The 30 best films of 2021

Anoth­er dif­fi­cult year draws to a close – but at least we’ve had plen­ty of great movies to see us through these past 12 months. Here are 30 of our favourites, fea­tur­ing the likes of Pedro Almod­ó­var, Paul Schrad­er, Jane Cam­pi­on, Céline Sci­amma and more. As always, we’ve only includ­ed titles released in the UK and US between Jan­u­ary 2021 and Jan­u­ary 2022. Let us know your per­son­al favourites by tweet­ing us @LWLies.

Pri­vate bank­ing mech­a­nisms in the 1970s is the back­drop to this ultra-sub­tle dra­ma in which a Swiss banker heads to Latin Amer­i­ca in search of his miss­ing – and pos­si­bly cor­rupt – part­ner. Andreas Fontana’s debut fea­ture remains cool under pres­sure while its habit­u­al­ly cau­tious lead char­ac­ter delves deep­er down a rab­bit hole that may actu­al­ly have no end. David Jenkins

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This Big Fat Jew­ish Funer­al is just too good to be Emma Seligman’s debut fea­ture. Rachel Sen­nott com­mands every frame as Danielle, a Jew­ish bisex­u­al col­lege stu­dent who awk­ward­ly nav­i­gates a fam­i­ly friend’s shi­va with her over­bear­ing par­ents. When she unex­pect­ed­ly runs into her sug­ar dad­dy and her ex-girl­friend amongst forced pleas­antries, what ensues is an anx­i­ety-laced claus­tro­pho­bic night­mare. It’s an intox­i­cat­ing indie gem burst­ing at the seams with razor-sharp pac­ing, edge-of-your-seat sus­pense and spot-on comedic tim­ing. Mari­na Ashioti

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Q: When is a music doc­u­men­tary more than a music doc­u­men­tary? A: When it’s the inside sto­ry of arguably the most influ­en­tial avant-garde art scene of the 20^th cen­tu­ry. In the reli­able hands of direc­tor Todd Haynes, the tit­u­lar rock group’s lega­cy is laid bare along with that of many of their era-defin­ing con­tem­po­raries, includ­ing Jonas Mekas, Mary Woronov and Andy Warhol. Insight­ful, rich­ly reward­ing, and a fine com­pan­ion piece to Haynes’ ear­ly films Vel­vet Gold­mine and I’m Not There. Adam Wood­ward

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While the premise of Rid­ley Scott’s medieval dra­ma gave some cause for con­cern, the result was some­thing quite dif­fer­ent. Jodie Com­er is the best she’s ever been as Mar­guerite de Car­rouges, a naïve noble­woman who under­goes a trau­mat­ic assault at the hands of her husband’s rival, Jacques le Gris (Adam Dri­ver). The Rashomon-style three-act struc­ture shows this from three sep­a­rate points of view, but Scott makes it clear that Marguerite’s ver­sion is the truth, and her strug­gle to find jus­tice is as har­row­ing as it is for con­tem­po­rary women. Bonus: Ben Affleck’s unhinged but delight­ful per­for­mance as local over­lord, Count Pierre d’Alençon. Han­nah Strong

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Joel Coen going solo to stage one of Shakespeare’s best-known and most-per­formed plays doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense on paper – until you clock the star names sit­ting atop the bill. Den­zel Wash­ing­ton – a lit­tle bulki­er than usu­al; beard flecked with white – is impe­ri­ous as the Thane of Caw­dor, while Frances McDor­mand gives us a Lady Mac­beth for the ages. The Tragedy of Mac­beth is a bold reimag­in­ing that marks an excit­ing new chap­ter for this great Amer­i­can film­mak­er. The king is dead. Long live the king. AW

In UK cin­e­mas 26 Decem­ber, 2021

Nev­er count Nico­las Cage out. While he’s become some­what infa­mous for his bouts of on-screen ​‘Cage Rage’ in recent years, occa­sion­al­ly he turns in a per­for­mance as good as any he gave dur­ing his ​’90s hey­day; Michael Sarnoski’s Pig is tes­ta­ment to that. An out­stand­ing debut about a truf­fle hunter liv­ing in the Ore­gon wilder­ness whose beloved pig is abduct­ed, the film defies all expec­ta­tions to become a lyri­cal, qui­et­ly dev­as­tat­ing sto­ry of loss and redemp­tion. HS

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As some­one who suf­fers from mild tin­ni­tus from years of drum­ming in bands and lis­ten­ing to live music with­out ample ear pro­tec­tion, it’s safe to say this under­stat­ed dra­ma from first-time direc­tor Dar­ius Marder, about a stick­man who tem­porar­i­ly los­es his hear­ing, struck a chord. Riz Ahmed is excep­tion­al as Ruben, a young man bat­tling addic­tion along­side his sud­den deaf­ness, and vet­er­an sup­port­ing actor Paul Raci is equal­ly com­pelling as the alco­hol coun­sel­lor who uses ASL to teach Ruben the deep­er mean­ing of human com­mu­ni­ca­tion. AW

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Hav­ing grown weary of the Israeli occu­pa­tion, direc­tor Elia Suleiman’s alter ego ES leaves his home in Pales­tine and sets out on a wry­ly humor­ous world tour in search of fund­ing for his next film. Tatiesque sight gags pair mar­vel­lous­ly with his broad yet point­ed lam­poon­ing of nation­al cul­tures, such as an Amer­i­can gro­cery store where soc­cer moms tote AK-47s. Casu­al­ly scathing and unfail­ing­ly fun­ny (of the ha-ha vari­ety!), it’s also a cru­cial polit­i­cal doc­u­ment. Charles Bramesco

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Many films have attempt­ed to cap­ture the refugee expe­ri­ence, but none as inven­tive­ly – or humor­ous­ly – as Ben Sharrock’s debut fea­ture Lim­bo. Per the title, it con­cerns a young Syr­i­an musi­cian named Omar (Amir El-Mas­ry) who winds up on a remote Scot­tish island after seek­ing asy­lum. As Omar awaits his fate, Shar­rock takes sev­er­al gen­tle but pre­cise digs at British bureau­cra­cy and the cul­tur­al xeno­pho­bia that lies at the root of our nation­al iden­ti­ty. Aki Kau­ris­mä­ki eat your heart out. AW

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A Christ­mas Eve encounter with a mys­te­ri­ous tree-man sends Dev Patel’s aim­less young knight on the quest of a life­time in David Lowery’s stun­ning fan­ta­sy dra­ma. The direc­tor has proven a rare abil­i­ty to turn his hand to a vari­ety of gen­res, but the ambi­tious scale of The Green Knight solid­i­fies it as one of Lowery’s best efforts to date. Add in some lush scenery, a com­pelling turn from Patel, and mus­ings on what makes a man, and you’ve got a myth­i­cal adven­ture for the ages. HS

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A Bucharest schoolteacher’s sex tape leak ignites a pow­der keg of con­tro­ver­sy in Radu Jude’s splen­did­ly obscene satire of a Roma­nia gripped by reac­tionar­ies. With sto­ic hilar­i­ty, her defi­ance reaf­firms that in a soci­ety of repres­sion, fuck­ing is the last thing that pos­es a real threat to the sta­tus quo. (It should per­haps be men­tioned that the film opens with a lengthy, enthu­si­as­tic pro­logue of unsim­u­lat­ed inter­course.) CB

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Elec­tri­fy­ing from its open­ing frame to its last, deb­bie tuck­er green’s sec­ond fea­ture as direc­tor chan­nels her the­atri­cal roots more open­ly while ful­ly embrac­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the cam­era. Tack­ling racism and oppres­sion in all its guis­es, its pièce de résis­tance is a minia­ture two-han­der at the mid-point in which seman­tic pow­er plays are lev­elled against an inquis­i­tive stu­dent by her truth-twist­ing pro­fes­sor. DJ

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The vital Irish film­mak­ing duo Chris­tine Mol­loy and Joe Lawlor return with this icy, moral­ly duplic­i­tous thriller in which a young orphaned woman attempts to attain clar­i­ty about her parent­age, and ends up dis­cov­er­ing some excep­tion­al­ly shady shit. This is, in many ways, a rape-revenge movie turned inside-out and back-to-front, with its care­ful­ly cal­i­brat­ed bursts of vio­lence and a shock end­ing that sticks in the craw. DJ

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Tak­ing a sharp knife to the throat of Thatch­erism and the social con­ser­vatism that pre­vailed in Britain dur­ing the 1980s, Pra­no Bailey-Bond’s Cen­sor suc­cess­ful­ly skew­ers the fusty prac­tice of film cen­sor­ship while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly rais­ing the pulse with its post­mod­ern tale of emo­tion­al trau­ma and casu­al work­place sex­ism. One of this year’s out­stand­ing debut fea­tures, anchored by a stun­ning cen­tral per­for­mance by ris­ing star Niamh Algar. Expect big things from both in the near future. AW

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When it comes to emo­tion­al por­traits of fam­i­lies under­go­ing peri­ods of tur­bu­lence, nobody does it bet­ter than Mike Mills. His fourth fea­ture, shot in black-and-white, is ded­i­cat­ed to his own child, and focus­es on the rela­tion­ship that devel­ops between John­ny (Joaquin Phoenix) and his young nephew Jesse (Woody Nor­man) when the pair are unex­pect­ed­ly brought togeth­er due to a fam­i­ly cri­sis. While Phoenix deliv­ers one of his best per­for­mances in years, it’s 11-year-old Nor­man who steals the show, as the wise-beyond-his-years kid who gives his uncle pause for thought. HS

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Shock hor­ror! Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch deliv­ers a good per­for­mance in a movie. Well, a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day… Prob­a­bly helped that Jane Cam­pi­on was behind the tiller for this moody, painstak­ing­ly wrought psy­cho­log­i­cal west­ern adapt­ed from Thomas Savage’s 1967 nov­el of the same name. Come for the pre­ci­sion-tooled take­down of male egos and enti­tle­ment, stay for some of the most gor­geous and atmos­pher­ic cin­e­matog­ra­phy this year. MA

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The smart mon­ey says Olivia Col­man is set for anoth­er full sweep this awards sea­son – but it’s Jessie Buck­ley who qui­et­ly steals the show in Mag­gie Gyllenhaal’s first stint in the director’s chair. Adap­ta­tion from Ele­na Ferrante’s 2006 nov­el of the same name, The Lost Daugh­ter sees Buckley/​Colman play a woman reck­on­ing with the con­se­quences of her deci­sions; the for­mer in flash­back and the lat­ter in the present day while on hol­i­day in Europe. This beau­ti­ful­ly com­posed char­ac­ter study is proof that life is no beach – espe­cial­ly when you’re a young moth­er. AW

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The year’s most sen­su­al film by a coun­try mile, Tsai Ming-liang’s near-word­less study of a man (Lee Kang-sheng) who has a bit of a stiff neck, so goes to seek a male masseuse and ends up in an erot­ic clinch. This is anoth­er of the director’s slow cin­e­ma spec­ta­cles, where the dura­tion of the shots com­bined with the immer­sive­ness of the per­for­mances coa­lesce into some­thing sub­lime and mov­ing. DJ

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For many film­mak­ers, this feels like it could’ve been a dashed-off quick­ie between ​“prop­er” projects – a bare­ly-70 minute mood piece in which a pre-teen girl goes through a time warp and inter­acts with her moth­er when she was that age. But not for Céline Sci­amma, as this is one of her finest films to date, a whis­pered med­i­ta­tion on nos­tal­gia, child­hood and a fear of grow­ing old. Some referred to it as a ​“live-action My Neigh­bour Totoro”, and they’re not far off to be hon­est. MA

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We may not real­ly under­stand what it was like to expe­ri­ence the ​“trip” of 2001: A Space Odyssey back in 1968, but Thai direc­tor Apichat­pong Weerasethakul has upped sticks to Colum­bia with Til­da Swin­ton in tow, and his new film Memo­ria attempts to repli­cate that feel­ing of pure spir­i­tu­al tran­scen­dence. Have a quadru­ple espres­so before you go to see it, but def­i­nite­ly go and see it in the cin­e­ma. DJ

In UK cin­e­mas 14 Jan­u­ary, 2022

Denis Vil­leneuve won’t set­tle for any­thing less than the man­tle of the next great adven­ture fran­chise in his gar­gan­tu­an adap­ta­tion of Frank Herbert’s sem­i­nal sci-fi nov­els. Cho­sen one Paul Atrei­des, played by Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met in irrefutable proof that he’s one of the last true movie stars, must bring peace to a galaxy at war while avoid­ing the giant sand worms that want to gob­ble him up – a mis­sion whisk­ing him through one mar­vel of pro­duc­tion design after the next. DJ

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Return­ing to the big screen in pre­dictably sin­gu­lar style, Leos Carax gift­ed us a musi­cal extrav­a­gan­za care of his col­lab­o­ra­tion with musi­cal duo Sparks. Adam Dri­ver deliv­ers a per­for­mance for the ages as bad boy come­di­an Hen­ry McHen­ry, who must raise his gift­ed daugh­ter Annette while hid­ing a deep, dark secret. Of course it’s a divi­sive film (we wouldn’t expect any­thing less from Carax and Sparks) but unde­ni­ably one of the most inven­tive and absurd things you’re like­ly to see this year. HS

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The sheer pow­er that radi­ates from the screen while watch­ing Questlove’s Sum­mer of Soul is enough to pow­er an out­door music fes­ti­val in Harlem. This elec­tri­fy­ing con­cert movie pieces togeth­er from footage of 1969 Harlem Cul­tur­al Fes­ti­val which was – crim­i­nal­ly – reject­ed by all out­lets at the time, and con­tains bone-rat­tling sets from Sly and the Fam­i­ly Stone, Ste­vie Won­der, The Sta­ples Singers and – as the grand finale – Nina Simone, who sass­es the whole park into parox­ysms of joy. DJ

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This ele­giac decon­struc­tion of the mod­ern fam­i­ly also draws in pierc­ing insights on the real­i­ties of liv­ing and work­ing as a Kore­an expat in Amer­i­ca. Steven Yeun excels as the patri­arch who just wants to start a suc­cess­ful farm in Kansas, and while the ele­ments are often against him, his soul­ful dri­ve towards hap­pi­ness helps to pull him and the fam through. Kid per­for­mance of the year. DJ

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Joan­na Hogg turns inward twice over in this sequel to her auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal 2019 film, as her on-screen avatar sets out to make what essen­tial­ly amounts to the first Sou­venir. But Hogg tones down the metafic­tion­al jig­gery-pok­ery to focus on the mat­u­ra­tion of a bud­ding woman and artist, sam­pling sex­u­al part­ners and fig­ur­ing out how to run a set with the same wan­ing uncer­tain­ty. With a stun­ner of a final shot, it’s the ide­al amend­ment to the millennium’s great­est movie fran­chise. CB

In UK cin­e­mas 21 Jan­u­ary, 2022

Con­tin­u­ing his return to form which start­ed with First Reformed, Paul Schrad­er teams up with Oscar Isaac for this haunt­ing por­trait of an ex-sol­dier who leaves prison and turns to gam­bling only to dis­cov­er he can’t quite shake his dark past. It’s an aus­tere, metic­u­lous ren­der­ing of a very bad man – some­thing Schrad­er spe­cialis­es in – with one of Isaac’s finest act­ing turns to date, rumi­nat­ing on notions of guilt, revenge, and whether or not there’s any such thing as abso­lu­tion. HS

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Pedro Almod­ó­var revis­its one of his career’s foun­da­tion­al themes with a recent­ly devel­oped air of the ele­giac in this paean to moth­er­hood, in all its exis­ten­tial pro­fun­di­ty. Pené­lope Cruz gives one of the year’s finest per­for­mances as a woman ready to raise a child on her own, only to find the preg­nant teen she met in the hos­pi­tal drift­ing back into her life. Their poet­ic, soul-deep con­nec­tion teas­es out fresh insights on the inse­cu­ri­ties and neu­roses inher­ent to mould­ing anoth­er human being. CB

In UK cin­e­mas 28 Jan­u­ary, 2022

A thrilling three-hour jour­ney into the mind of a depres­sive the­atre direc­tor whose wife sud­den­ly dies before she can reveal a secret about her life. Based on Haru­ki Murakami’s short sto­ry of the same name, this is the film that con­firms writer/​director Ryū­suke Ham­aguchi is the world-class tal­ent we all thought he was when see­ing 2015’s epic Hap­py Hour. DJ

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Two young not-quite-lovers – he’s a 15-year-old actor/​entrepreneur, she’s in her mid-twen­ties and not sure what to do – come of age sep­a­rate­ly and togeth­er in ​’70s SoCal. Paul Thomas Ander­son charts their unusu­al yet inti­mate bond through a series of com­ic episodes as astute about these kids’ dumb, beau­ti­ful behav­iour as their trans­for­ma­tive time and place, a moment of oil short­ages, strip-mall sushi, and legalised pin­ball. CB

In UK cin­e­mas 7 Jan­u­ary, 2022

Julia Ducournau’s sec­ond fea­ture sees a young sociopath with inter­est­ing erot­ic ten­den­cies go on the lam, where she forms a curi­ous bond with a griev­ing fire­fight­er – but Titane is so much more than its log­line. An auda­cious sto­ry of love, loss and the desire to be accept­ed by anoth­er human being, Ducour­nau takes the absurd and makes it ten­der, cre­at­ing an uncon­ven­tion­al fam­i­ly out of the gore and gaso­line that made head­lines when she won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. HS

In UK cin­e­mas 31 Decem­ber, 2021