Callie's Top Ten Movies of 2021

2021 felt like a return to form for most of us. Granted, the pandemic is far from over, a fact that’s being reinforced as restrictions get tighter and more films get their release pushed back again. However, for a brief, glorious amount of time, those of us who are pro-vax smart cookies got to feel a little safer about finally returning to movie theaters. And boy, what a wonderful feeling! Remembering how these things are meant to be seen was a fantastic reset that allowed me to experience it all again with fresh eyes.

All that being said, there are a few things that I could only watch at home that deserve a special shout-out, even if I can’t, in good conscience, put them in the proper countdown:

The Beatles: Get Back (Disney+)

What a magical experience this is! Almost eight hours of footage of The Beatles jamming out and writing songs for their Abbey Road and Let It Be albums, pieced together into something resembling a narrative by a modern master of long-form filmmaking. There’s something unbelievably special about seeing moments of musical history come to life, like hearing McCartney settle into the “Get Back” bassline for the first time, or watching the songs evolve through multiple stages and concepts before settling into the final form we know them as now. It’s a beautiful portrait of the creative process and the slow dissolution of The Beatles.

Midnight Mass (Netflix)

Simply put, Midnight Mass destroyed me. It broke me and my spirituality into pieces and left me to reassemble and re-answer the Big Life Questions™ it put forth all on my own. I’m still dealing with the aftershocks of this series’s impact on my mental health and, you know, the all-encompassing existential terror that threatened to devour me whole. 

Despite that, this show is just so good that I couldn’t help but volunteer to go through the wringer again. The whole cast is stellar in their delivery of all of Flanagan’s lovely monologues, but Hamish Linklater gives one of the single best performances I’ve ever seen. There are layers upon layers to his character, and each one is played perfectly. It makes the series so compelling and rewatchable, as the new perspective drastically changes how we understand Paul and the choices he makes. Linklater’s vocal work throughout is nothing short of miraculous, while his physicality ensures the character teeters constantly on the tightrope between charisma and menace. It’s the kind of character and performance I could write about forever and still find new stuff to dig into. Honestly, it’s no wonder the people of Crockett Island are so willingly trickled into the pews of St. Patrick’s like lambs to the slaughter; if I went to a church led by a priest as captivating as good ol' Father Paul, I, too, would find it hard not to fully buy into his madness, as insane and far-fetched as it is by the end of this series.

As always, my rapid-fire Honorable Mentions:

20. CODA (Apple TV+)

19. The Harder They Fall (Netflix)

18. Judas and the Black Messiah (HBOMax)

17. Dune (VOD)

16. The Green Knight (VOD)

15. The Suicide Squad (HBOMax)

14. Titane (VOD)

13. Red Rocket (In theaters)

12. Pig (Hulu)

11. Old (VOD)

And now! The top 10!

10. Spencer (VOD)

I wasn’t a huge fan of Larrain’s last biopic about a doomed woman in a political family, Jackie, and I’m very much over any residual amount of intrigue with the British royal family that I may have gleaned from my obsession with British TV in my formative teenage years. On top of that, I was extremely cynical about the casting of Kristen Stewart as Diana,but oh, man, is this an exquisite film. Spencer is beautifully shot, designed, and scored. Stewart may not look the part, but she nails the accent and affectations well enough to make you look past her appearance and fall in love with her performance as this fascinating character, warts and all. Spencer is something of a dark fairy tale with much more modern themes of mental health and paranoia. But hey, in Diana’s case, it’s not really paranoia if a family of insidious royals really are out to get you.

9. Minari (Showtime)

It says a lot that a film released in January which had already had its time in last year’s award season stayed on my list throughout the year. (Awards eligibility be damned, if the majority of the population can’t see the film until the following year, that’s where it lands for me.) Minari is a wonderful immigrant story about persevering in the face of so many odds in a country that seems dead-set against you, to the many ways life kicks us all when we’re already down. It’s both a comforting, warm hug and uniquely stressful throughout. Add onto that a wonderful ensemble cast, and you’ve got something special.

8. C’mon C’mon (In theaters)

…Speaking of comforting family movies, Mike Mills’s C’mon C’mon is also the cream of the crop. By contrasting the overwhelming dread that the latest generation of kids faces daily with the beautifully messy dynamics of a modern family, Mills tries to bridge the generational gap and show that, deep down, all those fears and anxieties we all have come from the same place: love. We all fear the future, but a film like this can make us feel brave enough to keep moving forward.

7. Licorice Pizza (In theaters)

Paul Thomas Anderson’s previous film is one of my all-time favorites, so I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed with Licorice Pizza upon my first viewing. It’s a rambling hangout film, much closer in vibe to his earlier work than something like Phantom Thread. On a second watch, what first seemed a little formless to me began to solidify into something lovely and relatable. It’s a tale of an adult who’s emotionally stuck in her teenage years and a teen who’s basically already a shady used car salesman meeting somewhere in the middle, at the unclear turning point where we all turn from children into adults. It’s lovingly made and thoroughly entertaining, aside from the cringe-worthy misfire of a racism joke that needed to be handled much more delicately than it was. Overall, though, I adore that PTA finally got to make his Demme film, as the influences of Melvin and Howard and Something Wild echo throughout as does both directors’ shared love of humanity’s inherent messiness.

6. West Side Story (In theaters)

Oh, man, y’all. This is everything that’s special about movies slapped together with a classic musical. Spielberg gives this film his all, and it shows. It has some of the best shots and visuals of the year (unfortunately, many do include Ansel Elgort’s existence), and, man, is there a better rush than watching a bunch of folks absolutely nail complicated choreography with passion emanating in every move and note of music? I’ve never understood holding grudges against the entire genre of musicals, and that feeling was confirmed even further as I teared up watching this. Not out of actual emotional attachment to yet another retelling of Romeo and Juliet, but at watching something so lovely and so passionate be made in a moviemaking climate where most big budget projects are part of some kind of cinematic universe.

5. Inside (Netflix)

I’ve already written on Bo Burnham’s latest special for TFS, but it’s still one of my favorites of the year. I’ve rewatched this seminal COVID film the most of anything on this list. I’ve found it deeply comforting to revisit and remind myself that so many people are feeling that same frustration and exhaustion as me. Yes, Bo Burnham was way up there in my Spotify Wrapped; yes, that’s indicative of how deeply the pandemic has affected my mental health; no, I don’t feel that it’s bad or shameful the way some on the Internet have implied. In a world where our human connection is still much more limited than it once was, connecting emotionally the way this special allows is vital and critical. I’m grateful this exists. 

4. The Power of the Dog (Netflix)

Campion’s slow burning anti-Western is a thing of beauty with perfectly balanced tension. Ari Wegner’s cinematography captures the beauty and danger of the nature that surrounds the characters. A career-best Benedict Cumberbatch brings menace and toxicity to this tale of masculinity and repression. Jonny Greenwood’s third score of 2021 (and third score on this very list) is perfectly haunting and grating. There’s so much to love and dig into here, including a turn near the end that made me gasp. This was my first experience with Campion, and I can’t wait to check out the rest of her work. 

3. Annette (Amazon Prime)

In direct contrast with Spielberg’s vibrant-yet-traditional take on the movie musical I wrote about earlier, we’ve got Leos Carax and Sparks breaking out of that mold with one of the most challenging and controversial films of the year. Obviously, I’m firmly on the “this movie rules” side of the debate. Annette is a wild, meta adventure for which no amount of attention-grabbing headlines can possibly prepare you. (Yeah, Adam Driver sings to a baby puppet and has musical sex scenes, but his rap about the zygomatic muscle or pretending to be tickled to death on stage are both, honestly, much more jarring and unexpected moments.) If you’re on board with Sparks’s repetitive lyrical style and Carax’s disarming filmmaking, you’re in for a real treat here. If not, well, good luck making it all the way through to the profound, satisfying ending.

2. The Matrix Resurrections (HBOMax & in theaters)

Ah, yes, another controversial film that’s made its way high up my top ten of the year. I, for one, enjoy having fun, so I know that this movie rules. The action isn’t as clean as the original, but it’s miles above any I’ve seen in recent memory. The cast is tons of fun: Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss are back on their A-game, Neil Patrick Harris and Jonathan Groff are having a ball, Jessica Henwick is a star, and the supporting cast is full of familiar faces from Sense8, which is a fun bonus for Wachowski die-hards like me. This film has big Speed Racer energy, as it adapts a piece of source material to now tell a wildly different story. Like her previous film, Wachowski’s latest is so many things: a romance, an action film, a love letter to family, and an artist’s meta manifesto on the current cinematic landscape. Most importantly, though, it’s a masterpiece.

1. Drive My Car (In theaters)

It’s hard to even know where to start in describing Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour opus. Despite what may look like a bloated runtime at first glance, it’s riveting and economically made, especially considering the scale of the themes it’s trying to capture. The film flows like water from scene to scene and almost seems to breathe like a living thing. Each moment is riveting and entrancing, making it impossible to tear your eyes from something that would, frankly, be pretty damn boring in the hands of a lesser filmmaker. The film and the plays within it are meditations on loss, guilt, and the contradictions in each and every one of us that make us the complicated human beings we are. The multilingual theatre scenes are fascinating and profound, culminating with a scene from Uncle Vanya that left me hunched over with my head in my hands, questioning the way I live my life. As all certifiable masterpieces do, Drive My Car left me reeling, dumbfounded, yet fully sated and affirmed somewhere deep within my soul.