Top Ten Films of 2021: A Retrospective
I like to leave it a few months before taking a look back at the previous year’s releases and picking my Top Ten films of the year – partly because it gives me some extra time to catch up with films I missed, but mainly because often the real test of a film is how well it ages in the months after you first see it.
With that in mind, it’s now time for my retrospective Top Ten review of 2021 – although as usual, there were many films that I really loved that still narrowly missed out on a spot in the Top Ten. In no particular order, I did want to give “Honourable Mentions” to the films that made up numbers 11-20 in my overall Top 20:
I Care a Lot – a fantastic and darkly comic social satire/thriller.
Promising Young Woman – a very difficult watch in places, but an amazing and powerful film.
People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan – it may mean more to fans of the TV series than to new viewers, but this is one of the best TV-to-film comedy transitions.
Reminiscence – an atmospheric and intelligent neo-noir sci-fi detective thriller with an all-star cast … that only 3 people saw!
Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings – great fun, with an amazing Hollywood debut from Simu Liu.
Nobody – a real “guilty pleasure”, this is a fun darkly comic take on the action genre.
Free Guy – one of the best feel good films of the year, this always puts a smile on my face.
Eternals – I dismissed this on my first viewing, but came to love it for all the hidden moments you only see on second and subsequent viewings.
Candyman – topical social commentary and amazing direction elevates this ghost story to a whole other level.
Freaky – this body-swap horror comedy is so much fun, and like Reminiscence, deserved to find a much bigger audience.
But without further ado, here’s my Top Ten of 2021 (with links to my full, spoiler-free, reviews):
10) Black Widow: Surprisingly, this was the only Marvel film to make my Top Ten this year. Eternals is intellectually engaging, and Shang-Chi is great fun, but personally, Black Widow was the most rounded package, almost certainly because of the existing affection I already had for the character. At times genuinely emotional, and often very funny (thanks to Florence Pugh’s scene-stealing introduction to the MCU), this was a fitting send off for Scarlett Johansson, one of the OG Avengers.
9) Palm Springs: While this film might not have as many “laugh-out-loud” moments as some others (see below!), it’s still packed full of great, character-based comedy. Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti give career-best performances, combining humour with unexpected layers of character development, resulting in a movie that’s as touching as it is funny, and which goes to some surprisingly philosophical and psychological places. This is a time-loop film that holds its own against the gold standard set by Groundhog Day, and I can’t recommend it highly enough – emphatic period (you’ll get the reference if you’ve seen the film).
8) Barb & Star go to Vista Del Mar: Early 2021 was a dark time as the global pandemic entered its second year, but Barb & Star was a perfectly timed ray of sunshine to lift people’s mood. Unapologetically silly and crammed full of bizarre, surreal moments, the comedy highlight of the film for me is undoubtedly Jamie Dornan’s hilarious rendition of “Edgar’s Prayer”.
7) The Mitchells vs The Machines: For me, this film came out of nowhere – it wasn’t from a writer or director I was familiar with, the original trailer (when it was still called Connected) looked awful, and it was (no offence) arguably dumped on Netflix with very little fanfare. So imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a 5-star masterpiece (and not to mention the best Family Film of 2021). An expert blend of laugh-out-loud comedy moments (“Dog! Pig! Dog! Pig! Loaf of Bread!”) and genuine, heartfelt emotion in the central father/daughter relationship, although every cast member actually gets plenty of memorable comedy moments. An absolute joy, and my favourite “original” film of 2021.
6) The Suicide Squad: With hindsight, The Suicide Squad seems like the perfect marriage of director and material. James Gunn did a fantastic job in the Guardians of the Galaxy films of combining comedy and heart to bring a bunch of self-serving but redeemable misfits to life, but there was always the feeling that he was having to curtail his more outlandish creative instincts in order to play in the PG-13/12A world of the MCU. The Suicide Squad takes the leash off his sense of humour, and the opening beach assault immediately establishes the ultra-violent R-rated comedic tone of the movie – while the rest of the film shows that he’s still able to elicit genuine emotion and empathy for his characters. Not only was this my Guilty Pleasure of 2021, but also, having recently seen the spin-off show Peacemaker, I am totally in love with James Gunn’s corner of the DCEU, and I’m so glad that Peacemaker’s got a second season, so we’ll see James Gunn back in this world soon.
5) Zack Snyder’s Justice League: It’s at this point that I need to stress that this Top Ten (like all such lists!) is entirely subjective! I know there are people who can’t stand Zack Snyder’s trilogy of DC movies, and I also know that there are people who think the idea of a 4-hour movie is ridiculously self-indulgent. That said, I loved this restored 4-hour version of Zack Snyder’s superhero epic, which was better in every way than the watered-down, largely incoherent mess that was the 2017 Joss Whedon directed theatrical version. The 4-hour run time allowed Cyborg to not only become a fully rounded character, but also to become arguably the key member of the Justice League, while it also fleshed out Flash a lot more and gave him one of the most memorable moments of the movie (which incidentally recently won the newly created (and publicly voted) Oscars Cheer Moment at the 2022 Academy Awards). This version also introduced Darkseid, and made Steppenwolf a far more interesting and layered villain (by giving him a “middle management” complex). Tom Holkenborg’s music was also my Best Score of 2021. The film also manages to resolve all of the plot threads from Zack Snyder’s trilogy (including the relevance of Batman’s apocalyptic dreams), although it does leave fans dreaming of what Snyder’s intended Justice League trilogy (which would have formed a 5-film story with Man of Steel and Batman v Superman) would have looked like. But at least fans of these films (myself included) finally got to see the film as Zack Snyder intended, albeit after a 5-year wait following the release of Batman v Superman in 2016.
4) No Time To Die: My affection for No Time to Die is partly due to the film itself, but also partly due to the way that it brings Daniel Craig’s entire 5-film tenure as James Bond to a fitting, satisfying and emotional conclusion. As a standalone Bond film, No Time to Die has some great moments and set-pieces, but as the concluding chapter of Daniel Craig’s run, it’s fantastic. I’m still trying to avoid spoilers for anyone who’s not seen the film yet, but Daniel Craig’s interpretation of Bond not only has more depth, character development and emotion than any of the previous versions, it is also the first time that the franchise has told a coherent, single storyline across an actor’s entire tenure as Bond.
Which bring us on to my Top Three…
3) Dune: Part One: I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw a sci-fi or fantasy film that did such an elegant job of introducing an audience to an entirely new fictional universe. I have a confession to make: I’ve never read any of the Dune novels, and I’ve never seen the 1984 David Lynch adaptation, so I was coming to this film not knowing a Bene Gesserit from a Mentat, or the Sardaukar from the Fremen, and yet I never struggled to follow what was going on. The all-star cast are universally great, and Denis Villeneuve’s direction is (literally) awe-inspiring (earning my Most Visually Stunning Film of 2021 award). It would have been an unimaginable tragedy for cinema if the sequel that this film sets up had not been greenlit, but thankfully, we’ll get to see the second half of the source novel on the big screen next year. Considering that this film is essentially only half a story with no conclusion, it’s a testament to its quality that it made it into my Top Three!
2) Ghostbusters: Afterlife: There are times when objectivity goes out the window, and my experience of watching Ghostbusters: Afterlife was one of those times. The original Ghostbusters movie was a cornerstone of my childhood memories, and so my expectations for this legacy sequel were sky high, and yet the film still met them. I’m sure the reason for this was that the love and affection that director and co-writer Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman, who directed the original two movies) has for the franchise is felt in every single frame of this film. It’s a loving tribute to the original movie, it’s a loving send-off for Harold Ramis (who passed away in 2014), and sadly, it ended up being an unexpected farewell to Ivan Reitman, who passed away earlier this year, leaving Ghostbusters: Afterlife as his final film (he produced it). Is the film objectively perfect? Almost certainly not – but I loved it anyway, and knowing that it gave Ivan Reitman a final opportunity to revisit this universe with his son somehow makes the movie even more moving in hindsight.
1) Film of the Year 2021 – Spider-Man: No Way Home: Nostalgia was the name of the game in 2021, and Spider-Man: No Way Home was a perfect marriage of the old and the new. I’m still hesitant about mentioning spoilers for this film – although given that it made $1.892 billion in the box office (during a global pandemic!) and became the sixth highest grossing film of all time (during a global pandemic!), is there anyone left who hasn’t seen it? Still, without mentioning specifics, No Way Home manages to give the returning cast (Zendaya, Jacob Batalon and Marisa Tomei) some great material, while also finding plenty of time for the comedic Spider-Man/Doctor Strange dynamics, as well as the return of other familiar faces. Director Jon Watts expertly balances the shifting tones in the movie, at one stage transitioning from Peter Parker’s darkest hour to one of the most joyous moments in cinematic history. On a personal note, I haven’t felt waves of emotion surge through a cinema audience like that since the opening night of Avengers: Endgame, and there really was no better way to mark (what is hopefully) the end of a very difficult two years for cinema.
While I don’t do a list of the "worst" films of the year (because I try to avoid paying to watch "bad" films), here's a brief run-down of my biggest disappointments of 2021 in terms of the films that I did see:
3rd place – Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City: Not a bad film per se, but it did feel (a) like watching someone else playing a videogame, and (b) like a set-up for a better film that might (hopefully) follow.
2nd place – The King’s Man: I have to stress, I thought this was a “good” film, and I did enjoy it … but if we’re talking about “disappointments”, I was hoping this would be something really special, but it’s not nearly in the same league as the first two Kingsman films in terms of either inventiveness or humour.
Biggest Disappointment of 2021 – Monster Hunter: I was only expecting this to be an enjoyable B-movie, but it’s a bit of a mess and only feels like half a film, and it’s not even quite in the so-bad-it’s-good category either.
I’m not saying that the above films were necessarily the worst films of 2021 (by any stretch), but for me, they were the most disappointing.
Still, let's not end on too much of a downer – you can also check out my earlier rundown of my Cinematic Highlights of 2021, which includes my nominations for categories such as “Best Bus Fight of 2021”, “Hidden Gems of the Year” and “Person of the Year”.
