By Jon Kissel
Rumors of the death of movies were greatly exaggerated in 2021, at least from a quality standpoint. While box office receipts stayed down after 2020's total turtle-shelling, theaters remain open and there's no shortage of new films for them to show. AMC was saved by stonks, Regal has partnered with Matt Damon to bully customers into buying cryptocurrency, and streaming services continue to blast out content from a high-pressure hose. No major delays as of yet have put a damper on 2022, and while this coming year might be the one that sees cinema return to a profitable normal, it will be very difficult for it top 2021's creative output. Helped out by plenty of delayed films that otherwise would've belonged to 2020, 2021 has emerged as at least as great a movie year as 2018, possibly even competing with 2016. While I'm no enemy of depressive, contemplative fare, the theme of the year kept coming back to joy. It marked the best moments of French Dispatch and revereberated throughout wistful works like Licorice Pizza, Luca, and The Hand of God. Big hearted comedies like Bad Trip and Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar reveled in it, musicals like West Side Story and Summer of Soul generated it, and even gonzo French extremities like Titane and Benedetta reached for it between transgression and blasphemy. Who knows what the future will look like as commercial trends get uglier? For now, movies continue to be great!
Rumors of the death of movies were greatly exaggerated in 2021, at least from a quality standpoint. While box office receipts stayed down after 2020's total turtle-shelling, theaters remain open and there's no shortage of new films for them to show. AMC was saved by stonks, Regal has partnered with Matt Damon to bully customers into buying cryptocurrency, and streaming services continue to blast out content from a high-pressure hose. No major delays as of yet have put a damper on 2022, and while this coming year might be the one that sees cinema return to a profitable normal, it will be very difficult for it top 2021's creative output. Helped out by plenty of delayed films that otherwise would've belonged to 2020, 2021 has emerged as at least as great a movie year as 2018, possibly even competing with 2016. While I'm no enemy of depressive, contemplative fare, the theme of the year kept coming back to joy. It marked the best moments of French Dispatch and revereberated throughout wistful works like Licorice Pizza, Luca, and The Hand of God. Big hearted comedies like Bad Trip and Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar reveled in it, musicals like West Side Story and Summer of Soul generated it, and even gonzo French extremities like Titane and Benedetta reached for it between transgression and blasphemy. Who knows what the future will look like as commercial trends get uglier? For now, movies continue to be great!
20 |  Dune What is it: An adaptation of half of Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic, Dune expertly balances exposition with character and draws novices like me into a world dense with mythology and allegory. MVP: Denis Villeneuve's still a frosty director in my book, but his giant spectacles reach their zenith here. Why's it here: This is the theatrical experience of the year, one of the few films that justify the IMAX surcharge and not only for the visuals. Dune's sound is unmatched, from the spooky practitioners of the Voice to the throat singing rhythms of Sardaukar priests. |
 Saint Maud What is it: An intense psychodrama that drills deep into the mind of a hospice worker who imagines herself communing with heaven. MVP: Lead actor Morfydd Clark starts the film in a fragile place but as her reality skews, she becomes more deranged and more serene in a counterintuitive performance. Why's it here: With an ending that eschews the indie horror habit of leaving events undetermined and up for debate, Saint Maud seals its place as one of the best of the year with an editing masterstroke that leaves no doubt. | 19 |
18 |  Mass What is it: A four-hander primarily set in a single room, Mass follows the purgative meeting between the parents of a school shooter and the parents of one of his victims. MVP: Martha Plimpton provides the most affecting work in a film that cannot help but be deeply sad, and a late anecdote about her son is what finally loosed the floodates. Why's it here: These kinds of meetings must happen all the time, and though films that depict them are practically unrecommendable for their emotional rigor, Mass provides something specific to its fictional case while also cracking the larger mysteries of life, of there often being no answer to Why or How and the choice then becoming comfort with the not knowing or lifelong misery. |
 Bad Trip What is it: A Borat-style road journey from the South to a Manhattan art gallery, Bad Trip puts its characters through humiliating and hilarious wringers while stunned passers-by gawk and react. MVP: Alt-comedy mastermind Eric Andre is fearless and a great sport, as seen in his joy during the credits sequence of him revealing to bystanders that everything's fine. Why's it here: Where Sacha Baron Cohen's docu-satires reveal the worst of America, Bad Trip does the opposite. The country is full of natural peacemakers, comedians, concerned citizens. A stranger is just a friend you haven't asked to extricate your penis from a Chinese finger trap yet. | 17 |
16 |  West Side Story What is it: Steven Spielberg's remake of the 1961 musical, itself an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, is the best musical in a year that had a lot of them. MVP: Stephen Sondheim's lyrics, containing clever wordplay alongside social commentary, retain their relevance generations after he first wrote them Why's it here: Musicals' inherent romanticism has to work extra hard on a resistant person like myself, and the sheer power of West Side Story's passion alongside Spielberg's clear love for the material topples any skepticism. |
 Summer of Soul What is it: In what's becoming a trend after Amazing Grace, Get Back, and Apollo 11, amongst others, buried footage of an historic event is restored and shown the light of day. Summer of Soul provides a you-are-there experience of the 1969 Harlem Culture Festival that happened in the shadow of Woodstock and has largely fallen out of cultural consciousness. MVP: Director QuestLove, pouring palpable passion into this project that comes out in the earnest reactions of his talking heads who attended the festival. Why's it here: Summer of Soul locates the Harlem Culture Festival as a nexus point of political and cultural life for African Americans and brings it to life as the festival moves through gospel, Motown, and psychedelic acts. The music's pretty great, too. | 15 |
14 |  A Hero What is it: A debt prisoner uses the return of a woman's purse to finagle his way out of jail and encounters entities more concerned with their public appearance than the truth. MVP: Amir Jadidi's lead performance is a soft-eyed demonstration of practiced passivity, providing gray areas where decency might be for its own ends or a calculated strategy. Why's it here: Asghar Farhadi's Iranian morality plays don't get thornier than A Hero, a film that starts with the injustice of debt imprisonment and builds out a world of individuals both victimized and subject to perpetuating that injustice. |
 Titane What is it: So many things. A Cronenbergian body horror extravaganza. A delusional mistaken identity farce. A serial killer anti-hero journey. A breathtaking cinematic experience. MVP: Julia Ducournau, following up her magnificent debut Raw with a film that cements her as a, uh, titan of French extremity. Why's it here: Titane could completely collapse after a bravura tracking shot through a sex-addled car show, and the strength of that scene alone would guarantee it a spot on this top 20. | 13 |
12 |  Benedetta What is it: Provocateur Paul Verhoeven goes back to the Renaissance for a lesbian nun power struggle between messianic charlatans and diocesan bureaucrats. MVP: In the lead role, Virginie Efira has to convince the viewer of so many interplaying motivations and beliefs, and she succeeds at every turn. Why's it here: Benedetta's delicious refusal to hedge a single bet and always go for the biggest choice makes it a blasphemous thrill ride. Nowhere else will a person find action-hero Jesus. |
 Luca What is it: Pixar's latest heads to the Italian coast where two young sea monsters, who look human on the land, encounter all the glories of the above-water world and beyond. MVP: Director Enrico Casarosa builds a warm and inviting world in his seaside paradise, and then suffers from one of 2021's greatest cinematic travesties by having his work restricted to Disney+. Why's it here: The irritation of a streaming-only release notwithstanding, Luca's beautiful coming-of-age story is also the kind of LGBT allegory that can't be covered up in editing for regressive markets. | 11 |
10 |  Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar What is it: Two daffy soulmates find horniness, physical challenges, and Tommy Bahama himself in a tacky Florida resort town. MVP: Jamie Dornan reorients his entire public persona when he sings a power ballad to a seagull. Why's it here: The silliest and funniest comedy since Popstar, Barb and Star is a reminder that despite the waning status and prevalence of movies like it, one that works from start to finish is worth its weight in genetically-modified mosquitos. |
 Licorice Pizza What is it: Paul Thomas Anderson's ninth film goes back to his comfort zone of 70's era San Fernando Valley for a side-eyed flirtation between a teenage serial entrepreneur and an aimless 20-something in search of purpose. MVP: Alana Haim's fury, righteous and otherwise, at the disappointing men in her orbit is by turns painfully and hilariously brought to life by an actor who is somehow performing her first major role. Why's it here: A pleasurable hangout film that moves between anecdotes more than adheres to a single story, Licorice Pizza's big heart thumps between its two leads as they sell mattresses, taunt each other across restaurant tables, and run headlong into each other's arms. | 9 |
8 |  The Last Duel What is it: A Ridley Scott historical epic that depicts three points of view around a sexual assault which can only be resolved by a battle to the death. MVP: Co-writers Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener each take a turn with a narrating character's version of events, and each brilliantly reveals what characters would like to think about themselves and how they appear through the eyes of someone else. Why's it here: The Last Duel feels like a kind of grand film that will soon vanish from the cinematic landscape, and soaking in all of the foreign, out-of-time detail is an experience that Ridley Scott perfected long ago. |
 Red Rocket What is it: An adult film star returns to his Texas gulf-side hometown, penniless and unemployable. He finds a teenage doughnut shop clerk who might bring him back to the big leagues. MVP: Simon Rex as a barely contained ball of charismatic energy. There's only a few actors who could shorten the distance between disgust that he's celebrating a particularly repulsive outcome and glee at watching him celebrate. Why's it here: Sean Baker's latest journey into the underclass repeats his usage of non-actors to its greatest effect yet in a film that defiantly refuses to soften its characters choices. Red Rocket constructs Baker's toughest empathy test in his filmography and challenges the viewer stay involved. | 7 |
6 |  The French Dispatch What is it: An anthology film in Wes Anderson's particular tone, featuring three stories reported for the final issue of the New Yorker-esque titular magazine. MVP: Jeffrey Wright, performing as a James Baldwin type and the star in the final segment, deepens what was already working in the film and elevates it into one of Anderson's best. Why's it here: The French Dispatch unites its disparate stories in the changing standards and morals of mid-20th century upheaval with the magazine serving as the vehicle bringing culture and revolution to isolated corners, tying journalism and cinema together as media that make possibility larger and the world smaller. |
 The Truffle Hunters What is it: Northern Italian truffle hunters and their loyal dogs ply their trade in forests and live in dilapidated shacks, all to provide fancy restauranteurs with expensive plates of pasta. MVP: Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw direct and shoot a transporting film that smells like moss and wet dogs Why's it here: Rustic Italian life has never looked as compelling as it does here. This is a documentary not lacking in tragedy and fatalism about a way of life getting squeezed by overconsumption and dirty tricks, but it can't help but look attractive nonetheless. | 5 |
4 |  The Green Knight What is it: A stylish and mysterious retelling of an Arthurian legend, Sir Gawain confronts the titular creature and his own ambitions. MVP: Director David Lowery, hitting for the first time for me with his melancholic adventure through a world on the edge of feudal Christianity and tribal mystery. Why's it here: Culminating in one of those delirious paths-not-taken endings that so often bowl me over, The Green Knight is the year's visionary achievement, piling up memorable scene after memorable scene until the viewer's gasping for breath at its brilliant finale. |
 The Tragedy of Macbeth What is it: An austere adaptation of Shakespeare's Scottish play featuring all involved operating at the peak of their powers. MVP: A titan amongst titans, Kathryn Hunter's disconcerting and unforgettable performance as the Weird Sisters steals the film from the likes of Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. Why's it here: Joel Coen has made the objective masterpiece of the year. Every frame is worthy of a painting, every line spoken is considered and meaningful, every tableau offers something new on a work that's 500 years old. | 3 |
2 |  Pig What is it: Nicolas Cage stars as a truffle hunter hermit who looks set to go on a John Wick rampage when his only friend/truffle pig is stolen. MVP: Cage, turning in one of his annual reminders that his tendency to say yes to everything lives alongside the capacity of turning stellar work when the project is right. His character in Pig is just as capable of a soul-revealing monologue as a wild-eyed explosion, and Cage puts on the costume of a man who looks like he'd prefer the latter when it's the former still burbling underneath. Why's it here: Michael Sarnovski's stunning debut surprises at every turn. The film Pig looks like it's going to be again and again would be perfectly fine, if unimaginative, but it keeps revealing deeper and more meaningful purpose, thus making it one of 2021's most surprising and effective experiences. |
 The Hand of God What is it: A teen growing up in 80's Naples lives through familial bliss and tragedy, personal fulfillment and disillusionment, misplaced horniness and loving affection. MVP: Director Pablo Sorrentino, getting his hands around the palpable experiences of his Neapolitan childhood and infusing them with the ecstatic life that pumps through all of his work. Why's it here: The best autobiographical film since Lady Bird, The Hand of God contains sequence after sequence of impossible beauty and vibrant life, by turns messy and transcendent. Sorrentino's vision is crystal clear and packed with endearing detail. To paraphrase a character, how could one watch a movie like this and not be inspired? | 1 |
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