I’m still trying to get past the bad habit of writing off a film before I even watch it, so I don’t know if I can say if 2021 was a good or bad year for film. But what I do know is that it was a year filled with anticipation, many of which paid off for me and some of which made me realize I’d liked the wait better. Thank you delayed releases! I also escaped the bubble of streaming from my bed this year, and watched more movies in more different theatres than I have before, which was a fantastic experience. I can’t say if it 2021 was a good year or a bad year for film, but I can say that I enjoyed my time there. So, out of all the ones I got around to, here are my top ten of 2021.
10. The Humans, dir. Stephen Karam
I’m now going to say the required sentence for any discussion about this movie: it’s almost like the apartment is its own character.
Admittedly, I only heard of The Humans because Steven Yeun was in it, whose career I have studiously followed since his appearance in my second favorite movie of 2021 (more on that later). So, even though I’d read the story would be dark, I was still expecting more of the cozy family dynamic. But with The Humans, Stephen Karam has adapted his Tony award winning play into a claustrophobically creepy and festering film. One where people argue and reveal secrets, but the “coming back together stronger” part is debatable.
And that was the main thing that surprised me: just how scary this movie is. There’s the clear horrors of the characters’ lives: failure, stagnation, infidelity, trauma, 9/11. But The Humans is also littered with actual jump scares. The Chinatown building is old and peeling. The apartment has creaky floors and a banging upstairs neighbor. There are off-colored water stains and tumorous paint bubbles and messes of foam sealant. There’s the claustrophobic camera placement, with shots intruded in by walls or speakers shut out of the frame (an unconventionality that Karam almost seems to beg us to notice sometimes). The lights even go out throughout the movie. In a clear mirror of the character’s anxieties, simple apartment phenomena are magnified into fear-filled shocks that had me stressed and startling throughout.
But I might be playing up the dark and scary side of The Humans too much. Because, while it is a horror story, The Humans lives up to some of its Thanksgiving dinner expectations as well. There is a genuine care between all the characters, even if it often gets lost in the face of other conflicts. But The Humans excels at straddling this line, between the equal opportunity to hurt or heal someone you know intimately. It understands the way that families can damage each other in the most sensitive places and come together in appreciation in the same breath, all because of that domestic bond. Endearingly (and realistically), the characters in The Humans never seem like they know what they’re going to say before they say it. Arguments are frantic and messy and illogical; emotional sentiments get awkwardly said and made into jokes. There are genuinely beautiful moments of sympathy and camaraderie in The Humans. It just coexists with, but doesn’t lessen, the presence of the ugly that permeates everywhere else.
9. The Green Knight, dir. David Lowery
The Green Knight gets the honor of being my first COVID-theatre movie. That was mainly because of its amazing trailer, and just because “Arthurian legend” has a nice ring to it. But David Lowery’s take on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight turns away from its period piece potential, instead going on a wandering and artfully oblique journey.
The Green Knight is simultaneously grand and human. It has vast fantasy set pieces and the feel of an epic poem. But on the other hand, it depicts a Camelot and a Gawain far from their prime. King Arthur and Queen Guinevere are feeble, and Gawain is closer to irresponsibility than honor. Rather than the typical story of the knight being tested and proving his worth, The Green Knight embraces Gawain’s irresponsibility and impulsiveness, and his path to the Green Knight is simultaneously a reckoning with death as well as a series of lessons in maturity.
Lowery’s take on the Arthurian legend of Gawain and the Green Knight also has a starkly modern feel to it, despite its setting. The visuals are interpretive and intensely colored, with the shots ranging between expansive landscapes as Gawain makes his journey and more intimate settings, sometimes with an intentionally low-tech special effects feel, as he is tested at the various checkpoints. There are flash-forwards, imagined hypotheticals, dream sequences: the film is full of stunningly trippy symbolic sequences. Combined, The Green Knight has a distinct impression of surrealism and dreaminess. Like medieval high fantasy, but for the arthouse crowd.
8. The French Dispatch, dir. Wes Anderson
Who doesn’t love Wes Anderson? Me, sometimes. Some of his movies (like The Fantastic Mr. Fox) I will defend with my life. Others I just can’t get into, no matter how praised they are. But no matter what, I can always marvel at the insane stylistic control of a Wes Anderson movie. And this time, The French Dispatchbounces more into the good category.
Wes Anderson is the perfect match for a movie that’s basically about The New Yorker. The dialogue in Wes Anderson’s movies (deadpan, straightforward, and clever in a “chuckle out of my nose” kind of way) is nicely suited in capturing an ensemble of unique journalists, based on recognizable personalities from the real magazine. Anderson’s quirky visual style is again the perfect match for The New Yorker, known as much for its rigor as for its eccentricity and satire. Anderson’s filmmaking in general often goes for the opposite of realism. It makes explicitly clear that all of this is, in fact, a staged event. And for a film about journalists, this works perfectly. Surrounding the maze of frame narratives within each of the five parts, The French Dispatch is firmly established as the final frame: a story about the real-life story of The New Yorker.
I had a blast watching The French Dispatch. With every new scene there’s always something fun to grab onto, whether it’s a new visual technique, a witty line, or yet another new frame story. Plus, the number of famous actors that show up is like its own form of entertainment. And in the argument of style versus substance, The French Dispatch’s style is its substance. As a “love letter to journalists”, it’s only right that the film is crammed with as many vibrant depictions of writers in action as possible. As an ode to the diversity of storytelling, it makes sense that the arts section (told through a lecture at an art gallery) looks different from the politics section (told partially through a later performance of a play of the same story) which looks different from a story about police cooking (told through an interview and an animated comic strip). It’s a lovely whirlwind of a movie that more than lives up to its goal.
(You can read Luke Wilhelm’s review of The French Dispatch here.)
7. The Power of the Dog, dir. Jane Campion
Honestly, The Power of the Dog should’ve been higher on this list. Visually, it’s gorgeous. The film is moody and tense, the subtext is subtle yet surprisingly clear, the characters (especially Phil) are fascinating and well performed. And the ending twist is jaw-dropping: I had to sit back and re-evaluate half the story after that ending. If only I hadn’t read the book first.
I’d heard so many good things about The Power of the Dog before its Netflix release that I figured I should read Thomas Savage’s book first for some preparation. It was a great book; all the compliments being given towards Campion’s film apply just as well (and or more so) to the novel. Savage has an automatic advantage when it comes to context and nuances in the characters’ backstories, since he’s telling this story in the form of a book. He also has the luxury of more space to expand, and the ability to enter directly into each character and reveal their innermost thoughts or motivations. Because of all this extra space, Savage’s novel builds an extremely intense atmosphere of apprehension and danger (I was unbelievably stressed while reading), making the final reveal at the end even more stunning.
So, after watching The Power of the Dog, I had mixed feelings—but not because of the movie itself. Objectively, I was undoubtedly impressed. Having now read the book, I admired how focused Campion managed to keep the film. References are made to some of the extra detail from Savage’s novel, but only the most essential (and therefore impactful) material is left in. Campion also takes full advantage of the sensory aspect of film, an area Savage’s novel can’t touch. Where Savage has more room to write, the film’s cinematography and score do wonders in building the atmosphere of tension. In the place of internal monologuing and omniscient narrators, Campion and her actors reveal all the characters’ secrets in closeups. But I also couldn’t help but compare the novel with the adaptation. I had a lingering feeling that I’d just watched a truncated version of something I’d already seen, and the reveal at the end didn’t explode in my brain the same way it did the first time.
But The Power of the Dog is a powerful story that sticks with you, regardless of medium. Savage and Campion are both deserving storytellers that do it justice. Just, maybe don’t spoil it for yourself first.
(You can read Jonathan’s full review of The Power of the Dog here.)
6. The Worst Person in the World, dir. Joachim Trier
If there ever was a movie to make you want to live in Norway and ponder the dread of your thirties at the same time, this is it. It’s playful, frantic, and heartbreaking in turns, and features a romance between the Norwegian versions of Dakota Johnson and Adam Driver. But above all, The Worst Person in the World is constantly in motion.
There’s a specific anxiety that comes with realizing that you won’t be able to pursue all the different idealized lives you wish you could. Bathed in buttery Norwegian light, this film captures that feeling amazingly well. For Julie, the feeling is more intense. She’s getting older, turning the curious age of thirty, and she’s a woman. The Worst Person in the World lives in the changeover between your twenties (basically still fresh out of college) and your forties (definitely old by now). Thirty (an age I’m intimately familiar with, of course) is when you’re still young but not quite young anymore. Where’s the stable job? The relationship? For Julie and other women, maybe even kids? And on a more personal level, how can you start to feel like you’re going to leave behind something meaningful when it already feels like time is running out?
In a snappy prologue, we see Julie have an epiphany in medical school. So, she drops her original plans, breaks up with her boyfriend, and switches to psychology. Then she has another epiphany. So, she drops her original plans, breaks up with her psychology teacher (who she was dating), and becomes a photographer. Clearly, Julie is not a stranger to the desire to live multiple lives.
With a brisk fourteen-part structure and a slightly snarky narrator, The Worst Person in the Worldtackles this anxiety in a humorous, yet sharply honest manner. Each of the fourteen parts represents an important piece of Julie and the film. Taken together, both are simultaneously cohesive and scattered. For a film about the struggle with defining yourself in concrete terms and the pressure of commitment, it’s fitting that it’s presented in this impressionistic way. But The Worst Person in the World also treats its subjects with sympathy. Even as Julie makes abrupt choices or seemingly upends her life, her frenetic struggles with stagnation never feel like an object of judgement. And in the last two chapters, that sympathy lets in a powerful discussion about a desire for meaning that effects not just Julie or people in their thirties, but everyone.
5. The Tragedy of Macbeth, dir. Joel Coen
Of all the Shakespeare we consumed for the sake of school, we never ended up reading The Tragedy of Macbeth. Shakespeare units were also usually my least favorite of the year; there’s many memories of the awkward acting for the class that ensued. That being said, this is the first Shakespeare adaptation that’s made me want to go back and read the original text. So for that, this gets a place on my top ten list.
The natural standout to me was the visuals; the cinematography and set design were consistently impactful throughout. Rather than a realistic, traditionally Shakespearean visualization, The Tragedy of Macbeth turns in the opposite direction. I’ve always been fascinated by dioramas and other realistic models, so the film’s visuals were right up my alley. I also felt it captured the unreality of theatre, where sets are constantly being changed within the same space, and the audience is meant to believe in a suggestion of reality rather than a simulation. In The Tragedy of Macbeth, the cinematography has a similarly uncanny quality. The sets are meticulously designed to suggest real life but are clearly filmed in a soundstage. Like dioramas, they are intentionally too perfect to register as “real”. That diorama quality gives the film a strong physicality, while also feeling intensely surreal and eerie at the same time. And that’s only magnified when magic comes into play.
But the performances this time around were just as important in keeping me invested. Since I hadn’t seen or read The Tragedy of Macbeth before, I went in with a clean slate. I didn’t have any expectations or personal interpretations on how the dialogue should be delivered. So, I was pleasantly surprised by both the intensity and grounded quality of the performances. All the actors are performing for the camera rather than a large theatre, and as a result, deliver their lines more naturally. Sometimes, watching other Shakespeare performances, I’d get a strange, hyper-aware impression that everyone was speaking Shakespeare. In The Tragedy of Macbeth, however, the lines are more often delivered in the manner and tones of modern speech. I was surprised at the amount of emotion I felt through them, as well as a new admiration for the writing and wordplay. It was like an adaptation of something that happened to be written by Shakespeare, rather than a Shakespearean adaptation. And Kathryn Hunter (who is middle-aged and not, to my surprise, an extremely flexible eighty-year-old), deserves a special shoutout. Leaning into the occult and the avian, she gives a show-stealing croaky and twisty performance as the Witches.
4. tick tick…BOOM!, dir. Lin Manuel Miranda
I feel like I should preface this by saying: in no way did I think of myself as a musical theatre kid before watching. I didn’t know who Jonathan Larson was, or what Rent was about, and I couldn’t name any other musical aside from Hamilton. I’d actually put off watching the movie by a couple months because I was worried it wouldn’t be my thing (I can get pretty bad secondhand embarrassment from movies sometimes). But after seeing Spiderman: No Way Home and being floored by eight hours of Angels in America, I decided that it was time to give Andrew Garfield and tick tick…BOOM! a shot.
And…I loved it! I thought it toed the line nicely between being earnest and being overly sentimental, ending up in a spot that was full of heart. I laughed, I smiled, I got teary-eyed (but in that romantic, inspiring way). All the emotions were dialed to one hundred, but it’s a credit to the movie that they never feel overwhelming or contrived—they feel like they’re coming from a place of honest admiration. And I was honestly blown away by the music, which I found stirring and dramatized in all the right ways. 30/90 has an unironic spot in my daily playlist. But this really is Andrew Garfield’s movie. tick tick…BOOM is powered by his energetic performance. It’s so obviously passionate and full of appreciation for the person he’s portraying, yet the authenticity he brings is what pulls the movie back to Earth whenever it starts heading towards self-indulgent territory.
Jonathan Larson’s life story is one that is tragically open to mythologization: the struggling genius who finally broke through but died hours before he really got to see it come true. But it’s touching to see a story not about Rent and Larson’s death, but instead about everything leading up to it. It’s something maybe even more worth telling than the mythos that succeeded Larson. And in the end, it’s just nice to see an inspirational tale that celebrates life and all its failures. Indeed, tick tick…BOOM seems to embrace failure as a possibility for rebirth, like a sign of love and better things to come. It’s hard not to be won over by this film’s exuberance. It isn’t a story meant to be subtle or quiet— it unashamedly wears its heart on its sleeve, a larger-than-life work to honor a larger-than-life legacy.
3. Dune, dir. Denis Villeneuve
I’ve always been a fan of Dune. I read the book for the first time in 8th grade, and even though I only half understood what was going on, the depth of the worldbuilding was undeniable. But Dune isn’t all future politics and oblique sci-fi explanations. The writing is engaging, and the story eventually brings the focus down to an engaging coming-of-age journey on an extreme scale. So, when I heard Dune was getting made into a movie, I started getting excited. When I heard Denis Villeneuve (who’d adapted another one of my favorite science fiction works into the amazing thing that is Arrival) was directing, I got more excited. And when I saw the spot-on visualization and star power of the cast, I already knew that this movie would take over my whole personality when it came out.
A couple core memories from watching this opening weekend in IMAX: the mind-controlling Voice physically shaking me because the bass was so loud, a shiver of glee seeing David Dastmalchian’s Piter’s mentat eyes, Paul speaking Chinese, bagpipes.
Watching Dune, I was getting consistent chills and rushes of joy for the first two thirds of the movie. The physical spectacle of it all was overwhelming, from the massive sound to the sheer scale of everything on screen. Somehow, the movie managed to capture exactly what I (and many others) had envisioned reading the book with a massive flourish. But one of the unique parts about Dune’s story is the way that it defies typical sci-fi tropes. It’s set in a future without computers, in a political system reminiscent of feudalism. The powers at play are distinctly human. Dune’s world has the distinct impression of being old and textured, almost medieval, and Villeneuve’s Dune vividly captures this blend of the new and the old. From ritualistic blood sacrifices to a bagpipe band, or even just the continued presence of books, there are ties to this sense of history throughout.
But while the worms and spaceships were undoubtedly memorable, Dune’s attention to detail stood out just as much. It was clear that so much thought had been put into the practical implications of the Dune universe’s workings. Paul speaking Chinese, for example, stood out to me. Even though it was to a character heavily implied to be East Asian in the original novel, the possibility had never occurred to me before I saw it on screen.
Having read the book twice before, Dune (the movie) was more like a companion piece than a standalone tale to me. While I mourned the loss of certain scenes or subplots, it also made me appreciate Villeneuve’s dedication to the central story. While palace intrigue and galactic relations are interesting, these are just offshoots of the core dynamic: Paul and his family within the context of two feuding Houses. In trimming the story down to this focus, Villeneuve created an adaptation that stayed true to the spirit of Dunewhile also being understandable for first-time viewers. It suggested an expansive world beyond without becoming convoluted.
This was my most watched movie of the year; I saw it four times since I tried to get everyone I knew to watch it too. With Dune, Villeneuve created a thoughtful blockbuster and an accessible interpretation of a great story.
(You can read Joe Lollo’s review of Dune here.)
2. Minari, dir. Lee Isaac Chung
I couldn’t resist. Even though this had its premiere in 2020, the theatrical release was in 2021 and I also didn’t make a top 10 last year, so I’m squeezing it in now. This is one of my favorite movies ever, let alone of the past year. I’ve placed it at number two since it’s more of a 2020 movie, but it’s really tied for the number one spot.
It was March 5th, 2021. I was trying to find something to watch for the night, and I remembered seeing a certain trailer on Youtube a couple weeks ago that had stood out to me. I thought I knew what to expect for Minari: another nice A24 drama, the kind that’s a mix of “melancholy takes on deep topics” and “wry situational comedy”. But I was so wrong. Quite literally from the first minute, I was entranced. I could already tell that this movie was going to be something special for me. And in the end, after one of the most perfect endings I’ve ever seen, Minari is only the second movie (or anything) to have made me really cry.
Much of what makes Minari so significant to me is deeply personal. I found so many similarities between my family and the Yi family in the film, it was uncanny. Watching this movie felt like holding up a mirror into something I couldn’t see on my own: it was healing. I felt like Chung had just wrenched out and examined some deep part of me, a part that even I couldn’t put into words, full of unanswered questions and half-formed thoughts and confusing mixes of emotion and nostalgia for something I hadn’t experienced, before dusting it off and gently mending it back in.
It’s been a year of watching and ranting about Minari, and it hasn’t gotten old yet. There’s still that curious, deep-rooted connection every time I see it. This is the film for me, and I doubt I’ll ever have an experience quite like watching it for the first time again.
1. Drive My Car, dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
There’s a certain feeling I get, usually when I’ve read a really good book. It’s like a tugging in my chest, a glowing inside, some mental gasp. That’s how I felt watching this film.
Seeing this movie in theatres was such a singular experience, and Hamaguchi covers so much ground in the three-hour runtime, that I barely even know where to start. I naturally find myself drawn to stories about grief, but I’ve rarely seen anything unpack a character’s grief so thoroughly, and with so much sensitive complexity, as Drive My Car. I’ve rarely felt the impact of the quiet and slow filmmaking approach as deeply as I have with Drive My Car. I’ve rarely been as transfixed to the screen as I was watching Drive My Car.
There was a moment around three quarters of the way in the film where I nearly laughed to myself; I laughed in admiration as the genius of that narrative turn dawned on me. It was a moment in the film that surprised me at first, but then I slowly realized: of course. This was how things had to happen. To connect all the simultaneous threads of the film and bring everything back to its core, it couldn’t happen any other way. So, when I think of this film, the aspect I always go back to is the writing. I barely felt the three-hour runtime and found a beautiful rhythm in the pacing—slow, but far from boring. Each major event in the story is followed by a hypnotic lull, letting us absorb the impact before introducing the next development. Kind of like a muscle, perfectly timed tensions and relaxations that keep the story light on its feet.
There are other things I could point out. I loved the layers of narratives, the connections being drawn between acting and stories and real life. I loved how each character felt perfectly fleshed out. I loved how the cinematography brought out the beauty in the ritual of everyday occurrences (like driving a car). Some simple shots of that red Saab driving through the city at night, especially when paired with the score, really struck me. I could talk in circles for hours trying to explain why I like Drive My Car so much and still feel like I’ve missed something. There’s something about the movie that just does it for me. If I can’t quite explain what that thing is, I can at least give Drive My Car my highest praise.