10. Stephen Karam (The Humans)
As Florian Zeller did last year with The Father, Stephan Karam does this year with The Humans. Adapting his own play for the screen, Karam sheds his stage and uses the camera as a microscope, pushing us upon faces, transforming the tiniest movements into symphonic expressions. The Humans is not a rapturous Thanksgiving drama where a family explodes into a hellfire dispute. It’s a much quieter affair, where tension drips endlessly in the silence, and within that void, destruction lurks. We’ve come to expect riotously weird properties from A24, but The Humans is a measured, purposefully navigated endeavor, and we hope to see the studio fold Karam into their stable.
9. Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe (The Mitchells vs. The Machines)
The Gravity Falls duo attack The Mitchells vs. The Machines like filmmakers who may never create again. The animated feature is stuffed to the gills with gags, refusing to allow a second to pass without some wink or nudge. Your first watch will pull the breath from your body, and your head will leave aching, having tried to capture every joke. In a cinematic landscape where movies are generally squished into one box or style, The Mitchells vs. The Machines embraces every imaginable technique. Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe steal inspiration from the YouTube generation, operating as if their runtime were three minutes and not a hundred and thirteen. It’s exhausting, but when you’re done, you certainly feel like you’ve been through something. You ran the marathon, friend.
8. Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter)
So much of The Lost Daughter is delivered in what’s unsaid. Director Maggie Gyllenhaal lets the camera linger on the actors, freeing scenes to wander as we, the viewers, attempt dramatic calculus. The film has a beach vacation’s attitude, but as it relaxes into the plot, the idyllic simmer becomes a bubble. Gyllenhaal achieves her slow burn by relying on the actors and the audience. She trusts us to hang out and work out the trouble brewing within the characters. As long as we give ourselves to the actors, operating brilliantly in micro expressions, our mathematics will hit the proper sum. Gyllenhaal’s assured direction is tantalizing, and it’s rousing to consider where she’ll turn her lens next. The Lost Daughter is a methodically measured masterpiece of confidence.
7. Franz Kranz (Mass)
Are you looking for a movie to ruin your day? Yes? No? I don’t really care about your answer. Your willingness to experience Mass is moot. This film is an essential American experience. We should be gathered in town halls to watch this movie. Why? Another question I’m not interested in answering. The film’s plot is not necessarily a secret, and it’s right there in the title, but the way the film reveals its plot is so beautifully constructed that I don’t want to rob anyone of the experience.
Franz Kranz, a.k.a. the nerdy kid from The Cabin in the Woods, puts four actors in a room. They talk at and to each other. The film more or less plays out in real-time. Their conversation is the most brutal watch I had all year, and I was a wet mess when done. But this film is not one you recommend. It’s one you demand. Just see it.
6. Jeymes Samuel (The Harder They Fall)
From the most brutal watch of the year to the most fun watch of the year. The Harder They Fall is a rollicking Western battlefront. On one side, you have Idris Elba’s Rufus Buck Gang, and on the other, you’ve got Jonathan Majors’ Nat Love Gang. In between, there are a dozen other radical actors with quickdraw accuracy. Director Jeymes Samuel has an absolute ball throwing these opponents against one another.
The film is not fluff. It’s serious about not being serious, and within that intensity is a bold statement. The Harder They Fall is a celebration of a genre where Black actors were often denied access despite a historical landscape where Black cowboys and cowgirls thrived. Samuel shows Hollywood what they were missing when denying these characters and personalities. It’s radiantly cool, the antidote to those stodgy dusters that actually killed the Western.
Related Topics: 2021 Rewind
