Top 10 of 2021

By /

*Click on the ‘Lists & Logs’ tab to see lists from previous years.

This list will be updated each time I see a film from 2021 (world premiere/imdb date) that is better than at least one of the films already on the list.

  1. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
  2. France (Bruno Dumont)
  3. The Tsugua Diaries (Miguel Gomes & Maureen Fazendeiro)
  4. Rock Bottom Riser (Fern Silva)
  5. First Time — The Time for All but Sunset [Violet] (Nicolaas Schmidt)
  6. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)
  7. The Souvenir Part II (Joanna Hogg)
  8. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (Alexandre Koberidze)
  9. Red Rocket (Sean Baker)
  10. Un monde flottant (Jean-Claude Rousseau)

 

Polls Top 10 (Eligible titles appear here.)

  1. Memoria (2021, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
  2. France (2021, Bruno Dumont)
  3. Her Socialist Smile (2020, John Gianvito)
  4. Fauna (2020, Nicolás Pereda)
  5. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)
  6. The Souvenir Part II (2021, Joanna Hogg)
  7. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021, Alexandre Koberidze)
  8. Days (2020, Tsai Ming-liang)
  9. Red Rocket (2021, Sean Baker)
  10. Bergman Island (2021, Mia Hansen-Løve)

 

My Top 10 Discoveries During 2021 (for first-time viewings of films made before 2010)

  1. Twin Peaks (1977, Al Wong)
  2. Dressed to Kill (1980, Brian De Palma)
  3. The Sugarland Express (1974, Steven Spielberg)
  4. RoboCop (1987, Paul Verhoeven)
  5. De son appartement (2007, Jean-Claude Rousseau)
  6. Homework (1989, Abbas Kiarostami)
  7. La vallée close (1995, Jean-Claude Rousseau)
  8. The Seventh Continent (1989, Michael Haneke)
  9. Funniest Show on Earth (1953, Mario Mattoli)
  10. The Bridges of Madison County (1995, Clint Eastwood)

 

Other 2021 films I’ve seen

  • Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve) – 7.0
  • Saxifrages, Four White Nights (Nicolas Klotz & Elisabeth Perceval) – 7.0
  • Who’s Stopping Us (Jonás Trueba) – 6.9
  • Mr. Bachmann and His Class (Maria Speth) – 6.9
  • Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson) – 6.8
  • Vortex (Gaspar Noé) – 6.8
  • The Girl and the Spider (Ramon Zürcher) – 6.8
  • The Beatles: Get Back (Peter Jackson) – 6.7
  • Ready Mix (Lucy Raven) – 6.7
  • The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier) – 6.7
  • The Card Counter (Paul Schrader) – 6.6
  • Introduction (Hong Sang-soo) – 6.6
  • Teenage Emotions (Frédéric Da) – 6.5
  • The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet (Ana Katz) – 6.5
  • Wood and Water (Jonas Bak) – 6.5
  • The Good Woman of Sichuan (Sabrina Zhao) – 6.5
  • El Planeta (Amalia Ulman) – 6.4
  • El Gran Movimiento (Kiro Russo) – 6.4
  • Petite Maman (Céline Sciamma) – 6.4
  • Old (M. Night Shyamalan) – 6.4
  • from Bakersfield to Mojave (James Benning) – 6.4
  • Hit the Road (Panah Panahi) – 6.4
  • Friends and Strangers (James Vaughan) – 6.3
  • Annette (Leos Carax) – 6.3
  • Full Time (Éric Gravel) – 6.3
  • Fabian, or Going to the Dogs (Dominik Graf) – 6.3
  • Ghost Song (Nicolas Peduzzi) – 6.3
  • Moon, 66 Questions (Jacqueline Lentzou) – 6.2
  • Onoda (Arthur Harari) – 6.2
  • Drive My Car (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi) – 6.1
  • Third Grade (Jacques Doillon) – 6.1
  • Mr. Landsbergis (Sergei Loznitsa) – 6.1
  • No Sudden Move (Steven Soderbergh) – 6.1
  • Topology of Sirens (Jonathan Davies) – 6.1
  • Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven) – 6.1
  • Come Here (Anocha Suwichakornpong) – 6.0
  • Titane (Julia Ducournau) – 6.0
  • Prayers for the Stolen (Tatiana Huezo) – 6.0
  • A Chiara (Jonas Carpignano) – 6.0
  • Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude) – 5.9
  • In Front of Your Face (Hong Sang-soo) – 5.9
  • Ste. Anne (Rhayne Vermette) – 5.9
  • Drift Away (Xavier Beauvois) – 5.9
  • Belle (Mamoru Hosoda) – 5.9
  • We (Alice Diop) – 5.9
  • Pebbles (P.S. Vinothraj) – 5.9
  • Ahed’s Knee (Nadav Lapid) – 5.8
  • We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Jane Schoenbrun) – 5.8
  • Searchers (Pacho Velez) – 5.8
  • All Light, Everywhere (Theo Anthony) – 5.8
  • The Crusade (Louis Garrel) – 5.7
  • Double Wow (Ken Jacobs) – 5.7
  • Haruhara-san’s Recorder (Kyoshi Sugita) – 5.7
  • The Tale of King Crab (Alessio Rigo de Righi & Matteo Zoppis) – 5.7
  • Întregalde (Radu Muntean) – 5.6
  • Kinorama – Beyond the Walls of the Real (Edgar Pêra) – 5.6
  • A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces (Shengze Zhu) – 5.6
  • Neptune Frost (Saul Williams & Anisia Uzeyman) – 5.6
  • Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodóvar) – 5.6
  • The Inventory Will Be Drawn Up at 11 a.m. in the Presence of the Poet’s Wife (Martin Verdet) – 5.6
  • Petite Solange (Axelle Ropert) – 5.6
  • The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal) – 5.5
  • Azor (Andreas Fontana) – 5.5
  • The Cathedral (Ricky D’Ambrose) – 5.5
  • Futura (Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi, & Alice Rohrwacher) – 5.5
  • A Glitch in the Matrix (Rodney Ascher) – 5.5
  • Unclenching the Fists (Kira Kovalenko) – 5.5
  • From Where They Stood (Christophe Cognet) – 5.5
  • Zeros and Ones (Abel Ferrara) – 5.4
  • For Lucio (Pietro Marcello) – 5.4
  • The Beta Test (Jim Cummings & PJ McCabe) – 5.4
  • Terra Femme (Courtney Stephens) – 5.4
  • Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (Edwin) – 5.4
  • Nitram (Justin Kurzel) – 5.4
  • Cryptozoo (Dash Shaw) – 5.4
  • Black Notebooks [Ronit] (Shlomi Elkabetz) – 5.4
  • Social Hygiene (Denis Côté) – 5.4
  • The Matrix Resurrections (Lana Wachowski) – 5.4
  • Babi Yar. Context (Sergei Loznitsa) – 5.4
  • Pig (Michael Sarnoski) – 5.3
  • Drunken Birds (Ivan Grbovic) – 5.3
  • Passing (Rebecca Hall) – 5.3
  • Dirty Feathers (Carlos Alfonso Corral) – 5.3
  • Forest: I See You Everywhere (Bence Fliegauf) – 5.3
  • Outside Noise (Ted Fendt) – 5.2
  • Earwig (Lucile Hadžihalilović) – 5.2
  • The Invisible Mountain (Ben Russell) – 5.2
  • The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion) – 5.2
  • A Hero (Asghar Farhadi) – 5.2
  • The Velvet Underground (Todd Haynes) – 5.2
  • Happening (Audrey Diwan) – 5.2
  • Landscapes of Resistance (Marta Popivoda) – 5.2
  • I’m Your Man (Maria Schrader) – 5.1
  • Il Buco (Michelangelo Frammartino) – 5.1
  • Black Notebooks [Viviane] (Shlomi Elkabetz) – 5.1
  • Aloners (Hong Sung-eun) – 5.1
  • Atlantide (Yuri Ancarani) – 5.1
  • Tralala (Arnaud & Jean-Marie Larrieu) – 5.1
  • Jack’s Ride (Susana Nobre) – 5.1
  • Great Freedom (Sebastian Meise) – 5.0
  • Don’t Look Up (Adam McKay) – 5.0
  • Marx Can Wait (Marco Bellocchio) – 5.0
  • Returning to Reims [Fragments] (Jean-Gabriel Périot) – 5.0
  • Deception (Arnaud Desplechin) – 5.0
  • A Night of Knowing Nothing (Payal Kapadia) – 5.0
  • Bloodsuckers (Julian Radlmaier) – 5.0
  • Compartment No. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen) – 4.9
  • Malignant (James Wan) – 4.9
  • A Cop Movie (Alonso Ruizpalacios) – 4.9
  • The White Fortress (Igor Drljača) – 4.9
  • Censor (Prano Bailey-Bond) – 4.9
  • Prism (Eléonore Yameogo, An van. Dienderen, & Rosine Mbakam) – 4.8
  • Taming the Garden (Salomé Jashi) – 4.8
  • Reflection (Valentyn Vasyanovych) – 4.8
  • Dune: Part One (Denis Villeneuve) – 4.8
  • The Divide (Catherine Corsini) – 4.8
  • House Arrest (Alexey German Jr.) – 4.8
  • What Will Summer Bring (Ignacio Ceroi) – 4.8
  • Petrov’s Flu (Kirill Serebrennikov) – 4.7
  • The Scary of Sixty-First (Dasha Nekrasova) – 4.7
  • West Side Story (Steven Spielberg) – 4.7
  • The Green Knight (David Lowery) – 4.7
  • Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen) – 4.7
  • The Story of My Wife (Ildiko Enyedi) – 4.7
  • Let’s Say Revolution (Nicolas Klotz & Elisabeth Perceval) – 4.6
  • Garage: Engines and Men (Claire Simon) – 4.6
  • Pleasure (Ninja Thyberg) – 4.6
  • The Restless (Joachim Lafosse) – 4.6
  • Pilgrims (Laurynas Bareiša) – 4.6
  • Limbo (Soi Cheang) – 4.5
  • C’mon C’mon (Mike Mills) – 4.5
  • Mr. Kneff (Steven Soderbergh) – 4.5
  • The Last Duel (Ridley Scott) – 4.5
  • Jane by Charlotte (Charlotte Gainsbourg) – 4.5
  • Paris 13th District (Jacques Audiard) – 4.4
  • Casablanca Beats (Nabil Ayouch) – 4.4
  • Language Lessons (Natalie Morales) – 4.4
  • Sundown (Michel Franco) – 4.4
  • They Carry Death (Samuel M. Delgado & Helena Girón) – 4.3
  • Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright) – 4.3
  • Lamb (Valdimar Jóhannsson) – 4.3
  • Taste (Lê Bảo) – 4.3
  • Natural Light (Dénes Nagy) – 4.2
  • Three Floors (Nanni Moretti) – 4.2
  • Between Two Worlds (Emmanuel Carrère) – 4.2
  • Ski (Manque La Banca) – 4.1
  • The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (Wes Anderson) – 4.1
  • CODA (Siân Heder) – 4.1
  • Ali & Ava (Clio Barnard) – 4.1
  • The Tragedy of Macbeth (Joel Coen) – 4.1
  • Lingui (The Sacred Bonds) (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun) – 4.0
  • Just a Movement (Vincent Meessen) – 4.0
  • Benediction (Terence Davies) – 3.8
  • Everything Went Fine (François Ozon) – 3.8
  • The Innocents (Eskil Vogt) – 3.7
  • Cow (Andrea Arnold) – 3.6
  • Spencer (Pablo Larraín)– 3.6
  • The First 54 Years: An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation (Avi Mograbi) – 3.5
  • After Yang (Kogonada) – 3.4
  • After Blue (Paradis sale) (Bertrand Mandico) – 3.2
  • Hold Me Tight (Matheiu Amalric) – 3.1
  • Prisoners of the Ghostland (Sion Sono) – 3.1
  • Playground (Laura Wandel) – 2.9
  • Nuclear Family (Erin & Travis Wilkerson) – 2.9
  • Flag Day (Sean Penn) – 2.4