Kristen Stewart playing Lady Di, Daniel Craig bowing out as 007 in a flurry of stupidly epic set pieces, and Jane Campion delivering a gold-standard western, we have been spoiled this year and we deserved it after the year we’ve all had.
With opportunities ahead to catch up on the films you might have missed, here is Time Out’s picks of the very best of the year to you help prioritise. By way of small print: as long as a film was in cinemas somewhere in the world between January and December, it qualifies for the list. Here are the best films of the year.
Nomadland
A van-dweller who drives across the US badlands is not normally what Best Picture winners are made of. But with a commanding Frances McDormand at the wheel, support from a cast of real-life nomads and indie superstar Chloé Zhao behind the camera, Nomadland was a naturalist drama that got right under the skin of late capitalist America and its disenfranchised outsiders. Shot through with moments of transcendent beauty, it was a blast of defiance against a broken system.
The Father
Anthony Hopkins was a deserving Best Actor winner for his lead role in a dementia drama with a twist. But major props, too, to director Florian Zeller. He retools his own stage play to explore the debilitating condition from the inside out, using cinematic techniques to pull the rug out from under us and turn a benign domestic space into one of uncertainty and anxiety. It was as close as a movie can come to putting you in the shoes of a dementia sufferer.
The Power of the Dog
Jane Campion hadn’t made a movie since Bright Star nearly 15 years ago. Her subversive western showed what we’ve all been missing: superlative control of mood, glorious widescreen vistas and a smuggled-in subtext that uses the traditional trappings of the western to strip down alpha masculinity to its faulty parts. Plus, it had Benedict Cumberbath waddling around in chaps like a giant saddle-sore duckling. Yeee-haw!
Dune
Denis Villeneuve triumphs where David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky failed, turning the monster sci-fi literary epic into something bathed in grandeur but also coherent and topical. Okay, it’s only the first half of that thing and it does drop an Empire Strikes Back ending on us, but the visual heft, the aural overload of its booming sound design and an outsized Hans Zimmer score – not to mention its meaty cast – all made Dune one of the cinema experiences of 2021.
Spencer
Kristen Stewart is surely Oscars bound for her depiction of an isolated Princess Diana in a Christmas movie with precisely zero festive vibes. The ghostly, chilly depiction of a huge Sandringham estate as the royal family gathers in late December morphs from gilded cage into outright prison as her curtains are sewn up and courtiers try to keep her straitjacketed by protocol. But in a performance of controlled frenzy, Stewart’s over-it royal takes back control.
No Time To Die
Daniel Craig handed in his Walther PPK, tux, martini glass, Heinkenen bottle, keys to the Aston etc in fine style in a much-delayed 007 outing that still managed to out deliver and exceed all expectations. Is it perfect? Well, no. Rami Malek’s villain is wafer-thin and the ending clearly isn’t for everyone, but No Time to Die was gutsy enough to make big story calls and got nearly all of them right. The locations and action sequences were right on the money too. After the wobbles of Spectre, the franchise is in a great place for whoever takes on the mantle.
Minari
Lee Isaac Chung farms his own childhood material and finds the soil seriously rich in this delightful story of an Korean-American family coping with culture shock in ‘80s Arkansas. Youn Yuh-jung won the Oscar and a tonne of fans (just check out her awards speeches) as the family’s no-nonsense granny, but the whole cast soars.
Petite Maman
Possibly the year’s gentlest film and maybe its most affecting too, Céline Sciamma’s mood piece spins a chance meeting of two young girls in a local French woods into a delicate ode to childhood, memory, grief and family.
Drive My Car
Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s rep is growing bigger and this stellar mash-up of Murakami and Chekhov shows why. Theatre director Yusuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) joins a young chauffeur in a slow burn study of art, performance and loss that rings with emotional truth.
The Mitchells vs the Machines
It’s a Netflix-y phenomenon that a film you’d never heard of yesterday can become your new favourite movie today. Meet The Mitchells vs the Machines, a giddy road-trip apocalypse animation (yep, one of those) that plays like Terminator 2: Judgment Day sat on a whoopie cushion.
Sound of Metal
Riz Ahmed’s drummer Ruben makes peace with his deafness in a sparkling feature debut from American filmmaker Darius Marder. Ahmed is great in the role – all coiled fury at his seismic loss – as is Olivia Cooke as his suffering partner, but Paul Raci steals the show as the mentor who coaxes Ruben back to a meaningful life.
Titane
Featuring the winceworthy-iest moments of the year and some of its most touching, the latest from Raw’s Julia Ducournau was ultra-violent but stealthily sweet with it. With its preoccupations with muscle cars and surrogate families, it’s definitely Dominic Toretto’s favourite film of the year.
In the Heights
The musical has been adapted from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway smash. The tunes are infectious and the dancing energised in a Latinx carnival that we’ll all be revisiting for many summers to come.
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