When it comes to retrospective lists, The A.V. Club is a unified front: These are the best movies of the year, we say authoritatively, as if engraving the results onto a stone tablet. But the truth is that our just-published rundown of 2021’s finest films only looks like an act of consensus. It is, by its very nature, more of a compromise—a list assembled from many other lists, an aggregation of respective tastes. For a more complete picture of the last 12 months in cinema, you have to look beyond the official ranking to the respective opinions of those who made it—a group of 10 contributors who spent all year in the A.V. Club review trenches. The ballots that follow, which we combined semi-scientifically (we did a little massaging here and there; don’t check our math), offer an alternative vision of 2021. Through passion picks and superlatives—including some outliers, a.k.a. movies that that made one list and no others—they paint a fuller picture of what made this year in movies so memorable.
A.A. Dowd
1. The French Dispatch Of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
2. A Hero
3. West Side Story
4. The Disciple
5. Memoria
6. Red Rocket
7. Petite Maman
8. Procession
9. Violation
10. Days
11. Quo Vadis, Aida?
12. The Killing Of Two Lovers
13. There Is No Evil
14. Some Kind Of Heaven
15. I’m Your Man
Outlier: The Disciple
Somewhere on the scale of unsentimental music-biz dramas like Whiplash and Inside Llewyn Davis lies Chaitanya Tamhane’s sobering portrait of an aspiring singer coming to the slow-motion realization that determination does not guarantee success. I’ve been beating the drum (or plucking the tanpura) for The Disciple since I saw it on last year’s festival circuit, and remain a little surprised that more of my colleagues didn’t fall as deeply for this Sisyphean antidote to inspirational follow-your-dreams pap. Were they insulted by the scene with the arrogant critic, one of the most witheringly accurate depictions of our kind the movies have yet offered?
Most overrated: Spencer
I’m likewise baffled by the praise lavished on Kristen Stewart’s awkward, mannered performance as Princess Diana in the Pablo Larraín biopic Spencer. Stewart’s gift as an actor is how effortlessly unaffected she often seems, which makes her strenuous, unconvincing labor to disappear into the role of another hounded target of the paparazzi an unfortunate outlier. The movie itself never stops feeling like a dramatic exercise; reserve some blame for screenwriter Steven Knight, relentlessly unpacking the themes of his film through painfully on-the-nose dialogue and competing metaphors.
Most underrated: John And The Hole
At Sundance in January, critics dismissed Pascual Sisto’s spooky teen psychodrama as an empty Michael Haneke impersonation—an unflattering comparison the director himself courted through both his stylistic choices and how he framed them in the press notes. But look beyond the chilly remove of the camerawork and the central performance to the hidden allegorical depths of John And The Hole, which uses its bizarre premise—and an intriguing metatextual element—to explore the ways adults try (and fail) to prepare their children for the impossible plunge into adulthood.
Biggest disappointment: The Many Saints Of Newark
Even as someone who adored the divisively abrupt ending to The Sopranos, I was excited to see David Chase return to the mobster-ruled New Jersey of his towering HBO series. Turns out he should have left it at that jarring cut to black: The Many Saints Of Newark is a crushing letdown, flattening all the funny, profane, complicated idiosyncrasies of its small-screen predecessor into a generic Scorsese-biting origin story, complete with SNL-grade younger iterations of the principle Sopranos cast and a frankly boring rush of jukebox crime-epic incident. Do stop believing.
Most welcome surprise: Malignant
In this case, the surprise is coming from inside the house. Which is to say, while I wouldn’t normally be shocked to enjoy a new James Wan thriller, the first hour or so of his latest convinced me that I was watching one of his weaker fright flicks—a curiously, uh, wan collection of cliched parlor tricks. And then Malignant goes… there, and suddenly even the boilerplate aspects of the film seem justified, as a way to lull the audience into false security before the true bugfuck movie hiding underneath bursts free, bloody and screaming.
Katie Rife
1. The Power Of The Dog
2. Petite Maman
3. Licorice Pizza
4. Summer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
5. Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy
6. The Green Knight
7. This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection
8. The Card Counter
9. Zola
10. A Hero
11. Red Rocket
12. Benedetta
13. The Lost Daughter
14. Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar
15. Titane
Outlier: Benedetta
Perhaps everyone was blinded by the more scandalous elements of Benedetta, Paul Verhoeven’s historical drama loosely interpreting the life of 17th-century Italian nun Sister Benedetta Carlini. Was it the fart jokes? The blasphemous woodworking? The novice nun tongue-kissing the crucified Christ? What I found so engaging about Benedetta was not just the pulpy, impish delight with which Verhoeven films the bawdier elements of his tale but also the radical theological implications of that tale. The film argues that the true messengers of God are the heretics and the queers, and that church hierarchy is, at best, a roadblock to spiritual growth. Amen.
Most overrated: Pig
Pig isn’t a bad movie. It’s an auspicious debut for its director, Michael Sarnoski, and Alex Wolff gives a great supporting turn. But the hype around the film has proceeded from two assumptions that I cannot get behind: number one, that it’s unusual for Nicolas Cage to give a soulful performance; and number two, that moving the John Wick formula to the culinary world is enough of a novelty to transform the experience. Yes, there’s that scene where Cage dresses down a pretentious restaurant owner. But that’s an anomaly in a movie that buys in so completely to macho chef culture that it presents the concept of an underground restaurant fight club as if it’s gritty reality and not self-indulgent mythologizing.
Most underrated: Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy
Drive My Car is a very good film, one that deserves to be celebrated. (It made our list!) But I can’t help but feel that the honks for that one are drowning out my preferred Ryusuke Hamaguchi film of 2021, Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy. Hamaguchi’s storytelling style plays differently in the anthology format, as the more compact runtimes turn subtle emotional shifts into thrilling conversational high-wire acts. Hamaguchi’s touch is lighter in this film as well, using a recurring theme of chance and coincidence that sprinkles a touch of whimsy onto masterful screenwriting.
Biggest disappointment: Last Night In Soho
I’ve wanted to see Edgar Wright, whose career began with the zombie parody Shaun Of The Dead, do a straightforward horror movie for years. So pre-release reports that Last Night In Soho was a terrifying slasher/ghost story hybrid had me excited—as did the first 45 minutes or so of the film. But this seemed to be one of those cases where the filmmaker had a great concept, but didn’t really know where to go with it. Last Night In Soho falls flat on its face with an ending that undercuts everything that came before it. Great dresses, though.
Most welcome surprise: Language Lessons
In the opening months of the 2020 pandemic, there was one sentiment on which everyone online seemed to agree: Dear God, please no COVID movies. We got them anyway—this year’s SXSW in particular was heavy with them. So my expectations were set pretty low when I watched Language Lessons, Natalie Morales’ shot-on-Zoom dramedy about the unexpected friendship between an online Spanish teacher and her grieving student. But Morales and co-star Mark Duplass really defied the odds making such a sweet, wise, warm film with little more than two webcams and a great script, and Morales is now on my list of directors to watch.
Carlos Aguilar
1. Identifying Features
2. The Souvenir: Part II
3. Flee
4. Drive My Car
5. Petite Maman
6. The Worst Person In The World
7. A Hero
8. Parallel Mothers
9. Limbo
10. Luca
11. About Endlessness
12. Belle
13. The Green Knight
14. This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection
15. Quo Vadis, Aida?
Outlier: Identifying Features
Fernanda Valadez’s earth-shattering debut about an anguished mother searching for her migrant son—or his remains—presents a singularly scorching look at the increasingly monstrous cartel-related violence afflicting Mexico. The director makes no obvious choices here, but finds in visual abstraction the language to communicate the horror. The devastatingly powerful conclusion left me speechless.
Most overrated: Belfast
There were plenty of remarkable turns by young actors this year, but none of them appear in Kenneth Branagh’s saccharine, black-and-white memory piece about his childhood in an Ireland plagued by the troubles. That this middlebrow movie is considered the current Best Picture frontrunner feels like business as usual for an industry eager to honor the safest of safe choices.
Most underrated: Luzzu
On the island nation of Malta, a fisherman relies on his precious luzzu boat, passed down through generations, to provide for his wife and son. But as his livelihood is threatened by waves of changes in a globalized world, he considers leaving the sea for good. Director Alex Camilleri showcases a vigorous performance by first-time actor and real-life seaman Jesmark Scicluna in this ravishing neorealist drama.
Biggest disappointment: House Of Gucci
If everyone was on Jared Leto’s preposterous wavelength, this dreadful snooze of a biopic might at least earn points for camp lunacy. Instead, Ridley Scott’s saga of a venomous fashion family is just an expensive-looking misfire, not even messy enough in its melodrama to be called memorable.
Most welcome surprise: What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?
This inquisitively titled fable set in the Georgian city of Kutaisi first observes the fated romance of a couple cursed to not recognize each other. But as their arc unfolds amid odd jobs and misconnections, director Alexandre Koberidze intersperses footage of children playing soccer and a subplot focused on the local dogs who are also fans of the sport. In the collection of such luminous moments, and in the director’s melancholic voiceover, the tenderhearted Sky exudes a welcome hopefulness.
Charles Bramesco
1. Bergman Island
2. Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn
3. Licorice Pizza
4. About Endlessness
5. Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar
6. Annette
7. The French Dispatch Of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
8. Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy
9. Memoria
10. Zola
11. Days
12. The Card Counter
13. Red Rocket
14. Procession
15. The Green Knight
Outlier: Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar
The first time I saw Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo’s long-awaited follow-up to Bridesmaids, which made another ballot here but just barely, I thought it was merely a hysterical work of sunny absurdism. The second time, I realized it’s also a slyly compassionate portrait of middle-aged womanhood and its challenges to the self-esteem of actresses outside of Hollywood’s supermodel status quo. The third time, it turned into an upbeat musical, halfway between Busby Berkeley and the “Soul Bossa Nova” intro from Austin Powers. The fourth time…
Most overrated: Tick, Tick... Boom!
Jonathan Larson had a way with melody, his anthemic compositions reliably lighting up some key pleasure center in the brain. But as he wrote himself in the autobiographical musical adapted here by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jonathan Larson the person was insufferably self-important, obsessed with his unrecognized genius to the point of delusion. Coupled with Andrew Garfield’s exhausting lead performance, the theatre legend’s pre-success years play like fan fiction of his own life.
Most underrated: Prisoners Of The Ghostland
In a year that saw Nicolas Cage’s performance in Pig reestablish the actor’s powers of subtlety, a role that showcased his less prestigious (yet no less captivating) crazytown side went largely unnoticed. Who else could keep up with Japanese lunatic Sion Sono in a fantasy-Western sending its leading man into a post-apocalyptic wasteland on a suicidal rescue mission with explosives strapped to his testicles? Cage’s gravitas elevate everything he does, even when restraint isn’t the first thing on his mind.
Biggest disappointment: Godzilla Vs. Kong
How in the name of Ghidorah does a movie about a giant ape fighting a giant super-lizard come out so dull? Director Adam Wingard hugely overestimates our interest in the puny humans scurrying underfoot, wasting time on unneeded mythology and interpersonal drama that could be spent watching our big beautiful boys duke it out. We were promised the face-off of the century, and got a lot of tiresome sideshows en route to the main event.
Most welcome surprise: The Voyeurs
Amazon should’ve put more advertising firepower behind Michael Mohan’s crafty, funny, deliciously devious erotic thriller. The online masses calling for a reinstatement of sex scenes in the American cinema largely missed a film that not only peeps on one of the most scorching dalliances in recent memory but also playfully dissects our compulsion to perv out. It dares us to watch, then doles out a kinky punishment for our naughtiness.
Mike D’Angelo
1. Memoria
2. Pig
3. The Killing Of Two Lovers
4. French Exit
5. Annette
6. Enemies Of The State
7. Petite Maman
8. The Power Of The Dog
9. A Hero
10. No Sudden Move
11. Passing
12. Cliff Walkers
13. About Endlessness
14. I’m Your Man
15. Anne At 13,000 Feet
Outlier: Enemies Of The State
I’m a sucker for documentaries that constantly interrogate their own apparent thesis, and this one—about Matt DeHart, a U.S. hacker (associated with Anonymous) whose family fled to Canada and sought asylum there—rivals The Imposter for inspiring cognitive dissonance and forcing us to confront our own knee-jerk assumptions. Did DeHart solicit pornographic images from children, as the government claimed? Or were those charges a cover to obtain and bury whistleblower files that DeHart had in his possession? The answer, as they say, may surprise you.
Most overrated: The Card Counter
Like virtually every poker-related movie, Schrader’s latest misrepresents what skill can accomplish in the short term when so much luck is involved. (Even the best pros in the world don’t win or nearly win every tournament they enter.) Still, The Card Counter handles gambling far better than it does any of its key relationships. Alleged sizzle between Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish looked like fizzle to me, mostly because she has the demeanor of a Ramada Inn hospitality liaison rather than someone who hangs with reprobates. And it was hard not to laugh when the tensest scene culminated in a grave “Call your mother!”
Most underrated: Monday
Don’t imagine that many of my fellow voters even saw this obscure Greek romance, though it does star the MCU’s Winter Soldier. Monday—the title signifies coming back to reality after the weekend—is basically Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy compressed into a single two-hour film, following the euphoric-to-comfortable-to-rancorous-to-uncertain trajectory of the relationship between two American expats in Athens. Nothing momentous, but Sebastian Stan and the comparatively unknown Denise Gough (who’s actually Irish) do superb, behaviorally specific work that makes these characters endlessly fascinating.
Biggest disappointment: Licorice Pizza
Didn’t really work for me at all, and I’m not entirely sure why. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman are both terrific, and in theory I admire the movie’s anecdotal period shagginess. But the actual anecdotes—particularly those involving thinly disguised (or undisguised) celebrities—left me cold, for some reason. Ironically, it was during The A.V. Club’s collective scene of the year, featuring Bradley Cooper as a manically obnoxious Jon Peters, that I felt myself checking out in earnest. Also, while the chaste romance involving an adult woman and a 15-year-old boy didn’t trouble me, the fact that every other character treats a 15-year-old boy running multiple businesses as if that were totally normal absolutely did.
Most welcome surprise: King Richard
The only thing I hate more than biopics might be sports (poker: not a sport), so I had zero interest in watching the Venus and Serena Williams origin story. As the title makes clear, however, this film is actually about their father and his unusual amalgam of pushiness and protectiveness, which turns out to be a fresh and remarkably compelling angle to take. Will Smith’s richly cantankerous performance holds it all together, and the movie savvily refuses to end on a totally uplifting note (it’s strictly a Rocky-style moral victory), understanding that we already know what happened later.
Jesse Hassenger
1. Licorice Pizza
2. The French Dispatch Of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
3. West Side Story
4. Red Rocket
5. Titane
6. The Worst Person In The World
7. In The Heights
8. No Sudden Move
9. Spencer
10. The Green Knight
11. Pig
12. The Tragedy Of Macbeth
13. Luca
14. Werewolves Within
15. Riders Of Justice
Outlier: In The Heights
West Side Story would be the musical of the year based purely on Spielberg’s thrilling technical skill, but I teared up at least three times watching this adaptation of a more contemporary Broadway show (originated, in the interest of full disclosure, by my college classmate Lin-Manuel Miranda). For that matter, Jon M. Chu may not be at the Spielberg level, but he sure knows his way around a production number, with some of the best-staged movie-musical scenes of the 21st century so far. See our Best Scenes list for one; see the stunning “Pacienca y Fe” for another, a tour de force juxtaposition of family memories and immigration history, very much in conversation with West Side Story’s “America.”
Most overrated: The Fear Street trilogy
Around these parts, folks took a sensible attitude toward the fresh-faced, energized, go-nowhere mediocrity of Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy; my trusted editor A.A. Dowd was appropriately skeptical, if a little gentle on their witless phoniness. But over on the broader movie-critic internet as repped by Rotten Tomatoes, the Fear Street movies supposedly just got better and better as they went along. It’s like everyone was hallucinating the horror pastiches of their dreams based on the movies’ appealing loglines, rather than the movies themselves—a triptych of flabby, nonsensical slasher riffs that synthetically re-process horror tropes into a teen-soap theme park, lousy with careless anachronisms and laugh-free wisecracks.
Most underrated: Halloween Kills
Now, if you’re looking for an actually good slasher movie, check out David Gordon Green’s weirdly reviled follow-up to his 2018 legacy sequel. The movie’s storytelling gets a little diffuse, but Green’s ears and eyes are so attentive to the bit players of Haddonfield that Halloween Kills feels, at times, like a gorehound version of his small-town indie character studies like Manglehorn or Prince Avalanche. Green portrays the elderly Michael Myers as an evil, overgrown child, wandering through his hometown and destroying it piece by piece, turning the “middle movie” status of Kills into an expression of chilling despair.
Biggest disappointment: The Harder They Fall
It’s a pulpy western with a dream cast—Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Regina King, LaKeith Stanfield, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo—directed by a promising artist who seems ready to prove that western revivals aren’t the exclusive territory of Quentin Tarantino. Why, then, does so much of The Harder They Fall feel like Tarantino warmed-over? Despite some zesty stylistic flourishes from director Jeymes Samuel, much of Harder proceeds at a trot, too slow for goofy Desperado status, too cartoonish to resonate as drama.
Most welcome surprise: Werewolves Within
I caught up with Werewolves Within on a whim, several weeks into its theatrical run, with a friend I hadn’t seen in a couple of years, and it remains one of the only comedies I’ve seen in a movie theater since COVID happened. So maybe the circumstances of this videogame-based whodunit-style werewolf comedy helped nudge it onto the lower reaches of my best-of list. But those brief good vibes were enhanced by the movie itself, a dizzying horror farce that takes infectious glee in positioning its ensemble in packed frames and supplying them with rapid-fire banter, asides, and commentary. It’s a delightful capitalization on the promise director Josh Ruben showed with the similarly housebound Scare Me.
Leila Latif
1. Titane
2. Judas And The Black Messiah
3. Petite Maman
4. The French Dispatch Of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
5. Summer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
6. Night Of The Kings
7. The Card Counter
8. Dune
9. The Green Knight
10. Bergman Island
11. Shiva Baby
12. The Power Of The Dog
13. Parallel Mothers
14. West Side Story
15. Flee
Outlier: Judas And The Black Messiah
As Oscar-clip-ready as Daniel Kaluuya’s performance as Fred Hampton is, Judas And The Black Messiah is so much more than just a showcase for the Best Supporting (?) Actor of the year. (It’s also very much a 2021 movie, regardless of what the Academy says.) Shaka King contrasts Hampton and his messianic propensity for self-sacrifice with the treachery of William O’Neal (the always excellent LaKeith Stanfield), who betrays the Panthers to avoid prison time. It’s an utterly bleak film with lashings of neo-noir style.
Most overrated: CODA
So universally adored was CODA, which won an armful of awards at Sundance and sold for a record sum, that I sincerely wondered what was wrong with me when I didn’t warm to it. Every friend I checked in with seemed to be utterly charmed by this tale of a singing teenager with a horny deaf family struggling to make ends meet with their fishing business. Though I’ll concede that Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur are wonderful as the parents, CODA is as inane and predictable as any Disney Channel Original about a doe-eyed teen following her dreams. The film ditches its most interesting elements (did I mention the horny deaf fishermen?) in favor of tedious crowd-pleasing; this is a movie with two big singing performance climaxes. Two!
Most underrated: Old
It’s hard not to root for M. Night Shyamalan, subjected to so much casual racism and mistreated by a media that built him up and then seemed determined to knock him down. So it’s comforting that audiences showed up for Old even if critics were divided on this bold, beautiful, frequently hilarious slab of bananas sci-fi. Besides standing among the most purely fun films of the year, it also served as reassuring confirmation that Shyamalan has no intention of flattening his work into a more broadly appealing shape.
Biggest disappointment: Coming 2 America
Where were the jokes? No, seriously. I watched. I listened. Where were they? The sequel to a comedy classic that toyed hilariously with Black American perceptions of Africa was over 30 years in the making, but in the interim they seemed to have forgotten that if you’re going to finally churn out a cynically nostalgic cash grab, you should at least pretend you care.
Most welcome surprise: Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn
You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, nor a film by its title and plot synopsis. So what could be a more welcome surprise than the discovery that a movie with a title as bad as Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn and a synopsis that suggests a Romanian remake of the Cameron Diaz and Jason Segal “comedy” Sex Tape is actually brilliant: a searing satire of Romanian cultural and political history that also confronts universal moral panic.
Noel Murray
1. The French Dispatch Of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
2. Red Rocket
3. Pig
4. West Side Story
5. A Hero
6. Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn
7. The Power Of The Dog
8. The Card Counter
9. Petite Maman
10. Nightmare Alley
11. The Viewing Booth
12. The Mitchells Vs. The Machines
13. The Tragedy Of Macbeth
14. Last Night In Soho
15. Summer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Outlier: Nightmare Alley
Like Steven Spielberg’s new West Side Story, this remake of Edmund Goulding’s chilling 1947 “carnival noir” (based on a William Lindsay Gresham novel) doesn’t try to radically reinvent a classic. Instead, writer-director Guillermo del Toro and his co-writer, Kim Morgan, dig deep into what they love about Nightmare Alley: the seedy showmanship, the arcane cons, and the depiction of a society where even the savvy get suckered. This is not a better version of Nightmare Alley, but it is rich in its own way, with an ace cast exploring the ugliness that keeps drawing crowds, from generation to generation.
Most overrated: Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar
Look, comedy is a tricky art form that doesn’t hit everybody the same way. And it’s not like there aren’t hilarious or inspired moments scattered throughout Barb And Star. But the film’s big science-fiction super-spy plot is overwrought and exhausting in an Austin Powers way, and even the fun of hearing Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo talk like pleasant midwesterners loses its charm over the course of 107 minutes. This movie would’ve made a better half-hour Adult Swim special.
Most underrated: The Woman In The Window
The wave of critical pans that greeted this psychological thriller were way out of proportion for a movie with so much gusto. Yes, the Rear Window-like plot is pretty dopey, and over-reliant on misunderstandings and coincidences. But Joe Wright—one of the most unapologetically theatrical directors working today—and his ace cast bring a lot of panache to the material, avoiding the trap of making just another dully earnest prestige drama.
Biggest disappointment: Don’t Look Up
Writer-director Adam McKay’s (sort of) return to big-screen comedy lacks the two things that made his past hits so beloved: a thoroughgoing embrace of nonsense and a technical polish to rival any blockbuster. The satire in Don’t Look Up is blunt almost to the point of being humorless, the camera moves and editing are jarringly jagged, and while the message is timely (and bolstered by a gently bittersweet ending), very little that happens in the plot is surprising or enlightening.
Most welcome surprise: Dune
Denis Villeneuve has already made one great science-fiction film in Arrival, but it was hard not to worry that the director’s tendency toward ponderousness would be amplified to an excruciating degree in his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s dense, philosophical novel. Instead, Villeneuve and his creative team accomplished what has flummoxed so many before: making Dune’s story not just comprehensible but exciting, and then using its plot as the foundation for a succession of fantastical action sequences that work as pure, pleasurable spectacle.
Vikram Murthi
1. Memoria
2. Licorice Pizza
3. The Velvet Underground
4. The French Dispatch Of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
5. The Souvenir: Part II
6. Red Rocket
7. Slow Machine
8. Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy
9. Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn
10. Pig
11. French Exit
12. El Planeta
13. Days
14. Annette
15. The Worst Person In The World
Outlier: The Velvet Underground
Todd Haynes’ documentary on the most influential underground band of all time embraces and reproduces the aesthetics of the New York avant-garde scene from which the group arose. Offering a handy primer on experimental art, The Velvet Underground is more a vibrant portrait of a scene rather than a traditional music doc, capturing the ineffable power of a disparate group of people marching to the beat of their own drum.
Most overrated: Titane
Appropriately fun and disturbing for about a half hour, but when Titane ultimately settles into the groove that will take it to its predictable conclusion, it almost completely lost my interest. Barely provocative, unfortunately saccharine, and mostly dull. Plus, it’s one thing for a film to have a dance sequence, but it becomes overkill when you’re topping three.
Most underrated: French Exit
A genuinely offbeat comedy about a fallen queen who fulfills her dying wish to provide a family for her prince son, even if that means amassing a group of generous hangers-on to look after him. Jokes aside, it’s also a moving film about an unqualified mother gaining respect and love for her son the minute she realizes he can keep up with her, rhetorically and emotionally.
Biggest disappointment: C’mon C’mon
Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women brought together personal, cultural, and political history into an unconventional autobiography. His cloying, myopic follow-up, C’mon C’mon, finds the director coming to a “kids say the darndest things” conclusion by way of This American Life and an insufferably precocious kid. Every twee indie choice and moment of misguided optimism feels spiritually transported from early 2009.
Most welcome surprise: The Last Duel
Medieval historical dramas aren’t really my thing, but The Last Duel won me over with its devilish humor, its study of masculine idiocy, and an awesome final duel. Adam Driver and Matt Damon play off each other well, but it’s Jodie Comer and Ben Affleck who really elevate the film with their grace and unrestrained id, respectively.
Caroline Siede
1. C’mon C’mon
2. Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
3. The Worst Person In The World
4. Drive My Car
5. The Power Of The Dog
6. Being The Ricardos
7. The Tragedy Of Macbeth
8. The Green Knight
9. The Mitchells Vs. The Machines
10. The French Dispatch Of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
11. Tick, Tick... Boom!
12. Together Together
13. Petite Maman
14. The Eyes Of Tammy Faye
15. Flee
Outlier: C’mon C’mon
My favorite thing I watched all year, writer/director Mike Mills’ loving ode to gentle parenting left me a sobbing mess in the best possible way. What makes C’mon C’mon special is the way it gives equal weight to the perspective of both children and adults, reminding us that for as hard as it is to be a parent, it can be hard to be a kid, too. With gorgeously empathetic performances from Gaby Hoffmann, Woody Norman, and Joaquin Phoenix, C’mon C’mon is a superb addition to the kind movie canon.
Most overrated: A Quiet Place Part II
I know this one wasn’t hailed as a masterpiece or anything, but I left the theater so disappointed by all the clumsy episodic storytelling that followed its (admittedly great) opening prologue that I was shocked to see it received so warmly. Where was the mother/daughter team-up film the ending of the first installment seemed to promise? And why did Cillian Murphy get all of Emily Blunt’s screentime?
Most underrated: Being The Ricardos
Being The Ricardos comes closer to recapturing the spirit of The West Wing than anything Aaron Sorkin has written in years. The key is the way he lets the co-workers-as-family of the I Love Lucy show gnaw away at bigger, flashier problems before finally revealing the film’s actual emotional crux in its final few minutes. It’s the sort of narrative sleight of hand Sorkin does better than anyone, and it’s thrilling to see it brought to life in a world he clearly loves with casting that works far better than it has any right to.
Biggest disappointment: Black Widow
Making Black Widow’s long-anticipated solo film a weirdly inconsequential side quest prequel where she’s basically a supporting player felt like a sadly ignoble ending for a character who carried Marvel’s female representation on her back for so long. Yes, Florence Pugh’s Yelena is a blast and I’m excited to see more of her in the MCU. But it would’ve been nice if Natasha Romanoff’s swan song actually felt like a meaningful sendoff for the fallen Avenger.
Most welcome surprise: The Matrix Resurrections
The Matrix Resurrections so specifically delivered everything I was looking for from a Matrix sequel that it almost felt like Lana Wachowski had called me up and asked me exactly what I wanted to see. A plot centered around Neo and Trinity’s romance? Supporting roles for half of the case of Sense8? Jonathan Groff having the time of his life hamming it up? It was all there, accompanied by a wonderfully playful, surprisingly upbeat tone that compensated for its sometimes-lackluster action. I’m enough of a fan of the past two maligned Matrix sequels that I figured I’d find something to like in this new one. I just didn’t think it would be, well, everything.