20. The Matrix Resurrections – Both an antidote to, and commentary on, big-budget franchise filmmaking, The Matrix Resurrections is a welcome return to the world of Neo and Trinity. I look forward to multiple viewings in the future, so I can sift through all of the layers and catch all the Easter eggs I missed the first time around.

19. The Suicide Squad – It’s entirely appropriate that one of the best, if not the best, filmmakers working in comicbook movies these days started out at Troma, an unapologetic purveyor of trashy schlock. Big, silly, hilarious, vulgar, and violent, The Suicide Squad is the perfect distillation of writer/director James Gunn’s sensibilities.

18. Nobody – Whoever it was that came up with the idea to turn one half of the Mr. Show sketch team into an action star, I salute you. Thanks to Better Call Saul, Bob Odenkirk’s dramatic chops are well-known, and now, thanks to Nobody – a Taken-esque flick about a seemingly ordinary guy who’s forced to unleash his special set of skills – we also know he can convincingly kick ass.

17. Judas and the Black Messiah – This true story about William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) being forced to infiltrate the Illinois Black Panther Party so the FBI can take out Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), its leader, makes for a compelling, powerful, and maddening narrative. Kaluuya’s ability to completely disappear into a character is remarkable (Stanfield’s is pretty good, too). I’m barely able to recognize him from film to film.

16. The Green Knight – Similar to David Lowery’s previous films (Pete’s Dragon, A Ghost Story, The Old Man & the Gun), The Green Knight’s stunning visuals and grounded performances combine into a beautiful evocation of the mythic and the quotidian.

15. No Sudden Move – Steven Soderbergh brings his always top-notch craft, his no-nonsense, economical storytelling, and his typically great casting (Don Cheadle and Benicio Del Toro, among others) to this crime thriller set in early-1950s Detroit.

14. Nine Days – This subtle otherworldly tale about some kind of pre-life way station, where applicants are judged on their potential suitability to become human, is a profoundly moving exploration of what it means to be alive.

13. Stillwater – Matt Damon plays a way-out-of-his-element/comfort zone Oklahoman roughneck who makes repeated extended visits to Marseille to visit, and, if he can, help out, his daughter who’s been imprisoned there for a murder she says she didn’t commit. The acting is exceptionally good, and I particularly appreciated the story’s unusual structure, which, after starting in medias res, goes in several unexpected directions.

12. The Climb – The whole single-take thing has become a bit of a tired conceit, but, like everything in life, there are always exceptions, and The Climb (a 2020 release not available in Canada until 2021), is one such instance where the employment of this showy technique legitimately enhances the material. Told in a series of bravura sequences/chapters, this often very funny movie is about two men (the stars are also two of the writers, and one of them is also the director) who fall out of and into, and out of and into, friendship.

11. King Richard – This biographical tale of tennis phenoms Venus and Serena Williams before they turned pro, with its big movie-star performance by Will Smith at its centre, is classic, crowd-pleasing, inspirational Hollywood filmmaking at its best.

10. Riders of Justice – The best kind of genre films lead you down what appears to be the standard genre path only to take a sharp right or left, or even reverse-step, when you least expect it. Riders of Justice is such a film. Seemingly a standard revenge movie starring Mads Mikkelsen as a gruff military vet whose wife is killed in an apparent bomb attack, Riders of Justice, to my continual delight, never did what I expected it to do. It’s also got an exceptional cast of supporting characters.

9. Promising Young Woman – Promising Young Woman (technically a 2020 release, but I wasn’t able to watch it until 2021), with its pop music soundtrack, bubblegum-coloured production design, and slew of great performances, most notably its central one by Carey Mulligan, is another great, genre-subverting revenge movie that, given its unpleasant subject matter, writer/director Emerald Fennel makes far more entertaining than it really has any right to be.

8. The French Dispatch – Wes Anderson’s gloriously/insanely-detailed, meticulously created tale of a New Yorker-esque magazine is told through four, essentially stand-alone shorts.

7. Dune – It is truly mind-boggling that, as a species, our storytelling abilities have gone from cave paintings and shadow plays on walls to cinematic world-building that is as realistic and wholly immersive as is Dennis Villeneuve’s Dune.

6. The Card Counter – Paul Schrader’s film about a poker player (played by Oscar Isaac) with a troubled past is, due to both Schrader’s precise direction and Isaac’s riveting screen presence, mesmerizing.

5. Tick, tick… BOOM! – Lin-Manuel Miranda’s adaption of the titular musical/celebration of Jonathan Larson (the titular-musical’s creator), and overall homage to musical theatre, was easily the most joyous, most smile-inducing viewing experience I had in 2021. Andrew Garfield has never been better as he is here playing Larson.

4. The Lost Daughter – This flashback-heavy, female-centric drama about motherhood won’t work for a lot of people. It takes a while for the narrative through-lines to emerge, and the lead character (played by Olivia Colman in the present and Jessie Buckley in flashbacks) makes some uncomfortably complicated decisions, but if you give yourself over to it as I did, you’ll be greatly rewarded.

3. The Last Duel – Director Ridley Scott has publicly expressed his frustration with The Last Duel’s tepid box office performance. Now, having finally seen it (on VOD), I understand why, as this is easily one of the best movies he’s ever made (for the record, Thelma & Louise is still my favourite of his). Told in three, Rashoman-like chapters, The Last Duel is a (mostly, depending upon whose point of view the narrative is favouring) true story about, well, the last judicial duel to take place in France, which is so prompted after the knight Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) hears that his wife has allegedly been raped by his one-time friend Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver). Everything about this production – the script (by Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener), the direction, the production design, the acting, the period details, the battle scenes, especially the eponymous duel – is executed with the highest degree of craft and skill.

2. Pig – This is kind of like if John Wick was directed by, oh, I don’t know, Paul Schrader. It’s also a perfect example of Roger Ebert’s famous saying that “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” Pig is about a man who goes on a mission to retrieve his beloved truffle-finding pig after it’s been stolen from him. What it’s really about, though, is so, so much more.

1. Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itself – Few shows I’ve ever experienced in any medium have ever affected me as much as Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itself did. When I watched this Frank Oz-directed presentation of DelGaudio’s one-man Broadway magic show/autobiographical confessional for the first time in early 2021, I was moved to tears. Back then, I thought for sure it would be the best thing I’d watch all year. But then a lot of other great stuff came along, so I figured I should give it a re-watch to see if it still held up. Not only did it hold up, it somehow became even more powerful on second viewing, which, given I was no longer surprised by any of the show’s myriad surprises and reveals, is a testament to this work of (in my mind) legit genius.