021. One of the key aspects that makes this movie work so well is its Rashomon-style narrative, as the duel between Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) and Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) and the historical events the led to it are shown from three different perspectives: Jean, Jacques, and the former’s wife who is raped by the latter, Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer). The Last Duel’s story itself is gripping thanks to Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener’s script, the performances sublime (Comer is the star and gives everything to Marguerite, while Affleck steals scenes and adds some much needed comedy), and Scott is right in his wheelhouse within the realm of historical epic; there’s a simpler, more straightforward version of this movie that’s still pretty good.
Thankfully, though, Ridley Scott’s movie doesn’t make the easy choices. His narrative decisions still allow for some thrilling action and a bloody, brutal final battle that lives up to the title, as well as political scheming, machinations, and wrongdoings that keep the plot gripping. But its triumph is that not only does it eschew one linear story, but it also doesn’t avoid showing what the truth of the matter is. The Last Duel leaves absolutely no doubt, in any of its sections but most definitely the last – which is also its most powerful – that the Lady Marguerite is telling the truth. The shifts The Last Duel from being history to being her story. It takes the opportunity to promote not only this one tale, but in doing burns with support for all survivors, especially those who have not been believed or had their stories told. It seamlessly melds together its past story with modern themes to tell a timeless tale, which feels epic in scope and intimate in its details.
3. The Green Knight
For various reasons, from miscastings to questionable adaptation choices to foolhardy attempts to create a shared universe, King Arthur movies haven’t really taken off on the big screen the way the enduring status and popularity of Arthurian legends deserves. That is, until The Green Knight, an adaptation of the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which the former accepts the challenge from the latter to deliver a blow to him (for which he chooses to cut off his head), but that must be repaid in a year’s time. The result is one of 2021’s best movies, one of the finest entries into the pantheon of Arthurian films, and, perhaps more surprisingly, a film that arguably best shows how to make a video game movie.
Part of the genius of David Lowery’s movie is how he frames the tale as a quest, with Dev Patel’s Gawain making his way from one location to the next, meeting an assortment of highborns and lowlifes from The Green Knight’s cast, all of whom will test him in a variety of ways. Each of these are brilliantly entertaining in their own right – none more so than a turn from Barry Keoghan that steals Gawain’s possessions and the movie with them – but together they make for a fascinating whole that adapts and deconstructs the titular myth, exploring themes of masculinity, race, otherness, heroism, chivalry, and destiny along the way. Lowery brings in the story’s more fantastic elements to enchanting effect in The Green Knight, from the fox serving as a guide to the mysterious giants seen along the way. King Arthur movies have never looked better either: the cinematography and color grading are beautiful, with green and golden hues adding to the weighty symbolism and ensuring the movie is completely spellbinding.
2. CODA
A great coming-of-age movie both perfectly captures the specific era of its protagonist’s journey, and yet makes itself relatable to all viewers by showcasing the trials and tribulations that come with that period of life almost regardless of when you grew up; it’s in combining those that the genre can truly speak to people on a very human level, and which, while it may not have the big budgets, epic action, or expansive scope of a blockbuster or the dramatic weight of something more arthouse and “important,” makes the genre special. It’s something that’s been seen in efforts from recent years like Lady Bird and Eighth Grade, and it’s what helps make CODA into one of the best movies of 2021.
Following the hearing child of deaf adults, CODA finds its main character, Ruby Rossi (an incredible Emilia Jones), caught between two worlds – her musical dreams and hopes of going away to college, and her family’s fishing business that relies on her to communicate with others – with equal time given to developing both sides. CODA deftly uses its unique (for a movie) perspectives, allowing for an understanding of what it’s like to be a CODA, but also ensuring that Ruby’s parents, Frank and Jackie (Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin) and brother Leo (Daniel Durant) aren’t just stereotypes or cliches. Her parents have an incredibly loud (and hilarious) sex life, the family dynamic is powerful and passionate, and the use of American Sign Language shows movies don’t just need speech to be cinematic or packed with great dialogue. CODA’s soundtrack helps carry things along and add to its emotional heft, and this is very much a feel-good movie that will have audiences laughing and crying in equal measure, hearts soaring by the end.
1. Dune
Dune is the new epic cinematic saga, in the same vein as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. That’s not to say it’s necessarily as good, but watching Dune offers a similar sense of feeling: the immaculate, fully developed and lived-in world, the promise of something even greater and grander to come. And yet none of that would matter if Dune itself wasn’t fantastic. It would’ve been easy for this movie to be swallowed up on the sands of Arrakis, bogged down in explaining the Bene Gesserit and Baron or harping on about Harkonnen. But this movie gives you enough to understand those elements, and focuses on what really matters: the story, characters, and themes.
Its filmmaker Denis Villeneuve has become arguably the world’s best sci-fi director because he takes these grandiose ideas and futuristic settings, but always does so while retaining the human core and through the lens of humanity itself. That’s seen throughout Dune, with Lady Jessica’s conflicted loyalties, with Duke Leto’s love and honour, with Paul’s awakening and the beginning of his hero’s journey, and with the struggle and rebellion of the Fremen. Villeneuve’s movies always examine humanity through ideas of invasion, and what’s remarkable here is the range of ways he does it.
Paul’s story in Dune is great because he is both invader of land and then invaded; not only on Arrakis, but through his loss of innocence, his sense of identity, the powerful institutions and the even more powerful forces of nature he has to survive against. It’s a nice, dark spin on the Chosen One narrative, retaining key elements of it but without just feeling like a total rehash. On a technical level, Dune is predictably a marvel, conjuring up astonishing sights and sounds, and while it does end abruptly that’s clearly by design, cutting off at the ideal hinge point that makes for a satisfying climax and the need to see what happens next. Even if Dune 2 weren’t confirmed, this would be great, but that it is makes it a real triumph and the best movie of 2021.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/best-movies-2021/
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