Best Film of 2021: Sales soar, box office take a hit, in hits from ‘Belfast’ to ‘West Side Story’
Still, there are movies that are important for a variety of reasons, some as much related to what they represent as the film itself, during what is clearly a period of film development and film evolution. .
How much premium content is there? As a pretty cool sign, the four films seriously considered for this list were shot in black and white: “Belfast,” “C’mon, C’mon,” “Passing,” and “The Tragedy of Macbeth.”
What made the cut? Let’s start with a group that nods to a genre that delivers quality beyond the box office:
‘Western Story’, ‘Mark, Mark… Boom!’ and ‘Above ‘
All three of these films may be up to individual standards, but the thrill of three stand-out musicals in a year was partially offset by their commercial struggles, with only “Tick, Tick” ” – Lin-Manuel Miranda’s impressive directorial debut – is without question the underperformance at the box office due to Netflix’s refusal to provide such data.
However, these films deserve credit in part for encouraging more of them, with the understanding that more bats will inevitably mean artistic and/or artistic strikes. financial, it’s “Annette” and “Dear Evan Hansen.”
‘Shang-Chi’ and ‘Legend of the Ten Rings‘ and ‘Encanto’
‘Coda’ and ‘Belfast’
‘Spider-Man: There’s No Way Home’
‘The Power of the Dog’
‘Licorice Pizza’
A lighthearted script by director Paul Thomas Anderson, looking back at life in LA’s San Fernando Valley in the 1970s, confirms a kind of VFX-based filmmaking. In that sense, despite the problematic aspects of its central relationship, the film stands out alongside less successful examples of that in 2021, including Wes’ “The French Dispatch” Anderson and “Nightmare Alley” by Guillermo del Toro.
‘Drive my car’
‘Escape’
In a year filled with great documentaries, it’s hard to think of a film that blends different genres more nimblely than this Danish film, which uses animation to tell the story of Amin Nawabi , who fled Afghanistan for Denmark with a small future as a gay young man raised under an oppressive regime.
Though used in part to obscure Amin’s identity, the animation adds a vivid and almost hypnotic quality to those memories, bringing the story together in a completely original way.
‘Summer of the soul’
‘Being a Ricardian’
An entertaining and creative look at genius Lucille Ball through an eventful week in the heyday of “I Love Lucy,” Aaron Sorkin’s film is presented here primarily as a rebuke to with the eccentric crowd protesting against casting before seeing the film. Arguing the film’s merits is all you want (and the reaction has certainly been mixed), but Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem’s performance as Lucy and Desi Arnaz is a reminder that it’s often wise not to. It is wise to remove the angry voices emerging from social networks.