The Yearly Countdown - Fantastic Films of 2021

2020 was an. . . interesting year (for just so many reasons), but one of the knock-on effects was the delay of so many big projects that were initially slated for release. As we found last year, there were still plenty of delectable cinematic offerings to be had - especially if you did a little digging - but there's an undeniable feeling of the floodgates having been opened this year.

Not only did I not get to everything I wanted to see, but even fitting all the films I loved into my very generous version of a "Top 10*" was even more difficult than usual. But I can think of worse problems.

(*pfft, yeah right)

 

This One is Cheating:

RUROUNI KENSHIN: THE FINAL / RUROUNI KENSHIN: THE BEGINNING

Look, I already spend over 3000 words extolling these two films virtues in the links above, so I'll keep this relatively short. These two films are in the "this one is cheating" category because that lets me get them both on the list, because both are excellent (and deliberately complimentary) endings to one of the best action franchises around and also the best "comic book movies" of the year.

They're also on here because one of them features a barn-burner sword fight featuring Mackenyu "Son of Sonny Chiba" Arata as a finale that's literally bringing the house down, and the other opens with an action scene where our titular hero has his hands bound and is holding his weapon in his teeth.

If that doesn't at least rouse your curiosity, I got nothing else for you.

Hidden Gem:

THE PAPER TIGERS

Man oh man, was this a good year for action films. A decade-long journey for writer-directer Quoc Bao Tran, this film - following three former child prodigies navigating kung fu matches, chronic injuries, old grudges, and domestic life as disappointed middle-aged dudes - is a terrific transplant of classic Hong Kong martial arts dramedy into its modern Seattle setting. The Paper Tigers not only nails both the "avenging our master" and "tryna be a good dad" dramatic hooks, but it's often gut-bustingly funny and is better at bringing the hands when it's time to throw down than several films this year with 100 times its budget.

See It to Believe It:

TITANE

Julia Ducournau made serious waves with her debut feature Raw in 2016. That film - a coming of age horror about a young girl's experiments with. . . let's say giving up her vegetarian diet - features surprises aplenty, but Ducournau seemed determined to "yes, AND" herself in the first 20 minutes of this film. Following Alexa (Agathe Rousselle), a girl who was in a car accident as a child and now has a titanium plate in her head, this body horror / family drama both defies explanation while also being a beautiful expression of character and theme. I'm not going to bother trying to describe what happens, but whatever wild stuff you've heard about Titane is A) true, and B) not even its final form.

Just. . . maybe don't watch this one with the kids.

Or your parents.

Best Ass Whoopings:

RAGING FIRE

It's a shame that the late Benny Chan (a stalwart of Hong Kong action cinema from the '90s onward) didn't live to see this film released, but what a stunning posthumous tribute. It's reductive to call Raging Fire a riff on Heat (even if it kinda is, structurally), but there are worse comparisons. Nicholas Tse and Donnie Yen are absolutely as great as you'd expect in the lead roles as the ultimate renegade cop and his former partner now tasked with bringing him down.

What makes Raging Fire special as a film is that it genuinely takes its time both flexing as an example of the Cops & Robbers Heroic Bloodshed genre of the HK action heyday, while also serving as commentary thereupon. But what makes it worthy of this spot is that, after building on dramatic reveals and smaller skirmishes for 90 minutes, it explodes into a running shootout / foot chase / all-out brawl that stands toe to toe with anything Yen has done action-wise in the past 20 years.

Look, you end a movie with a beatdown in a church, and I'm gonna take notice.

 

Biggest Surprise:

THE HARDER THEY FALL

This one seemed to come out of nowhere, as much as a "Netflix film with a stacked cast" can these days. As a fan of "spaghetti westerns" and '90s pulp revivals like Tombstone and The Quick and the Dead, I was immediately enthralled by the story of Nat Love (Johnathan Majors) and his gang of outlaws seeking revenge on the infamous Rufus Buck (Idris Elba). The film takes the names and some of the exploits of real cowboys and marshals of the era and mixes them all into a whirlwind of pounding hooves and echoing six shooters. Writer/director Jeymes Samuel has talked about wanting to make the sort of western he loved watching, but showcasing the black faces of the Old West that are so often forgotten in stories of this period.

Not only does Samuel succeed in both casting these roles with dynamite actors who all give pitch-perfect performances (Majors has really been on a roll, and manages to steal this film out from under darn near everyone), but he can stage and shoot a gunfight like nobody's business. The film's carefully composed but deliberately playful visual language and Samuel's soundtrack give the film it's own swagger and style, coalescing into a rollicking good time that also takes the time to reflect on its own genre expectations.

Biggest Disappointment:

GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE

Yeah, not my tempo. I dig the overall concept of mashing a Spielberg-esque "kids on an adventure" movie into a Ghostbusters yarn, but I like my Ghostbusters stuff. . . funny? And I genuinely don't see the point in bringing <redacted> back if you're not gonna have a big "Choice" moment for the new heroes.

Glad the kid liked it, anyway.

Honorable Mentions:

Literally too many to name? Watching Malignant "happen" to horror fans in real time was almost as much of a blast as the movie itself, and I maintain that Netflix's Space Sweepers is the best space opera blockbuster since The Last Jedi by a wide margin. Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth hits the sweet spot between the stage-bound magical realism of a Shakespeare play and the potent cinematic language of a master craftsman, and has Denzel Washington absolutely crushing the titular role. Leigh Janiak's Fear Street Trilogy already feels like a defining horror series of the decade, even thought they all released mere weeks apart. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was three crackerjack kung fu movies in one, and Wes Anderson proved he works shockingly well in the anthology structure with The French Dispatch.

And while Disney & Pixar released seriously good original animated fare this year, they were unarguably lapped by breakouts like The Mitchells vs. The Machines.

The fact that I'm struggling to find room to even mention bangers like No Time to Die or Dune or Candyman attests to the embarrassment of riches we had this year.

 

Runners-Up:

BENEDETTA / SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME

. . . OK, I know how that looks, but I'm not suggesting a double feature here.

Both of these are films I knew I was at least partially "in the bag for" when they were announced. Paul Verhoven doing a Heretical Lesbian Nun historical drama is so perfectly on-brand a pitch for him that it almost sounds like a punchline from an A-tier SNL sketch, and I've proven that I'll watch just about anything with Spider-Man in it (however much I may regret it later).

However, both succeed by being far more interesting and intelligent than first glance would indicate. Not only is Benedetta a cracking liturgical chamber drama and a blistering indictment of patriarchal organized religion, but it's also brilliant Pandemic Era Fiction without being obnoxious about it. And I've already written about how No Way Home only ever needed to be a competent live-action riff on Into the Spider-Verse to be successful, and that's more or less what I expected from the film. But the filmmakers decided to actually make a Good Damn Movie out of one of the most cynical pitches in the genre, and the character is all the richer for it.

The Really Good Stuff:

Once again, these are listed in order of theatrical release date. No, I definitely didn't do that to avoid ranking them while also slyly making sure I could end on my favorite movie - why would you ask that?

Ahem, without further ado -

RIDERS OF JUSTICE

The resurgence of Old Man Action movies kickstarted by Lian Neeson's Taken has shown no signs of slowing down, which is why Riders of Justice lands like such a bittersweet balm - because whatever movie you think this is from looking at the poster? This ain't it.

 

After his wife dies in a train accident, Markus (Mads Mikkelsen) and his daughter Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg) explore drastically different methods of coping with their grief. Mathilde seeks counseling help while Markus winds up combining his military training with a trio of math geeks who's probability algorithm suggests the "accident" was sabotage, and seeks revenge. To delve deeper would be to give away several key ingredients that make this film so special, but suffice it to say it not only features some incredibly tense thrills and shocking laughs, it's also an acting tour de force by Mads Mikkelsen as the emotionally repressed Markus.

Darkly comic and achingly honest, this feels like essential viewing for a time of collective trauma.

 

IN THE HEIGHTS

This won't be the last time a Lin-Manuel Miranda project, a visually sumptuous musical, or a New York City love story will feature on this list, but In the Heights is certainly the only film that's all those things at once - and looks damn good doing it. From John M. Chu (of Crazy Rich Asians), this tale of a block on the brink of gentrification and the collection of charismatic dreamers racing to either escape or rescue the neighborhood feels like seeing a perfect sheen of 21st century filmmaking layered over the classic golden age romantic musical. The songs are as good as you'd expect from the guy who wrote Hamilton, the musical numbers have both a gorgeous pacey rhythm and sumptuous clarity, the young cast has killer chemistry, and when the film winds up for a big emotional wallop, it lands pretty hard.

2021 was overflowing with quality musicals, and if this had been the best of them (it's not), that woulda been a very good year.

THE GREEN  KNIGHT

There's something difficult about hammering out a good King Arthur film (I've heard your arguments in favor of Excalibur, and for my money that's more admirable than it is "good"), but writer/director David Lowery sidesteps the usual hurdles of trying to cram decades of narrative from centuries of different authors into a single film by only focusing on the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. And just as canny, one of the ways he reckons with the competing tones and characterizations of the romance and barbarity of the Arthur myths (especially ones in stories about knights who go on quests to get their heads chopped off by immortal challengers for the sake of honor) by accepting the fact that just about everyone alive during this period of time was only a half-step away from utterly barking mad.

Dev Patel is utterly enthralling as Gawain, who accepts a challenge from a mysterious knight and winds up on a quest which will end in him deciding whether or not to forfeit his life in order to keep a promise. He meets all manner of helpful and nightmarish characters along the way, and the film revels in believably period costumes and production alongside fantastical imagery that often borders on outright horror. It's not an "exciting" movie, but it's a hauntingly fascinating one.

VIVO

 

I'm as surprised as anyone that "the Netflix movie about the singing monkey" is on this list, let along was in fierce contention for the Top 3 when I bothered trying to rank them by preference. But you know what? Vivo is just really really good. How, exactly? Here's a handy visual aid.

Real "chocolate in my peanut butter" situation going on here, and if that weren't enough, this story about unlikely buddies finding support in their grief in each other while also having wacky adventures moves. Vivo comes in under 100 minutes, packs a pair of serious emotional haymakers, and is another example of Sony's animation teams experimenting with animation styles and fudging the line between the "look" of 2D and 3D in the medium.

There's a LOT of Lin-Manuel Miranda in this one, but if that's not a deal-breaker, this is at least a good one to throw on for the kids if you're looking for a break from their current favorites.

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO

The only thing more delightful than seeing Edgar Wright steer even further away from the genre comfort zones of The World's End and Baby Driver into a full-on horror film was seeing him essentially make his Crimson Peak. Specifically, seeing him tackle a horror subgenre (this one heavily influenced by "giallo" films and the likes of Dario Argento's Suspiria) with a lot of baggage and do a slyly subversive version of it while still nailing the "fun stuff."

Unassuming fashion student Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) moves to London to study, and winds up able to travel between the present day and the 1960's, seemingly in her dreams. These predictably turn to nightmares as the characters she runs into are revealed to have dark secrets that echo into the present and threaten her sanity and safety. Wright gets to indulge in as well as cross-examine his nostalgia for the time period in addition to crafting some incredible time-blending sequences, culminating in an absolute blast of a finale.

Make this a double with Malignant, thank me later.

THE LAST DUEL

There aren't many folks making historical epics that can do it as well as Ridley Scott, so it seems almost poetic that The Last Duel may well be his best film since the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven. While some of the haircuts and modern "just enunciate instead of try for an accent" dialect may throw some off at first, the story of Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer in a performance that should make her an Oscar frontrunner for Best Actress) of France, her marriage to Matt Damon's Sir Jean, her assault by Squire Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), and her bid for justice is thrilling and layered drama. The Rashomon-style multiple perspectives of events is a familiar narrative device, but Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener's screenplay is a terrific example of putting it to great dramatic use.

And when it comes time to for the various narrative and character threads to weave into a thrillingly tense finale and deliver the titular duel, Scott reminds everyone in the room that he really is just better at doing this kind of thing than most other filmmakers.

WEST SIDE STORY

Speaking of veterans who can still work at the top of their game, Steven Spielberg finally made his musical, picked arguably the hardest possible version of that project in re-adapting Arthur Laurents' legendary Romeo and Juliet-inspired stage play, and. . . yeah, he nailed it. Spielberg's West Side Story is my favorite version of the tale and one of the best movies of the year.

Not much else to add to that that's not in the link to the review I already wrote. It's a masterwork. Kinda makes me mad how effortless Spielberg makes this level of filmmaking look.

 

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

Whoever thought sending out a 2 1/2 hour feel-bad noir thriller to die against Spider-Man was a good idea should lose their job. Guillermo del Toro delivers a slow burn that showcases some of the best acting Bradley Cooper has ever done as Stanton Carlisle, a "mentalist" carnival worker with high ambitions and buried secrets. Cooper and the film let you know immediately how bad a person Carlisle is, and crafts almost every interaction throughout the film as a question of whether he's trying to be better, or if he's only using social camouflage to get what he wants.

Guillermo del Toro has always had a knack for putting his worst monsters in human form, and Nightmare Alley almost feels like a summation of why. It's easily del Toro's bleakest film in at least 20 years, but if you can stomach the shadows, the alley also has some of his best and most beautiful directing yet.

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS

The only time the Wachowski's narrative sensibilities and the general public ever perfectly aligned as back in 1999 with The Matrix, and ever since they've been baffling at least part of their prospective audience. The Matrix Resurrections is every bit as divisive as the other sequels in the series, if not moreso, and that only makes me love this shaggy, surreal, and surprisingly tender film even more. Picking up 20 years after his apparent death, "Thomas Anderson" (aka Neo) is once again pulled back into the struggle between human and machine, and Reeves does some of his best acting as Neo finds out everything he thought he knew has changed.

For all its commentary on the state of the industry and even its own franchise, Resurrections is an intimate romantic drama slyly disguised in the shades of a kick-ass sci-fi action movie - and while it provides plenty of high flying spectacle when called for, it's the film's earnest heart that proves its most potent weapon.

BELLE

Did I deliberately hold off on writing this piece so I could "hold a spot" on the list for Belle?

Yes.

Did I organize this list by release date after the fact so I could end on my favorite film of the year again?

Also yes.

Look, I was a mark for Mamoru Hosada's digital fairy tale as soon as it was announced - not just because Hosada has become one of my favorite filmmakers and one of the most exciting voices in feature animation, and not just because he was teaming up with folks from Cartoon Saloon (the studio behind Wolfwalkers) for his newest story. But because every film has shown him grow and experiment, not just with the tools of animation (both 2D and 3D), but with his own eccentric and emotional story sensibilities.

 

With Belle, the story of a shy girl who finds the ability to sing again as the avatar "Belle" in the virtual world of "U," he's created not only his most beautiful movie yet, but a film that escalates to consistently surprising places even while always "playing fair" with its dramatic setups and character payoffs. The film's musical numbers are showcases of both sound and visuals, and even the English dub features exemplary voice work and arrangements of the translated songs. Belle is a fable about finding your voice and your people in the digital age, and the balance between telling your truths without letting them be co-opted or corrupted.

But most of all, it's about the wounds that love can leave when its absence festers, and the wounds it can heal when you find it again in the most unexpected of places.