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The 50 Best Movies of 2021

The Film School Rejects team watched hundreds of movies in 2021 and enjoyed quite a few. These are the 50 best.
Best Movies of 2021
By  · Published on January 29th, 2022

10. The Mitchells vs. The Machines

Best Movies The Mitchells And The Machines
Netflix

The internet inspires a lot of terror. With good reason. And The Mitchells vs. The Machines addresses that dread while also celebrating the majesty it can inspire. A.I. is a forgone conclusion, and The Terminator cannot be too far behind. Here we encounter the robot apocalypse just as a father and daughter clash over culture and the inevitable, unstoppable progression of technology. You can halt memetic spread about as well as you can trap your child in their terrible twos. Fighting natural evolution through ignorance will only cause you agony. As it does Rick Mitchell until he recognizes his pug’s poetic, TikTokable brilliance. Once he embraces his dog’s online power and acknowledges his daughter’s mastery over it, he becomes a functioning member of society as well as his family.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines is an anxious cinematic experience, firing as many jokes as it has seconds. It’s impossible to keep up, but that exhaustive quality is exhilarating. You can fight it like Rick, but it’s better if you just go with it, as Rick ultimately does. (Brad Gullickson)

Where to find it: Currently streaming on Netflix.


9. The Green Knight

Best Movies The Green Knight
A24

Following the primary beats of its late-medieval source material, The Green Knight tells of an incident that befell King Arthur’s court during a Christmas feast. While those in attendance made merry, a towering knight (Ralph Ineson) wielding a bough of holly and a monstrous battle ax crashes the party with a challenge: he will allow one man to strike him once with his ax… on the condition that he may return the blow in a year’s time. The young, starry-eyed Gawain (Dev Patel) accepts, decapitating the Green Knight in one swift cut. To everyone’s horror, the headless man retrieves his severed noggin and makes off.

A year later, Gawain departs on his quest, encountering fantastical creatures and tests of chivalry as he marches towards his doom. As with Lowery’s previous film, 2017’s A Ghost Story, The Green Knight is keenly interested in the mortality-courting conundrum at the heart of its titular figure. Green is the color of rot and verdancy; of life and death; of the beginning and end of all things. Featuring breathtaking visuals and a career-best dual performance by Alicia Vikander, The Green Knight is a must-watch for anyone who wishes more films about the inevitability of death had talking foxes. (Meg Shields)

Where to find it: Currently available on VOD.


8. Pig

Best Movies Pig
NEON

Unfairly mismarketed as “John Wick but it’s Nic Cage and a truffle pig” Michael Sarnoski’s debut feature is an unexpected gift. In place of white-hot revenge and flying fists, Pig’s appetites are simple and all the more powerful for it. Robin (Cage) lives off the grid in the bountiful brush of Oregon, enveloped in a rustic daydream free from modern trappings. Then someone steals his pig, who is simultaneously his co-worker, service animal, and dear, dear friend.

Fuelled by clear and unambiguous purpose Robin returns to the city to squeeze loose ends. After all, his past life, as one of Portland’s most revered chefs, still holds sway. Nursing wounds that may never heal, Robin’s ethos comes into stark conflict with an urban landscape that fetishizes exclusivity and reputation. For Robin, the only way to cook and the only way to deal with loss is with the kind of care that is slow, unpretentious, and mindful. Grounded by a captivatingly humble performance from Cage, Pig is a compassionate dish best served warm (with truffles, if you have them). (Meg Shields)

Where to find it: Currently streaming on Hulu.


7. The Last Duel

Best Movies The Last Duel
20th Century Studios

Don’t listen to what box office numbers might tell you. The Last Duel is one of the best movies of the year. And proof that Ridley Scott has still got it. And by it, we mean a bold artistic vision, a talent for choosing collaborators, and an impeccable eye for historical epics. The film traces three differing perspectives as Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) learns that his wife, Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer) has accused her husband’s rival, Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), of rape.

The film, written by Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener, keenly takes apart the myriad of ways in which the men would paint themselves as heroes, or martyrs, or Casanovas. All to mask that they’re only operating in self-interest. Clever, brutal, and unabashedly aware of the moment it’s released into, The Last Duel can be a touch on the nose at times, but sometimes honesty has to be blunt. (Anna Swanson)

Where to find it: Currently streaming on HBO Max.


6. Benedetta

Best Movies Benedetta
IFC Films

Paul Verhoeven is batting .1000 when it comes to directing movies that make you want to lean over to the person sitting next to you and ask “Is this allowed?” and, obviously, his Medieval lesbian nun movie did not break this record. Within the walls of a Tuscan convent, Sister Benedetta (Virginie Efira), who professes to have a powerful and mystical connection with Jesus Christ, becomes enraptured by a new arrival, Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia).

Sensual and sacrilegious in equal measure, Benedetta’s audacity (both the film’s and the character’s) is matched only by the Dutch filmmaker’s propensity for rigorous examinations of devotion and faith. All in all, Benedetta is pretty thought-provoking for a film in which a crucifix is — well, you’ll see. (Anna Swanson)

Where to find it: Currently available on VOD.


5. Licorice Pizza

Best Movies Licorice Pizza
United Artists Releasing

After a jaunt across the pond with Phantom Thread, PTA heads back to the San Fernando Valley with a joyful and messy coming-of-age tale. Licorice Pizza has a loose, episodic structure that eschews precise narrative beats in favor of taking the time to let us fall in love with his characters: precocious young actor Gary (Cooper Hoffman) and lost 20-something Alana (Alana Haim).

The two get caught up in get-rich-quick schemes and feverish evenings in the glow of the setting California sun. With needle drops that’ll make Tarantino envious and characters who are as richly alive and brilliantly nuanced as anyone you’re likely to find in a film this year, Licorice Pizza feels like a world that we could inhabit if only the screen were just a little closer. (Anna Swanson)

Where to find it: Currently only in theaters.


4. The Matrix Resurrections

Best Movies Matrix Resurrections
Warner Bros.

Lana Wachowski’s solo entry into the Matrix is a thrilling addition to the trilogy that fans know and love. Were those stories all actual events in Neo’s reality? Or mere illusions from a psychotic break that video game creator Mr. Anderson only thinks he experienced it? The answer lies in Trinity. Romance, action, and nuanced subtext on current events all make up The Matrix Resurrections and are sure to thrill the oldest and newest of fans. Plus, there’s a great shot of Keanu in a bathtub with a rubber ducky on his head that is simply iconic. (Shea Vassar)

Where to find it: Currently available on VOD.


3. Titane

Best Movies Titane
NEON

Julia Ducournau’s Palme D’Or winner made headlines this year for its lead character Alexia’s (Agathe Rousselle), shall we say, uniquely amorous relationship with her car. The movie has a ton going for it besides shock value. Although its gut-churning violence and largely context-less plot offer plenty of that, too.

Ducournau, who thrilled with her debut film Raw in 2016, never bottle feeds viewers. Her job is to craft a great movie. And with a sure directorial hand, a fearless lead, and a keen sense for music and storytelling rhythm, she does. By the film’s surprisingly compassionate ending, we’re left to ponder Alexia’s many transformations after witnessing her take on the roles of dancer, killer, mother, daughter, and even son. Mostly, the visceral film leaves us more aware than ever of how it feels to be in our own skin–of what exactly makes our bodies feel like a prison, and what makes them feel like a home. (Valerie Ettenhofer)

Where to find it: Currently available on VOD.


2. Dune

Best Movies Dune
Warner Bros.

In a way, Denis Villeneuve’s career has been inching closer and closer towards Dune since the beginning; like a hunter-seeker dead-set on the daunting apex of “unfilmable” sci-fi (Arrival), desert-powered war machines (Sicario), and impenetrable cult objects (Blade Runner 2049). Inevitability aside, Villeneuve’s big swing was exactly that; the latest and most promising attempt to bring Frank Herbert’s monumental 1965 novel (well, half of it) to the big screen. Dune begins with a precarious exchange of power: a transfer of ownership of the inhospitable planet Arrakis from House Harkonnen to House Atreides. As the sole known source of the precious “spice,” Arrakis is both a boon and a curse. And the Atreides clan is right to suspect that their new home is really a trap in waiting.

But, for the family’s young heir, Paul (Timothée Chalamet), the spice-laden sands mark the invocation of a great, and terrible, purpose with consequences that stretch far beyond the postering of the great houses. Immense in scale and ambition, Dune is one of the biggest films of the 21st Century; a gargantuan cinematic ecosystem that stands tall under the gravity of its unwieldy source material and then some. Unapologetic, passionately made, and epic in the proper sense of the word, Dune is a miracle, and we’re lucky to have it. (Meg Shields)

Where to find it: Currently available on VOD.


1. The Power of the Dog

Best Movies Power Of The Dog
Netflix

There is a mischievous trick to The Power of the Dog. Jane Campion’s Western slowly pulls you inside, presenting various characters coldly at first glance. You’ve got them pegged during each introduction, but your judgment is weaponized. These are not the brothers and sons and wives you thought they were. And when the climax hits, you’re slapped with a rawhide wallop.

The Power of the Dog delivers a righteously satisfying conclusion that will leave you in a heap. And the film knows that as you reassemble yourself, a catastrophic change in your DNA has occurred. You wander into a picture looking for the safety of tropes, but Jane Campion has not made some genre dalliance. Her film is an attack told with empathy for all wretched parties; it hungers for a mutation within its audience. Because you are as wretched as those on screen.

In preparing The Power of the Dog, Campion absorbed as much of the West as possible. She sought to transform her New Zealand shooting location into Montana found inside the book she was adapting. She fed her actors the history of their subject matter. And she dumped Benedict Cumberbatch on a ranch so he could live the life before shooting it. Once they got on location, she allowed that research to fall away and their humanity to drive creation. The result is a film that feels long inhabited but never stale or rehearsed. (Brad Gullickson)

Where to find it: Currently streaming on Netflix.

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