The Best of 2021: Movies
“A little sooner than you expected, perhaps, but such is the case for us all.”
This was definitely a stronger endeavor than 2020. I mean, The Invisible Man was in my top ten last year! Don’t get me wrong; I really dug The Invisible Man! But top ten? It was all just so sparse last year. It was nice to feel like things were going back to normal culturally somewhat, even if the box office is still lagging. A Wes Anderson movie came out in theaters, though, so that just feels like the barometer of correctness to me. If Disney can just stop shafting Pixar and Paramount can let us have the Mission: Impossible sequels we deserve, I’ll feel even more confident. Movies, baby!
This year, I felt myself drawn to stories of inclusion, silliness, adventure, and yearning. I think some of that is reflected in my own life, but movies are just better when they find those real emotions to dig into. Also, there’s quite a few medieval epics on here. Sometimes, they just stack up! Like Deep Impact and Armageddon!
My disconnect with the Oscars also continues to grow. I remember being so invested in Best Picture contenders like Birdman, Brooklyn, Room, Spotlight, and Fences back in the era of 2014–2016. The kinds of movies that were genuinely well-made and emotional while also contending for Oscars and surprising me when I came to them and was blown away by them. I saw Lion in theaters, folks! Now, it just feels like there’s such an increased awareness of the film landscape in the Academy and on the Internet that I tend to retreat further into what I really dug and I’m less surprised by awards contenders that become favorites from the first watch. As it was, in 2020, there were only three movies in my top ten (hell, top fifteen) that had an actual shot at a Best Picture nomination and only one of them actually ended up netting a nod. I haven’t had a number one nominated for Best Picture since Lady Bird in 2017. That’s just the way the arena is shifting! You’ll see it here. In my top ten, it feels like only one has a shot at a Best Picture nomination, but it’s still on the bubble.
Ultimately, there are just twenty movies in this list. Going forward, I’m going to stick to twenty for movies and twenty-five for television shows each year. I know a top ten is cleaner, but I love a lot of things. So, if you want to look at the top ten specifically, just skip past some of these, bro.
Lastly, I have some honorable mentions. Rams paired Michael Caton with Sam Neill. Roadrunner brought Morgan Neville’s documentary filmmaking to Anthony Bourdain. Our Friend gave us a great Jason Segel performance. The Matrix Resurrections gets better the more I think about it. Black Widow was my return to movie theaters. Psych 3: This Is Gus deserves a shoutout somewhere. The Power of the Dog would be a deserving Best Picture winner. Raya and the Last Dragon was another hit for Disney. Street Gang provided incredible archival footage of Sesame Street. No Sudden Move was number twenty-one.
20. Disney’s FastPass: A Complicated History
Some may quibble with this being considered a movie at all. But I think the work Jon Bois does when chronicling the histories of the Atlanta Falcons and the Seattle Mariners is television, so, comparatively, I think the work Defunctland does is film. This feature-length documentary can be seen for free on YouTube right now and it is truly fascinating. Only a well-crafted, earnestly intrigued documentary can make the subject of waiting in and skipping past theme park lines so fascinating. Only the best can also transform it into a treatise on the widening gap of social classes and the disappearance of the middle class in modern American society. Plus, there’s fun clips of great Disney rides and that helps the smoother parts of my brain.
19. Being the Ricardos
Only a movie with this pedigree could find the nineteenth spot to be slightly disappointing. I did like it, though! I just know there’s a version out there I would’ve loved. I wish I could’ve seen Cate Blanchett as Lucille Ball, though, as was originally intended. Nicole Kidman is fine, but a little detached at times and maybe Lucy is just too iconic to fully capture. I bought more of Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz and Bardem didn’t give a shit about resembling Arnaz in the slightest. Ultimately, I was won over by a few classic Sorkin moments, unimpeachable production design, and the supporting cast. (You can never go wrong with Jake Lacy and Alia Shawkat. Nelson Franklin is also a gem.) I’ll be mildly pleased when this gets four to six Oscar nominations, even though everyone on Twitter will be more pissed about it than they were for the election of Virginia’s new governor.
18. Red Rocket
Questionable condoning of Tulsi Gabbard tweets aside, Sean Baker is truly the indie auteur whose creative output I anticipate the most. Tangerine was both innovative and influential. The Florida Project has become one of my favorite movies — full stop. And now, Red Rocket, is clearly a standout piece of cinema from 2021. Baker’s interrogation of authentic American life below the last rung on the nonexistent meritocratic ladder is as empathetic as ever. I also so appreciate how he has essentially dedicated his career to destigmatizing sex work. That work continues with Simon Rex’s (yes, that Simon Rex) lived-in portrayal of Mikey Saber, a washed-up porn star who uses and grooms with the worst of them.
17. Summer of Soul
Every year, there’s a documentary I adore that ends up being snubbed by the doc branch of the Academy Awards. Jane, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, Miss Americana. If you can believe it, none of those were nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars. With that in mind, I expect my favorite non-fiction film of 2021 to be similarly snubbed. It won’t take away from the glory of said film, though. Summer of Soul is a riveting, fun-filled documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, an event with footage so rarely seen that many thought it never actually happened. But it did. And it featured Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, B.B. King, 5th Dimension, Gladys Knight, and so many more. With Questlove at the helm, the documentary always focused on the most fascinating musical elements of the festival, too. Just so important to see all of this and to put it in the appropriate context. It’s rage-inducing that all of this joy and art was buried by the biased. Grateful to Questlove for unearthing it for us all in his debut feature. What can’t he do?
16. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
I respected Eternals for being about hot people, but no Marvel movie from 2021 featured anything as hot as Simu Liu turning a San Francisco bus into his own personal jungle gym. That runaway public transport sequence was maybe the best-choreographed action scene I’ve ever seen in an MCU movie. The rest of the movie is similarly delightful, with a fun Awkwafina performance, a compelling villain in the hands of Tony Leung, and even more daring action. I also really appreciate the increased diversity of the MCU and I hope to see more of it, rather than just having Shang-Chi as “the Asian superhero” and moving on. The future of Marvel is in good hands, though, for sure. Good fists, you might say!
15. Jungle Cruise
In case the Disney theme park documentary and Lucille Ball biopic didn’t cue you in, this is, in fact, a list curated by Dave Wheelroute. So yes, Jungle Cruise is entering the top fifteen. Look, I love when movies are based off of Disney attractions and I’ve been waiting for some sort of adaptation of the Magic Kingdom for over a decade now. I’m going to take the wins when I can get them. And what once was a vehicle for Tim Allen and Tom Hanks became a vehicle, instead, for Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson. Jungle Cruise was not quite at Pirates of the Caribbean levels, but it was a rollicking adventure film in the same vein as The Mummy or National Treasure. I had a grand old time, especially watching Jesse Plemons and Paul Giamatti also have grand old times.
14. Licorice Pizza
I used to say Magnolia was my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson, but recently, I’ve found it pretty undeniable that it must be Phantom Thread. The more I think about Phantom Thread, the more I love it and the more I recognize PTA as potentially being my favorite filmmaker working today. (Other contenders include Joel Coen, Damien Chazelle, and Greta Gerwig.) So I was definitely excited for his follow-up to the 2017 romance, 2021’s Licorice Pizza. A hangout flirtation between Alana Haim (of the awesome California rock band, HAIM) and Cooper Hoffman (the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, a frequent collaborator of PTA’s), a rip-roaring supporting performance by Bradley Cooper, the return of Sean Penn, a soundtrack with David Bowie. It all seemed so promising! And while all those elements worked for me and I found them adoration-worthy and strong enough to propel it to the top fourteen, I was mostly let down, distracted, and focused on the unfortunate anti-Asian racism scenes. In Licorice Pizza, John Michael Higgins’ character frequently communicates with his Japanese wives in mocking, caricature-esque Japanese “accents.” It’s a perpetuation of stereotypes and a normalization of casual racism, which is always wrong, but especially damaging in 2021, you know? David Chen, a film critic for The Filmcast, put it very well.
“Picture this: You’re watching Licorice Pizza. It’s brilliant.
Then, early on, a buffoonish character drops an Asian caricature. The (mostly white) audience laughs. And now, you gotta think about that laughter the rest of the film. Sure, the character is clearly depicted as a fool. But did that idea fully register with the audience? Were they laughing because he’s clearly so stupid? Or was maybe a small tiny part of their laughter because hey, now that you mention it, Asians DO look and sound weird! Whatever the case, you’re definitely now wondering about that instead of focusing on the rest of the film’s excellent qualities.
Anyway, did you picture it? Because it fucking sucks.”
13. The Lost Daughter
2021 was a good year for directorial debuts, especially those that came from filmmakers we know best from appearing on screen. That’s the case for The Lost Daughter, the first foray behind the camera for Maggie Gyllenhaal. The non-linear narrative chronicles Leda (in present-day scenes played by Olivia Colman and in the past by Jessie Buckley), a woman on vacation in Greece who is confronting her own contribution to motherhood and independence in the world. At times haunting and at times achingly tense, The Lost Daughter is just sensational cinema all around. Gyllenhaal is so deft and vivid in her directorial style and the whole film probably has an argument for being the best-acted of the year. (The supporting cast is rounded out by Dakota Johnson, Dagmara Domińczyk, Ed Harris, Paul Mescal, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen.)
12. Luca
Looking past how infuriating it is that Disney has sent the last three Pixar movies (Soul, Luca, Turning Red) straight to streaming without a theatrical release (especially since they are original stories, which everyone was clamoring for, and their next, guaranteed-theatrical release is Lightyear), the 2021 output from the most consistent animation studio ever was a beautiful one. Pixar movies can occasionally veer too far into the perfect machinations of a heart-wrenching, thought-provoking story. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s nice to have a more slice-of-life, low-stakes story, too. That’s exactly what Luca was. The metaphorical tale of two boys afraid they won’t be accepted for who they really are. Sea monsters, gay, Italian. Whatever it may be a metaphor for (the best part of art is that inferences are for the reader), it worked soaringly alongside a classically dastardly villain, blocky coastal vistas, and a competition that values eating pasta as much as riding bicycles.
11. West Side Story
It’s interesting to think about the idea of “Why this?” or “Why now?” Why did Steven Spielberg — at this stage of his career — feel compelled to bring West Side Story back to the big screen? If he was so desperate to make a musical, why didn’t he create his own? The answer may be as simple as considering what the original text meant to Spielberg, but it could also be as bold as the idea that only Spielberg could remake one of Hollywood’s best and turn it into the definitive version of the story. Gone were the whitewashing and the actors cast for name recognition rather than musical ability, courtesy of Spielberg, Tony Kushner, and the entire production team behind WSS. Instead, the story is more authentic and more brimming with breathtaking talent. I have immense fondness for the original Robert Wise film, but Rachel Zegler is the Maria I will always picture now. The edginess of Mike Faist as Riff blows you off the screen from his opening bow. And say what you will about the shuffling of some of the musical numbers, but they work for me as bouts of dramatic irony. Enough about the comparisons, though. So much of this belongs to Spielberg and Kushner wholly originally. A technical marvel of utter perfection, West Side Story features a number of shots that it seems like Spielberg has dreaming of ever since he chronicled Goldie Hawn’s road trip in 1974. Shadows crossing every which way before a rumble that eschews delineation. Cascades of colorful dresses and overflowing talent passing through the background of Tony and Maria’s first eye-locking session at the gymnasium. The faux, impossible-to-pinpoint spotlight that beautifully brings the lead couple’s faces to life on the fire escape. The answer to all the aforementioned questions could simply be that Steven Spielberg just wanted to feel alive in the director’s chair once again. In the 1970s, he had Jaws. In the 1980s, he had Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the 1990s, he had Jurassic Park. In the 2000s, he had Catch Me If You Can. In the 2010s, he had Lincoln. In the 2020s, he has West Side Story.
10. The French Dispatch
As soon as Wes Anderson depicted the twisting and rolling of a brunch and tea tray, The French Dispatch found its way to my heart. It reminded me of the Whack-Bat scene from Fantastic Mr. Fox where he just keeps adding more and more physicality without overloading the senses. That is where Wes Anderson always thrills, enchants, and tickles me in his filmmaking. The little nuances that take the mundane or the surreal or the simply fictional into the most sumptuous movie scenes you’ll ever see. While I do appreciate every aspect of the technical side of The French Dispatch (including an animated interlude that had my movie theater rolling with laughter), I disagree with those who found it emotionally hollow. (Laughter is an emotion, Adrien Brody haters.) Does it reach for as much profundity as The Royal Tenenbaums or The Grand Budapest Hotel? Perhaps not. But it finds its own quiet grace about a group of artists coming together to make something only they could make. Kind of like Wes Anderson movies, no?
9. Encanto
These days, TikTok can make anything a hit. Gordon Lightfoot, Louis Prima, the movie at number eight (right below) on this list. And this is definitely applicable to Encanto, which was a solid, but not sensational success at the box office when it released in theaters back in November. But when it hit Disney Plooos for the holidays, the entire film exploded like the fireworks Mirabel belted towards. The characters were everywhere, Encanto was being discussed in the upper echelon of the Disney canon, and “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” usurped “Let It Go” as the most successful chart-topping Disney hit ever. That’s wild; although, I do get it. The story of Encanto is at once enthralling and unassuming. It never portends to reach beyond its own scope, but still finds a way to balance magical, supernatural sequences with grounded, small-scale family trauma drama. Plus, the songs really do electrify the entire film. There’s a reason they’re trending sounds on TikTok daily. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a gifted lyricist and musician. Who knew?
8. Tick Tick Boom!
Speaking of Lin-Manuel Miranda, he made his directorial debut this year with Tick Tick Boom!, a hybrid musical adaptation/biopic starring Andrew Garfield as Jonathan Larson. Biopics are always at their best when they focus on specific sections of the subject’s life. Tick Tick Boom! not only does this, as it chronicles Larson’s curation of his Stephen Sondheim-supported passion project, Superbia, but it infuses it with sequences of magical realism like a toppled diner front. Movie musicals also tend to stick with me more when I find their songs nestling into my heart and this is definitely true of Tick Tick Boom!’s soundtrack. My favorites include “Boho Days,” “30/90,” “Come to Your Senses,” “Therapy,” and “Louder Than Words.” I’m glad to know this film, as it exposed me to more of Larson (beyond Rent) than I might ever have explored on my own. And it does it all with A-level filmmaking across the board. Miranda is adept behind the camera; Garfield is giving one of the year’s best performances; the entire company shines (it’s nice to see Vanessa Hudgens back); it pays proper tribute to the late Sondheim. It’s just a really great achievement all around.
7. The Green Knight
I’m going to be vulnerable and honest with you now. When I first saw The Green Knight in theaters, I dozed off for a little bit. It was only fifteen minutes or so and I did fill in what I missed when the film was later released at home, but yes, I was a little sleepy in that back row of the Cinepolis. I am sorry to say it because I love David Lowery movies and it was exciting to see something so niche and indie on such a prominent screen. But I also have to say that it made the experience kind of even more amazing? Like, I was so drowsy and out of it, but at one point, I stirred awake and flickered my eyes up to see Dev Patel’s Gawain gazing at behemoth giants walking in slow motion through wispy clouds. It felt like I was on a hallucinogenic drug not yet known to man; it was incredibly ethereal. That’s a hard movie experience to replicate and I super dug it! Aside from that, yes, The Green Knight is Lowery’s spin on the classic Arthurian legend, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. We see Gawain stare down his own hubris and innate morality on a journey that takes him through skeletal visions, masturbatory girdles, talking foxes, and a riddle-ridden ax. It’s beautiful to look at and impeccably acted across the board. I think, as well, it’s a product of Trump-era artistic reflections that work for me. Many expected satire and cutting-down to be the move in this era (it does work for stories like Succession), but I find it most fascinating to explore those who choose morality, as we see here in The Green Knight. That’ll be the ultimate legacy of art during this era, even as films like Don’t Look Up aim differently.
6. Minari
Minari has already been nominated for Best Picture at the ceremony held in 2021. Because of the extended eligibility window, Minari qualified for the 93rd Academy Awards even though it was released in 2021. While it won’t be at the Academy’s Oscars, it will be eligible for my own Oscars (soon to come)! Because, yes, this is a 2021 movie! Lee Isaac Chung’s fourth non-documentary foray into cinema centers on a South Korean family in the 1980s who emigrate to the United States. It contains hallmarks of all sorts of archetypes: a matriarchal figure coming to visit and connecting across generations as a mentor figure (Youn Yuh-jung), the impossibility of the American dream depicted upon a rural landscape (Arkansas fields), and a filmmaker halfway reflecting on his own childhood through realistic fiction (see also: Roma, Belfast). The ultimate result is Minari, a truly beautiful piece of cinema that deserves to be seen far and wide. Chung’s sensibility as a filmmaker deeply resonates with me and the entire Minari endeavor is so moving to me whenever I recall it. Steven Yeun and Han Ye-ri are dynamite as the two parents of the film (though, Alan Kim steals the show as David), but my absolute favorite aspect of Minari was its score. Emile Mosseri’s contemplative instrumentals seem to evoke all the film’s loveliest moments before they even flicker across the screen. Soaring!
5. The Tragedy of Macbeth
I love Kenny Branagh’s fountain-aesthetic adaptations as much as anyone, but The Tragedy of Macbeth is the pinnacle of Shakespeare on screen, in my mind. (Jury’s out on Baz’s Romeo + Juliet.) Joel Coen’s first solo foray into filmmaking is exactly the kind of story that he and Ethan always seemed most fascinated by. Fables passed down across generations, ambition blinding the protagonists, and a general sense of “Well, what the fuck have we learned?” by the end of the story that only improves with each rewatch. As the director who just might be my favorite, Coen — at this stage of his life — is perfectly suited to a more mature, desperate take on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s follies, concurring with the final-third of one’s life. That change (along with Kathryn Hunter’s brilliant interpretation of the three witches and an increased role for Ross in the story) is one of a few that Coen makes that expertly change fundamental understandings of the original, iconic text. But he’s also dutifully faithful to the very best of the Scottish play, orchestrating stunning black-and-white cinematography to bring the Bard’s brilliance to life like never before.
4. In the Heights
I was not immune to the enormity of Hamilton in the culture back in the 2016 to 2018 range (and again for a brief resurgence in the summer of 2020). So when I learned that Lin-Manuel Miranda penned another acclaimed musical, In the Heights, I decided to wait until the film adaptation to experience it, rather than focus on the soundtrack as I did with Hamilton. I’m certainly glad I did because what I witnessed blew me away! Obviously, some of Miranda’s motifs are back for the story of a humble bodega owner wrestling with identity, romance, and legacy while in a scorching Washington Heights summer. (Other storylines include an amicable break-up facing a rekindling, a college dropout reckoning with with disappointing her family, and a neighborhood matriarch opining patience and faith.) But the story really is a down-to-earth, culturally celebratory take on the classic tales of people like George Bailey. Usnavi has a wonderful life! And the film has wonderful music. And the wonderful Jimmy Smits wonderfully crooning, “Good mooooorning, Usnaaaaavi.”
3. Spider-Man: No Way Home
Spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home will be in this blurb. When I saw Avengers: Endgame in theaters, I figured nothing would ever top the experience, as far as moviegoing went. While the third film in Tom Holland’s Spider-Man franchise did not top Endgame, it did compare to it — and that’s about all we can ask for. Leave it to Marvel to only take two years to find a way forward with an event film to measure up to the high stakes of Captain America swinging Mjolnir towards Thanos. The way to do that was to open up the live action Spider-Verse and make Holland’s Peter Parker interact with Tobey Maguire’s version of the character (from Sam Raimi’s 2002–07 franchise) and Andrew Garfield’s version (from Marc Webb’s 2012–14 franchise). But this wasn’t some multiverse gimmick or glorified cameo. The final push in Holland’s Parker’s coming-of-age came from mentor figures who’ve been there before. And they play genuine roles in aiding the thrust of the story. We learn what Maguire’s been up to in the past decade and a half; we find a moment of redemption and tear-jerking reflection from Garfield; we see them both interacting in the Marvel version of a cinematic impossibility. While future superhero stories will assuredly learn the wrong lessons from No Way Home, this film itself worked — and that’s what counts the most. It still seems so impossible that it happened and I haven’t fully been able to put into words what Maguire’s return as the character means to me yet. I will soon. It’s just so glorious that it happened. And that it really mattered. I’ll never forget it! This is all without even mentioning the return of villains (Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman, Rhys Ifans’ Lizard, and Jamie Foxx’s Electro), a heartbreaking arc for Aunt May, and the true heart of the story: Peter’s relationship with Zendaya’s MJ and Jacob Batalon’s Ned. I can wax about Maguire and Garfield all the livelong day, but the movie doesn’t work without how emotionally connected we feel to the Peter/MJ/Ned trio. That means something, too, even if I wouldn’t be mad about a renege one day. Zendaya’s too good, man.
2. The Last Duel
Yo, The Last Duel rips. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck reuniting to write a screenplay for the first time since Good Will Hunting? I was already all the way in. I just would’ve never expected for it to be a medieval epic about the last duel sanctioned in fourteenth century France, which came from two friends battling after one raped the other’s wife. While that may seem like a dour, impossible-to-watch slog of a film, I promise that Affleck and Damon’s screenplay (which they cowrote, crucially, with Nicole Holofcener) is anything but. Yes, the inciting incident is understandably grueling to endure, but the stroke of genius comes in Holofcener’s writing of the moment. The script of The Last Duel is broken into three chapters (The Truth According to Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), The Truth According to Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), and The Truth According to Marguerite (Jodie Comer)), but that final chapter also fades into simply “The Truth.” It’s a split-perspective film that takes pride in the subtle nuances that differentiate how three people can view identical events in alternative interpretations. It also does so with impeccable filmmaking. Reuniting Damon with his Martian helmer, Ridley Scott, The Last Duel’s true masterwork is in Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Count Pierre d’Alençon, which just might be the year’s best cinematic acting and potentially my favorite use of Affleck ever (Gone Girl, maybe). Scott’s filmmaking transcends the acting (a phenomenal element of the film, to be sure), too, as every element of the film is exemplary and that titular duel does not disappoint in all its brutality and weight. May movies like this persevere forever.
1. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar
The pools have chlorine! It really just held on for the entire year. When I unpacked what my most anticipated films of 2021 were, I wasn’t even really interested in watching Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. My mistake! Matt Singer’s glowing review convinced me and I already know it’s going to be one I recommend to people for my whole life. It’s my favorite movie of 2021 and certainly an all-time Dave Fave. The studio comedy has been struggling as of late as it seems impossible to have films like Bridesmaids, The Hangover, or Step Brothers succeed at movie theaters these days, let alone become breakout hits along the way. So, Barb and Star already had points for being the year’s premiere comedy film that didn’t have a dramatic undercurrent to it or just Ryan Reynolds in the lead role. But when it was a studio comedy that also targeted my exact sense of humor? (Goofy lip-syncing, over-the-top musical numbers, stupid, stupid, stupid jokes that are just the best.) Yeah, I was delighted to have this movie in 2021 and I do not want to take it for granted because who knows if we’ll really ever have anything like it again? It wasn’t just a deliriously funny comedy about two middle-aged women (Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo — also the scribes) on vacation at a resort where a spy (Jamie Dornan) with a dastardly plot to carry out is also staying. (Wiig and Mumolo’s chemistry is revelatory and Dornan’s musical number is cinematic history in the making.) It’s also a film with thoughtful, impactful costume design choices, well-chosen needle drops, pastoral production design, and a scope that truly respects the cinematic medium in which it exists. It’s partially my favorite movie of the year because of how funny and specifically delightful it is to me, but also because it’s the kind of movie I just want to appreciate while we have it.
The movies I’ve picked as my favorites have certainly been unique, I feel. But what I love the most about them is that there is a community around them that we can share our love of the films. Whether that’s the Greta Gerwig stans, the Robert Redford devotees, the Marvel nuts, or the Swifties, I’m delighted to know that there’s more of us to love all these films out there. If 2022’s exciting, (hopefully) delay-free slate won’t do it, how can those sentiments not give you hope about the future of movies?
More from the Best of 2021 series:
See also:
(#1 was Lady Bird)
(#1 was The Old Man and the Gun)
(#1 was Avengers: Endgame)
(#1 was Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions)
