At the end of each year, if I’m able, I try to do a mad dash to catch up on all the films I missed in the previous calendar year.
Sometimes I’m not able to (or I forget), but in 2021 I was living in Los Angeles, no longer in lockdown, and determined to see all the movies.
And so, for the first time, I broke my own rule. In 2021, I allowed myself the entire month of January to catch up on movies.
2021 saw a lot of delayed 2020 films released, so it was already a strong year. Combined with my intense month of movie-going, this is probably the best list since 2015.
1. Promising Young Woman
At this point, my BFF Nicole is batting 2-for-2. She put me onto my #1 pick of 2020, and this, my #1 for 2021. After watching Promising Young Woman, Nicole messaged me with the instructions to “go and download this film right now, pay for it if you have to” (this was while I was still in the depths of lockdown”).
I paid a full $20 to watch this movie, and I’m so glad I did. What an absolute masterpiece.
For many years now, I have avoided trailers (and even posters, if possible) – from what I’ve heard, the trailers for Promising Young Woman make it seem like a completely different film.
The actual movie is a gem (2021 was a competitive year!) and – I’m trying not to give anything away here – had the film been more like what the trailer implied, there’s no way it would’ve made the top of my list.
Also, Bo Burnham is in it.
If your taste in film generally overlaps with mine, if you enjoy character studies and tight scripts, or just…really well-done movies, absolutely check it out.
2. A Quiet Place Part II
Ranking films is always difficult. Sometimes I’ll rank a film lower because it’s “objectively” worse (a term I believe in less each year) even though I enjoyed more than I “should have”.
For example, I think of Mad Max: Fury Road as the #1 film of the 2010s. It’s a masterpiece, one of the best films of all time, I cannot say enough good things about it.
But The Kingsman, a film that came out the same year ranks higher on my personal “top films of all time”. How does that work?
There are no rules. Only feelings.
A Quiet Place was a film that I missed during the year it was released, but enjoyed quite a lot when I eventually saw it. So I was excited to check out the sequel…which, honestly, I liked even more than the first.
It’s most notable, however, for being the first film that I saw back in cinemas. After almost 18 months away from the experience, I caught it on a whim (in a mostly-packed theater) and just had an absolute ball. I laughed, I gasped, I was tense…and everything about it was magnified by the presence of dozens of other people sharing the experience with me.
Does A Quiet Place Part II “deserve” to be the #2 film of the year? I don’t know. But I know that I had an absolute ball, and I’ll eagerly line up to see Part III when it releases.
3. West Side Story
In an average year, I see half a dozen films organically (like the above two) and then when December (or in this case, January) hits, I do a mad dash to see as many of the year’s films as possible.
I’m so glad I did, because otherwise I just don’t think I would’ve seen this. Or many of the films on this list, in fact.
I’ve never seen any version of West Side Story, and honestly was mostly seeing this just to check it off the list. Y’know, in case I ended up loving it. Unlikely.
But…I did.
I dunno, everything about it just worked for me. At first, I thought the slow pace would put me to sleep, but as the film went on I loved it more and more. It felt…full. Classic.
I was completely drawn in, and although the plot is well-known, I only knew the broadest “it’s based on Romeo and Juliet” beats, so every deviation from that was a genuine, heart-wrenching shock to me.
And of course the music and dance sequences were amazing. Loved loved loved this movie. So much more than I expected.
4. Tick Tick Boom
I met my girlfriend on the 31st of December, so by all rights she should not even exist in this post.
Except because I extended 2021 by a month, we ended up watching a bunch of these films together. This was her film of the year (by far), and so again – did I enjoy it more because I was watching how much she enjoyed it?
Maybe. But either way, this film was great.
I’m a sucker for films about creatives, and even though I’m no Rent fan (we watched the Lindsay Ellis and Dan Olson video essays beforehand so she would know 100% of what I knew about Rent) I loved seeing the story of a struggling writer and how you don’t just get overnight success by making something that no one wants to see (that one hit pretty close to home).
Most interesting to me was seeing Lin-Manuel work his magic on a piece that he neither wrote nor composed. I love the art of adaptation, and this is a masterclass in how to update and adapt a piece while keeping the heart of it the same.
Turns out 2021 was a good year for musicals!
5. The King’s Man
I saw this twice. If I hadn’t, it might not have even made the runners-up list.
As mentioned above, The Kingsman (the first one) is one of my favourite movies of all time. I saw it three times in the cinema, and maybe half a dozen times since.
It was actually my #1 film of all time until the sequel came out and retroactively made the original worse, something I didn’t even know was possible.
But I love Matthew Vaughn and I love the world of the Kingsman and I’ll watch any film he makes.
The first time I saw it, I spent the entire film waiting for the Kingsman to start. They kept teasing, setting up characters and alluding and indicating why it was about to begin. But it isn’t until the moment he film ends that they go “okay, maybe we’ll get around to that in the sequel.”
I saw it on Christmas Day with a friend, and we both walked out going “why would they do that to us”. Hugely disappointing.
But then a few days later I was going out with another friend, and she desperately wanted to see it, so I decided I could sit through it a second time. It wasn’t like I hadn’t enjoyed any particular moment, it was the unfulfilled promise that had bugged me.
Without the expectations of “okay, NOW the movie is beginning”, I adored this movie from start to finish. I think literally every moment of it. It has some of the most interesting action sequences I’ve ever seen, the characters are fun, the arcs are powerful, the third act is one of the strongest third acts I’ve ever seen…and not even the best part of the film!
Just a wonderful movie. I’m so glad I saw it twice. If you enjoyed the others, don’t go in expecting it to be part of the series, just enjoy it as a standalone period action film…perhaps with a sequel that will set up the world a little.
6. The Suicide Squad
Another that I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t been putting together this list – I never saw the first Suicide Squad (and apparently didn’t miss much) but this one was a delight.
It’s also interesting because it’s the first James Gunn film that’s really landed with me. I don’t even remember if I saw Slithers or Super, but I know that neither Guardians of the Galaxy I or II made my lists (or left much of an impact), despite how much the rest of the world loved them.
The Suicide Squad is just…fun. Adventurous. It takes some artistic and directorial risks and pulls them off with aplomb, and you can just tell that James Gunn is having fun with it from start to finish. I found myself thinking about this movie a lot after seeing it, and while I haven’t rewatched it since (this is being written in December of 2022) I suspect it would largely hold up.
It’s not perfect, but for a big dumb superhero film it’s big and smart.
Runners-Up
Spiderman: Far From Home
This one almost made the list. It was so close. Firstly, it’s really damn good. I loved it, easily one of my favorite MCU films so far. It has a good theme well told, great structure, sharp writing. There’s a reason everyone is so nuts for it.
But the longer I sat on it, the less I liked it. The film is written by former sketch writers, and I feel like it…shows. If it were a standalone film it would be less of a problem, but as part of a greater universe, it uses entire other films (like the magical system of Doctor Strange) for gags.
Far From Home opens with ten minutes of desperately trying to get past the premise they set up at the end of the previous film, then another ten minutes of (quite funny, to be fair) comedy sketches to set up this film, and then it begins. It’s still a great movie that I’d recommend, but the amount of effort it takes to get started (and the weak worldbuilding) knocked it off the list. Barely.
Dune
Another film that I genuinely loved! This really was a strong year. Visually stunning, compelling characters, immediately-intriguing (and always clear) world-building, prophecies without feeling lame, great action pieces. Just a killer film. Only didn’t make the list because…well, it was too good a year for film. I’m eagerly anticipating the sequel though.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
I’ve never liked the Ghostbusters films. I should revisit them as an adult, but when I was a child in the 90’s, they never held any appeal, and when I finally got around to watching one I was left cold.
But this movie was getting rave reviews, and since I was seeing every movie I could, I decided to check it out. I’ve heard it described as Stranger Things meets Ghostbusters (not least of all because Finn Wolfhard appears in both) and that’s a perfect description of the film and exactly sums up why I enjoyed it so much.
The Mitchells vs the Machines
I like Lord/Miller, I like animated films, I liked that this film felt like the first animated kid’s movie for this generation (while also calling back heavily for us oldies). It was a fun ride! Slowed down a little in the middle for me, and I’ve not had any desire to rewatch it in the past year, but I had a good time with this one.
Notably Missing
Raya and the Last Dragon was a film I saw because of similarities to my own scripts, but it didn’t really do a lot for me. In the Heights was a fun musical, but just waaaaay too long. Matrix Resurrections was worse than I anticipated, and I had low expectations going in. Don’t Look Up was overtly political in a boring way, and had weird unnecessary plotholes (but great acting and some fun laughs).
At the end of each year, if I’m able, I try to do a mad dash to catch up on all the films I missed in the previous calendar year.
Sometimes I’m not able to (or I forget), but in 2021 I was living in Los Angeles, no longer in lockdown, and determined to see all the movies.
And so, for the first time, I broke my own rule. In 2021, I allowed myself the entire month of January to catch up on movies.
2021 saw a lot of delayed 2020 films released, so it was already a strong year. Combined with my intense month of movie-going, this is probably the best list since 2015.
1. Promising Young Woman
At this point, my BFF Nicole is batting 2-for-2. She put me onto my #1 pick of 2020, and this, my #1 for 2021. After watching Promising Young Woman, Nicole messaged me with the instructions to “go and download this film right now, pay for it if you have to” (this was while I was still in the depths of lockdown”).
I paid a full $20 to watch this movie, and I’m so glad I did. What an absolute masterpiece.
For many years now, I have avoided trailers (and even posters, if possible) – from what I’ve heard, the trailers for Promising Young Woman make it seem like a completely different film.
The actual movie is a gem (2021 was a competitive year!) and – I’m trying not to give anything away here – had the film been more like what the trailer implied, there’s no way it would’ve made the top of my list.
Also, Bo Burnham is in it.
If your taste in film generally overlaps with mine, if you enjoy character studies and tight scripts, or just…really well-done movies, absolutely check it out.
2. A Quiet Place Part II
Ranking films is always difficult. Sometimes I’ll rank a film lower because it’s “objectively” worse (a term I believe in less each year) even though I enjoyed more than I “should have”.
For example, I think of Mad Max: Fury Road as the #1 film of the 2010s. It’s a masterpiece, one of the best films of all time, I cannot say enough good things about it.
But The Kingsman, a film that came out the same year ranks higher on my personal “top films of all time”. How does that work?
There are no rules. Only feelings.
A Quiet Place was a film that I missed during the year it was released but enjoyed quite a lot when I eventually saw it. So I was excited to check out the sequel…which, honestly, I liked even more than the first.
It’s most notable, however, for being the first film that I saw back in cinemas. After almost 18 months away from the experience, I caught it on a whim (in a mostly-packed theater) and just had an absolute ball. I laughed, I gasped, I was tense…and everything about it was magnified by the presence of dozens of other people sharing the experience with me.
Does A Quiet Place Part II “deserve” to be the #2 film of the year? I don’t know. But I know that I had an absolute ball, and I’ll eagerly line up to see Part III when it releases.
3. West Side Story
In an average year, I see half a dozen films organically (like the above two) and then when December (or in this case, January) hits, I do a mad dash to see as many of the year’s films as possible.
I’m so glad I did, because otherwise I just don’t think I would’ve seen this. Or many of the films on this list, in fact.
I’ve never seen any version of West Side Story, and honestly was mostly seeing this just to check it off the list. Y’know, in case I ended up loving it. Unlikely.
But…I did.
I dunno, everything about it just worked for me. At first, I thought the slow pace would put me to sleep, but as the film went on I loved it more and more. It felt…full. Classic.
I was completely drawn in, and although the plot is well-known, I only knew the broadest “it’s based on Romeo and Juliet” beats, so every deviation from that was a genuine, heart-wrenching shock to me.
And of course the music and dance sequences were amazing. Loved loved loved this movie. So much more than I expected.
4. Tick Tick Boom
I met my girlfriend on the 31st of December, so by all rights she should not even exist in this post.
Except because I extended 2021 by a month, we ended up watching a bunch of these films together. This was her film of the year (by far), and so again – did I enjoy it more because I was watching how much she enjoyed it?
Maybe. But either way, this film was great.
I’m a sucker for films about creatives, and even though I’m no Rent fan (we watched the Lindsay Ellis and Dan Olson video essays beforehand so she would know 100% of what I knew about Rent) I loved seeing the story of a struggling writer and how you don’t just get overnight success by making something that no one wants to see (that one hit pretty close to home).
Most interesting to me was seeing Lin-Manuel work his magic on a piece that he neither wrote nor composed. I love the art of adaptation, and this is a masterclass in how to update and adapt a piece while keeping the heart of it the same.
Turns out 2021 was a good year for musicals!
5. The King’s Man
I saw this twice. If I hadn’t, it might not have even made the runners-up list.
As mentioned above, The Kingsman (the first one) is one of my favourite movies of all time. I saw it three times in the cinema, and maybe half a dozen times since.
It was actually my #1 film of all time until the sequel came out and retroactively made the original worse, something I didn’t even know was possible.
But I love Matthew Vaughn and I love the world of the Kingsman and I’ll watch any film he makes.
The first time I saw it, I spent the entire film waiting for the Kingsman to start. They kept teasing, setting up characters and alluding and indicating why it was about to begin. But it isn’t until the moment he film ends that they go “okay, maybe we’ll get around to that in the sequel.”
I saw it on Christmas Day with a friend, and we both walked out going “why would they do that to us”. Hugely disappointing.
But then a few days later I was going out with another friend, and she desperately wanted to see it, so I decided I could sit through it a second time. It wasn’t like I hadn’t enjoyed any particular moment, it was the unfulfilled promise that had bugged me.
Without the expectations of “okay, NOW the movie is beginning”, I adored this movie from start to finish. I think literally every moment of it. It has some of the most interesting action sequences I’ve ever seen, the characters are fun, the arcs are powerful, the third act is one of the strongest third acts I’ve ever seen…and not even the best part of the film!
Just a wonderful movie. I’m so glad I saw it twice. If you enjoyed the others, don’t go in expecting it to be part of the series, just enjoy it as a standalone period action film…perhaps with a sequel that will set up the world a little.
6. The Suicide Squad
Another that I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t been putting together this list – I never saw the first Suicide Squad (and apparently didn’t miss much) but this one was a delight.
It’s also interesting because it’s the first James Gunn film that’s really landed with me. I don’t even remember if I saw Slithers or Super, but I know that neither Guardians of the Galaxy I or II made my lists (or left much of an impact), despite how much the rest of the world loved them.
The Suicide Squad is just…fun. Adventurous. It takes some artistic and directorial risks and pulls them off with aplomb, and you can just tell that James Gunn is having fun with it from start to finish. I found myself thinking about this movie a lot after seeing it, and while I haven’t rewatched it since (this is being written in December of 2022) I suspect it would largely hold up.
It’s not perfect, but for a big dumb superhero film it’s big and smart.
Runners-Up
Spiderman: Far From Home
This one almost made the list. It was so close. Firstly, it’s really damn good. I loved it, easily one of my favorite MCU films so far. It has a good theme well told, great structure, sharp writing. There’s a reason everyone is so nuts for it.
But the longer I sat on it, the less I liked it. The film is written by former sketch writers, and I feel like it…shows. If it were a standalone film it would be less of a problem, but as part of a greater universe, it uses entire other films (like the magical system of Doctor Strange) for gags.
Far From Home opens with ten minutes of desperately trying to get past the premise they set up at the end of the previous film, then another ten minutes of (quite funny, to be fair) comedy sketches to set up this film, and then it begins. It’s still a great movie that I’d recommend, but the amount of effort it takes to get started (and the weak worldbuilding) knocked it off the list. Barely.
Dune
Another film that I genuinely loved! This really was a strong year. Visually stunning, compelling characters, immediately-intriguing (and always clear) world-building, prophecies without feeling lame, great action pieces. Just a killer film. Only didn’t make the list because…well, it was too good a year for film. I’m eagerly anticipating the sequel though.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
I’ve never liked the Ghostbusters films. I should revisit them as an adult, but when I was a child in the 90’s, they never held any appeal, and when I finally got around to watching one I was left cold.
But this movie was getting rave reviews, and since I was seeing every movie I could, I decided to check it out. I’ve heard it described as Stranger Things meets Ghostbusters (not least of all because Finn Wolfhard appears in both) and that’s a perfect description of the film and exactly sums up why I enjoyed it so much.
The Mitchells vs the Machines
I like Lord/Miller, I like animated films, I liked that this film felt like the first animated kid’s movie for this generation (while also calling back heavily for us oldies). It was a fun ride! Slowed down a little in the middle for me, and I’ve not had any desire to rewatch it in the past year, but I had a good time with this one.
Notably Missing
Raya and the Last Dragon was a film I saw because of similarities to my own script that I’m working on, but it didn’t really it for me. In the Heights was a fun musical, but just waaaaay too long. Matrix Resurrections was worse than I anticipated, and I had low expectations going in. Don’t Look Up was overtly political in a boring way, and had weird unnecessary plotholes (but great acting and some fun laughs).
Free Guy, Space Jam: A New Legacy, and Last Night in Soho I turned off before finishing – although admittedly Soho was just because I was leaving the plane. Like Edgar Wright’s previous film, I was so close to loving it, but it just couldn’t sustain its best parts. The first flashback scene is one of my favourites in all cinema though, I loved it.
