By: Henry J. Fromage and Movieboozer Staff & Contributors
2021 clearly wasn’t your average year (again), but the amount of great films, on the big and little screens both, was no fewer than years prior, and perhaps even above average taken as a whole. Here’s what we thought were the cream of the crop:
10. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar: A ridiculous, absurd, and fun ride. Jamie Dornan is a revelation.
9. King Richard: I went into this expecting it to be a pandering slog. How wrong I was.
8. Last Night in Soho: Despite its struggles with tone and a bit of a letdown of an ending, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Dark and stunning.
7. The Suicide Squad: Not only giving us the Suicide Squad movie were hoping for in 2016, this film gave us the Peacemaker series, therefore James Gun should be given anything he wants, including the keys the DCEU. I said what I said.
6. Dinner in America: For some insane reason, despite being made in America and titled Dinner in America this film with a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, critically acclaimed at Sundance, and adored by pretty much everyone who has seen it, still has not been released in… America. It’s also technically from 2020. Regardless, I am mentioning it here because it was one of my favorite things I watched all year and more people need to be aware of it so the second it does become available, you watch it right away. Get through the first ten minutes and you’ll be highly rewarded with an offbeat, vulgar, charming, and… sweet punk rock love story. It’s tits.
5. C’mon C’mon: One of the most disappointing things about this year’s award season was C’mon C’mon being unfairly overlooked. (Was it because there was another black and white film with a child at its center?)
4. The Eyes of Tammy Faye: Jessica Chastain delivers my favorite performance of the year and makes this a must-watch. Again, don’t listen to the haters. Chastain shines through all those layers of prosthetics and make-up, working against them almost, and her Tammy Faye is authentic, nuanced, and heartbreaking. And though his performance is overshadowed by the attention for his work in tick, tick…BOOM!, Andrew Garfield is pretty great here too.
3. West Side Story: The conversation around Spielberg’s remake of the “untouchable” classic went from “why is this necessary?” to “is it better than the original?” For good reason. It’s a technical marvel, with amazing visuals, staging, and choreography. So much so, that as a whole, the film is a must-see despite the lack of chemistry between the two leads.
2. Drive My Car: You definitely have to be in the right frame of mind before sitting down to watch a 3-hour foreign language drama, but when you are, Drive My Car is well-worth your time. The choices in storytelling are bizarre and interesting, while the slow build results in a well-earned and weepy payoff.
1. CODA: I refuse to listen to any of the recent negative discourse. I was more than once moved to tears watching this beautifully told and acted story. Of all this year’s Best Picture nominees, this was by far my favorite. (Tip: watch with the subtitles on)
10. Mass: Just four people in a room talking. That is this movie for 95% of the run-time. It is riveting, devastating, emotional, and poignant. I would’ve thought Fran Kranz would’ve gone through something like this, but nope, he’s just a good writer/director.
9. Pig: When the trailer dropped it looked like another Nic Cage revenge vehicle, but this is so much more under the surface. A deep film about appealing to the humanity in a person, and the humanity in all of us.
8. West Side Story: When this was announced I like everyone else thought, “Why?” But Spielberg proved once again why he is the master. It’s the first Spielberg I left being excited about in 15 years. Also, it may be better than the original.
7. tick, tick…BOOM!: I’ve loved Andrew Garfield since The Social Network and I am so happy the world has caught the AG fever too. Jonathan Larson’s music was instrumental, pun intended, during my high school days, and this film is a dream for any Larson fan.
6. The Worst Person in the World: A brilliant film about relationships and still being lost in your 30s. When you can make a film where everyone can watch it and take away something different and no one be wrong, that is a special film. Renate Reinsve is a revelation while Anders Danielsen Lie is devastating.
5. Titane: The Palme d’Or winner at Cannes and billed as one of the most effed up movies ever made. While I don’t know if I agree with that statement, I do think this is a beautiful film about connection and family. Julia Ducournau is one of the most exciting new filmmakers we have.
4. C’mon C’mon: Mike Mills makes another small film about people figuring it out. It’s a beautiful film centered on two excellent performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Woody Norman. Woody might give the greatest child acting performance I’ve ever seen. If you do not cry at the end I cannot help you.
3. Drive My Car: A 3-hour film that begs to be seen in a theater. It’s a film that you have to give yourself fully over to, and if you do, the pay off is so worth the watch. It’s slow, meticulous, and beautiful to look at. Please seek this film out.
2. Licorice Pizza: As a Paul Thomas Anderson fan, and a fan of films that take place in the 70s, I had high hopes. I was not let down, with two great newcomer performances, plus an amazing Bradley Cooper cameo. It’s a meandering film in the best way.
1. The Power of the Dog: I saw this film when it dropped on Netflix and since then it has never waivered from the top of my list. I do not use this word often, but I believe this is a true masterpiece. Every performance is pitch-perfect. Then cinematography is gorgeous. The editing/storytelling is gripping til the very end.
Mrs. Henry J. Fromage
First off, another year of marriage, another Best Of list from my wife. The pandemic hasn’t dulled our cinematic taste, I think.
10. Free Guy
9. Vacation Friends
8. No Time to Die
7. The Last Duel
6. Stillwater
5. Compartment No. 6
4. Pig
3. Don’t Look Up
2. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
1. CODA
Henry J. Fromage
And now for mine:
10. Dug Dug: This manic Indian film that debuted at TIFF is about a drunkard who gets in a fatal motorcycle crash, only for his impounded bike to mysteriously return seemingly by itself night after night to the scene of his death. This escalates quickly into a proper neon-and-flower-draped religion. Ritwik Pareek sly, sharp direction is a sight to behold.
9. Passing: Rebecca Hall somehow directed one of the finest films of the year her first time out in this beautiful black & white period piece meditation on the phenomenon of passing – aka, a black person living as a white person- and the complex psychology surrounding it. Tessa Thompson and a heartbreaking Ruth Negga are stupendous.
8. Drunken Birds: This under the radar international indie is about a Mexican cartel member who falls in love with his capo’s wife, and when they flee separately tries to follow her to where he believes she went- Quebec, where he finds work on a farm. This is a movie of high style and emotion that harkens back to multi-character webs of drama like Crash (which yes, I still like).
7. Compartment No. 6: This Cannes crowd-pleaser is about a Finnish woman feeling distant from her Russian girlfriend who decides to take a train up to a remote archaeological site near the Arctic Circle who finds herself sharing a compartment with a crass young Russian man. What starts out an oil and water relationship deepens in surprising yet thoroughly heartstring-tugging ways.
6. Limbo: So, plays to my emotions may be the theme of this year’s picks, and I don’t see how this small film about an international group of refugees awaiting the processing of their asylum requests on a remote Scottish island won’t break your heart. The cast is so good and Ben Sharrock’s gentle direction so perfectly suited to the also often quite funny material.
5. Pig: Anyone doubting that Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage has lost that talent was given a strong reminder that couldn’t be further from the case in Michael Sarnoski’s striking debut that couldn’t be further from the John Wick-style revenge flick it seemed to be setting the stage for. What a beautifully humane and empathetic film.
4. A Hero: There’s still nobody who does intricate interpersonal drama and knotty morality tales like Asghar Farhadi, and this story of a man in debtor’s prison who returns gold he finds and becomes a social media cause célèbre as a result is one of his best. It’s the kind of movie where you scream at the screen at every bad decision or misfortune, but that’s just because you’re so damn invested in these characters and their plight.
3. Red Rocket: Sean Baker tells stories of the American underclass like nobody else, and he tells them in a way that humanizes his characters unlike most any other director that moves in these milieus. He accomplishes this by simply presenting these people as they are- as we all are- flawed yet nonetheless beautiful. That’s really saying something in this story of an older porn star (Simon Rex, best actor of the year) who pursues a high school girl (Suzanna Son, just something else) he thinks is his ticket back into the industry. Baker’s lack of judgment lets his stories breathe in ecstatic ways few others can deliver.
2. The Worst Person in the World: Ecstatic, dramatic, and humanist are all words I’d use to describe Joachim Trier’s masterpiece of a tale about a young woman (Renate Reinsve, best actress of the year) and the maddening indecision that governs her love life. What an astute, gorgeously imagined, and yet so realistic journey.
1. The French Dispatch: It’s clear that some folks view Wes Anderson’s thorough Wes Anderson-ness as some kind of schtick. I pity the poor bastards, as the, yes, designed to a fault triptych here reveals even deeper, richer veins of comedy, tragedy, and humanism than he’s yet mined, and as he appears he’s going to move across Europe making yet more locale and era-inspired films of this type, I’m just so damn excited to travel along with him.
Oh yeah, and I’m team CODA as well. Great film.
