Jenna's Top Ten Movies of 2021

If I bet you $50 that 2021 never actually happened and it’s actually January 2021 right now, would you take it? While I’m still trying to wrap my head around the bizarre whirlwind that was last year – a year I remember in great, vague detail – I gotta admit it was a pretty killer year for movies. Everything that was pushed from 2020 arrived, along with a host of 2021-slated films, leaving viewers with a positive plethora of perfect pictures (, moving). I even managed to get back to movie theaters for a brief wondrous moment! I started with the premiere of Titane at New York Film Festival, a movie that I apparently deemed worthy of risking it all for but hemmed and hawed about putting on my top ten list.

Actually my favorite theater viewings this year were two North American cult films – a 20th anniversary screening of The American Astronaut (2001) with Cory McAbee in person, and a special screening of John Paizs’ own print of Crime Wave (1985) with its original not-seen-since-its-premiere ending! Incidentally, I also watched and enjoyed Sam Raimi’s Crimewave (1985) earlier in the year, during a whirlwind of Raimi rewatches that helped inspire my keychain included in Back Row’s 2021 Patreon swag.

Oh you know what else happened this past year, I put my money where my mouth is and wrote a piece for Bright Wall/Dark Room about the fascinating partnership between Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin – an essay I promise is way more interesting than you’d expect and requires no prior knowledge. Please give it a read when you have several minutes and let thoughts about them haunt you like they’ve haunted me for years.

But anyhow, new movies I watched and enjoyed. Well, I’ll tell you off the bat I haven't yet seen Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley or West Side Story because of the omicron menace. Or House of Gucci or, heck, the new Spiderman or anything else that came out in the past few months. Of movies that critics seem to adore that I was totally disappointed by you can toss in Drive My Car, The Worst Person in the World, Annette, and Pig. Feel free to click on those to read why, but let’s not dwell, there’s enough sadness in the world.

In truth, my favorite new release watches this year were absolutely Peter Jackson’s Get Back (I watched all eight hours of as quickly as I could despite its frankly ugly Deep-Dream-esque visual treatment) and then Zachary Heinzerling’s McCartney 3, 2,1 – both of which focus on the absolute magic that can be achieved through highly skilled creative collaboration. It’s a true high, the likes of which has the power to resonate and intoxicate throughout decades and generations… And that’s just me describing young Paul McCartney’s face! [rimshot] Okay, I’ll stop,

BUT, I made the executive decision to leave both of those off this here movie list. Mostly because they’re technically documentary series, but also because there was just so much to like this year why fall back on technicalities. (Speaking of, definitely watch Anne at 13,000 Ft. which got a theatrical release in the US this past year.) So let’s just dive right into the best of the best:

1) The French Dispatch (2021, dir. Wes Anderson)

Look I’m as surprised as you are because while I consider myself a fan of Wes Anderson, I’ve never found myself much in line with ‘Wes Anderson fans.’ I don’t love Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums and, frankly, I find all of his love stories to be off-putting. So maybe that’s why I was so enamored with The French Dispatch, a movie that purposefully utilizes Wes Anderson’s trademark self-awareness to a specific purpose; structurally mirroring the experience of reading an enthralling newsmagazine. You dip in and out of these characters’ worlds just long enough to get a feel for their interests, a sense of their personalities, and a desire to know how it all ends up. Then you’re pulled right out and left to simmer with all that went by unsaid – not only by the people in the articles, but also by the author telling us the story, or the editor helping to shape their words.

Throw in the absolutely entrancing visuals, from its playful homages to French cinema to that stunning tracking shot – plus the rush of this having been the second movie I saw in theaters in a year and a half – it was a showstopper for me. Read my full review here.

2) The Power of the Dog (2021, dir. Jane Campion)

Have you noticed how much moms love Power of the Dog? I am not a mom but boy do I love watching machismo posturing pieces of shit get laid bare for the world to gaze upon their deepest insecurities. Toss in a dead-eyed murderer with a soft touch, and this movie really is catering to Big Mom Energy. Jane Campion sure perfected the balance between quietness and intensity, and paired with its beautiful cinematography, The Power of the Dog drew me in immediately.

I appreciated all of the subversion of tropes, from the audiences expectations down to its less than obvious casting choices. Everybody is great but Benedict Cumberbatch genuinely shines. That Campion manages to make his character so hate-able and knowable — an absolute awful phony who uses his extra brain cells solely to taunt and manipulate others in order to obscure his overt emotional wounds — and still gets you to sympathy for him by the end is nothing short of impressive.

Speaking of, I absolutely loved how on the nose the ending is, with Phil’s chosen weapon of oppression exposed as his weakness, his cage, and then subverted as his own personal executioner. Isn’t it fun when something is so of its era and yet parallels beautifully with the same shitty kind of guy we can’t ever seem to escape? Immediate Western cinematic classic, right at home with the rest of the counterculture cowboys.

3) Attica (2021, dir. Stanley Nelson Jr.)

I heard rumors that this documentary was intense but I don’t think I was quite prepared for what I saw. Told through interviews with ex-prisoners and children of guards held hostage, plus news footage and audio clips, Attica is so searingly depressing it will make you want to vomit.

I’ve long known the general story of the Attica prison riot but this was my first time seeing this amount of footage – including all of those absolutely haunting photographs after the brutal and terrifying police assault on these prisoners. What happened at Attica was positively inhumane, the most depraved war crime kind of shit, gifted from one American citizen to another. The debasement and torture these cops forced these prisoners through after swooping in and killing anything that moved (including the hostages they were sent to recover!) is astonishing. It’s hard to describe the intensity of emotion of even watching something like this other than just boiling rage and sadness.

While the last half hour of this documentary is positively jarring, the first half is as important and necessary to witness. The thoughtfulness and solidarity between the prisoners is in itself breathtaking to watch, the clarity of vision by those who stepped up to lead knowing full well it could be (and sadly was) the end of them if it doesn’t work out. I just dare anybody to watch this and not come away with at least some understanding of why we so desperately need prison reform. Let alone police reform. (Or abolishment!)

4) The Card Counter (2021, dir. Paul Schrader)

I’ve been trying to write something about The Card Counter ever since I saw it (twice!) but I’m having a hard time getting it down coherently for some reason.

So I guess I’ll just say I appreciated Schrader penning a well adjusted antihero for once, perhaps almost too well adjusted. William Tell’s easy smile, patience and openness seem completely at odds with everything the film tells us he is. Yet when Oscar Isaac is given permission to explore that dark side we all know exists under the otherwise bland artifice, suddenly everything in this film snaps into place. The scene in the hotel room where Bill gives Cirk an ultimatum is absolutely brilliantly put together – a sublime mix of the future Bill sees for this surrogate son, his PTSD and his true nature. Suddenly Cirk becomes an outlet for his pain transmuted into positive change, and delivered the only way he knows how; delivered in the one way he cannot change but has since learned how to steer in a storm.

I was impressed by the dubious morals of this entire film, the idea that you can’t really force others to do bad things just as you can’t force them onto the path of your enlightenment. There’s a welcome twist on Paul Schrader’s old obsession about defining and preserving a sense of internal balance – a spin so dark that it comes out almost searingly positive. More of this please, Paul.

5) Ich bin dein Mensch (2021, dir. Maria Schrader)

I’m Your Man is yet another film that’s 100% up my alley and I’m happy to report I enjoyed every moment of it. A grounded and career-oriented atheist, burned by romance too often to believe in it, gets set up to beta test the ethics of long term cohabitation with a romance-inclined android. The film is mostly awkward situations with Dan Stevens trying his best while Maren Eggert glares at him — it’s only until a run in with an ex that her jealousy fuels her to start at least using her robot companion for more than eye rolls. He also learns the values of dry humor.

It’s a thoughtful movie that does make an explicit judgment call on the ethics of its own concept (that I was fully on board with) but I kind of wish this went more philosophical and emotionally deeper way sooner than merely the final 15 or so minutes. That’s the meat of this movie more than the rom-com adjacent miscommunications. But as is, it’s a fun and sweet film that focuses more on loneliness and the concept of romance — that love is in itself a belief system and playing out your fantasies with somebody else who’s able to match your energy is what the games really all about. So bring on the hot British robots, I say. Ethics be damned.

6) Zola (2020, dir. Janicza Bravo)

Considering I already knew the entire story from its viral Twitter thread origins, I still found Zola to be surprisingly riveting — poignant, uncomfortable and most of all funny. The closest I can get to describing it is to say that it felt like the sort of film Mike Nichols would have made. High praise, but Janicza Bravo makes for a solid stand in, rethinking a series of tweets as a super focused character study that toys with terror and heartbreak, all the while keeping one whole foot in a self aware disbelief that borders on absurdity. Zola thrives directly in the middle of it all, at a place where, like it’s main character, you know you’re too smart to get lost this shit but you just can’t look away. And by then you’ve rubbernecked too long you end up stuck there anyhow.

I always like Riley Keough but Taylour Paige is absolutely a show stopper in this. Her expressions hold the entire emotional arc of this film, from disbelief to pure disgust to petrified stoicism in the face of genuine terror. What was meant to be something light and fun, sours almost immediately when Zola dares to wade into the long term reality behind it all. Via text, Stefani is perfect; as a brief interaction in a restaurant, Stefani is fun. But in real life, she’s a messy bitch! Who, beyond just being unintelligent in her decision making, is being terrorized in the day to day by her own self imposed limitations — her lack of self esteem and her clear love of hard boundaries manifest as a pimp who abuses and uses her.

It’s a portrait of characters stuck in an eternal loop, not unlike the end of Mad Men, or The Swimmer, or The Graduate and Carnal Knowledge. When Stefani says “You know I love you” she means it — Zola just knows better than to accept such a low, depressingly inadequate bar as the definition of ‘love.’

7) The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021, dir. Will Sharpe)

I’m just loving these unconventional biopics that have started to pop up in recent years! The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is one that both defies expectations and dazzles in both soundtrack and style.

I just love how director Will Sharpe used every aspect of this film to reinforce the main thematic focus here on connectivity and love. Even stronger in that it never dips into the overtly sentimental, allowing itself to get as dark as it needs to be but always trying to right the ship with the sort of unshakable optimism cats and electricity will provide to you. Read my full review here.

8) Memoria (2021, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

Gabriel García Márquez turned Colombia into the land of magical realism and that’s exactly what Memoria is having fun with. There’s plenty in the ‘slow cinema’ genre that I adore, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen somebody show such depth, mirth and mastery over the mundane as Apichatpong Weerasethakul. He can linger for ages on something as simple as a man napping by a river and make you feel things you thought were long buried; he can make the metallic sound of a large concrete ball falling into a metal well surrounded by sea water into an engaging mystery. I’m hard pressed to tell you how he does it, but his light touch is always present on his work.

The closest comparison I can think of is in Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse, also a film about a woman alienated by society and haunted by the idea that she’s strayed too far from nature. Yet Weerasethakul skirts the angst and instead focuses on how marvelous it is to be confronted with endless possibilities – truly beyond the boundaries of our minds – even if it is overwhelming. I look forward to this being more widely available so I can revisit it and realize it’s not actually about anything I thought it was about. In the meantime, I’ll spend more time digging into Weerasethakul’s previous works.

9) The Green Knight (2021, dir. David Lowery)

More knight movies! More Arthurian legends! I am so positively starved for competent modern fantasy films that I’m willing to overlook some of The Green Knight obvious missteps because I just love the straightforwardness of it all. Finally, a movie that doesn’t try and reinvent the wheel of an already perfectly entertaining story and instead focuses on just building up mystique and helping to modernize the method of delivery. I won’t say no to staring at an armor-clad Dev Patel wander around gorgeous vistas and staring longingly into the horizon. Heck, I’ll take the Green Knight too, he was cute.

Sure, it gets a bit self conscious – what with the million jazzy fonts and repetitive drone shots and fairly crummy CGI – but at the end of the day The Green Knight holds its ground as a straight forward tale about chivalry and tactical decision making. Like, when a tree guy says ”I’ll do the same as you do to me” maybe take him up on the scratch instead of getting insecure and taking off his whole head. Which is perhaps a lesson for David Lowery as much as Gawain.

10) Bad Trip (2021, dir. Kitao Sakurai)

Some critics would never prioritize a slapstick Jackass-like film over a glittering sea of interesting arthouse cinema but, uhhh, tough shit. Bad Trip made me laugh out loud multiple times and that’s all I ask. The “Maria” mall dance, the gorilla sex horror, the two-penis finger trap, the art gallery, Tiffany Haddish’s whole thing, the guy who pulled the knife on them because of the two-penis finger trap, the army recruitment meltdown – I could go on, but really, all golden.

Proud to report this was not the sort of movie that was spoiled entirely in its trailer, it has plenty to offer. That they managed to weave a simple but legitimate plot in between public stunts and pranks was an impressive feat of both writing and editing. As a long time fan of Eric André, this was just everything I wanted and more from an Eric André film.

Okay, actually I do want more, maybe even more surreal next time.

Honorable mentions: Dune, Titane, Last Night in Soho, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Agnes, In The Earth, The Velvet Underground, No Sudden Move, Spine of Night, Together Together.