2021 IN FILM

Of the 800+ titles I saw this year, these were my most favourite. A Top 30 & many many honorables. Also, my 2021 film ballot at the Wandering Image, highlighting the year's best in film by category.

30. THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

29.        AFFAIRS OF THE ART

28.               CRYPTOZOO

27.         SUMMER OF SOUL 

(…OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION

      COULD NOT BE TELEVISED)

26.      HER SOCIALIST SMILE

25.    ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE

23.       THE CARD COUNTER

22.           LICORICE PIZZA

21.                   UNDINE

20.          NO SUDDEN MOVE

.

20.                FAYA DAYI

19.            RED MOON TIDE

.

18.      THE SOUVENIR PART II

17.              PROCESSION

.

16.                 SLALOM

.

15.                    ZOLA

.

14.              BENEDETTA

.

                    THE WORST

13.      PERSON IN THE WORLD

12.        STILL PROCESSING

                     WHEEL OF 

11.     FORTUNE AND FANTASY

.

10.     ABOUT ENDLESSNESS

.

9.              DRIVE MY CAR

                 

8.                       EMA

.

          THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, 

7.IT’S A RESURRECTION

.

6.     THE POWER OF THE DOG

.

5.

  THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT

.

4.                  MEMORIA

.

             WHAT DO WE SEE 

3.WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY?

2.      LABYRINTH OF CINEMA

1.          WEST SIDE STORY

*****

ALSO ESSENTIAL. NOT RANKED.

(the other titles of 2021 I loved that could've placed)

｢JUNK HEAD｣

THE SPINE OF NIGHT

RIDERS OF JUSTICE

DEAD PIGS 海上浮城

EVANGELION: 

3.0+1.0 THRICE UPON A TIME

WOJNAROWICZ: 

F**K YOU F*GGOT F**KER

PARALLEL MOTHERS

C'MON C'MON

WOODLANDS DARK

  AND DAYS BEWITCHED:

A HISTORY OF FOLK HORROR

GAIA

STRAY

NOBODY

FRIED BARRY

THE BETA TEST

BAD LUCK BANGING 

OR LOONY PORN

NAVOZANDE, THE MUSICIAN

BARB & STAR 

GO TO VISTA DEL MAR

RED ROCKET

NO ORDINARY MAN:

THE BILLY TIPTON DOCUMENTARY

.

MANDIBLES

RED POST ON ESCHER STREET

WILD INDIAN

DUNE: PART ONE

THE DISCIPLE

NIGHT COLONIES

[THE YEAR OF THE EVERLASTING STORM]

IDENTIFYING FEATURES 

[SIN SEÑAS PARTICULARES]

THE APE STAR

THE FRENCH DISPATCH

I'M YOUR MAN 

BELLE: THE DRAGON 

AND THE FRECKLED PRINCESS

THE LOST DAUGHTER

BERGMAN ISLAND

THE WOMAN WHO RAN

ANNETTE

CENSOR

SIBERIA

YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY

THE BONES [LOS HUESOS]

SURVIVAL SKILLS

ROCKS

FLEE

A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX

STREET GANG: 

HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET

SPOOR

THE DRY

SOUL [ROH]

BAD TRIP

TRONA PINNACLES

A CRIME ON THE BAYOU

RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON

MALIGNANT

BOXBALLET БОКСБАЛЕТ

TITANE

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

Mélanie Robert-Tourneur's

HOLD ME TIGHT

KALA കള

THE LAST DUEL

ONLY A CHILD

IN THE SAME BREATH

UN KILOMÈTRE À PIED

[TEN, TWENTY, THIRTY, 

FORTY, FIFTY MILES A DAY]

LA BESTIA

COME TRUE

A WRITER'S ODYSSEY 刺杀小说家

****

recap

2021

1. WEST SIDE STORY (Spielberg)
2. LABYRINTH OF CINEMA (Nobuhiko Obayashi)
3. WHAT DO WE SEE                                             WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY? (Koberidze)
4. MEMORIA (Weerasethakul)
5. THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT (Faraut)
6. THE POWER OF THE DOG (Campion)
7. THIS IS NOT A BURIAL                                                      IT’S A RESURRECTION (Mosese)
8. EMA (Larrain)
9. DRIVE MY CAR (Hamaguchi)
10. ABOUT ENDLESSNESS (Andersson)
11. WHEEL OF FORTUNE OF FANTASY (Hamaguchi)
12. STILL PROCESSING (Romvari)
13. WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (J.Trier)
14. BENEDETTA (Verhoeven)
15. ZOLA (Bravo)
16. SLALOM (Favier)
17. PROCESSION (Greene)
18. THE SOUVENIR PART II (Hogg)
19. RED MOON TIDE (Patiño)
20. FAYA DAYI (Beshir)
21. NO SUDDEN MOVE (Soderbergh)
22. UNDINE (Petzold)
23. LICORICE PIZZA (P.T. Anderson)
24. THE CARD COUNTER (Schrader)
25. ALL LIGHT EVERYWHERE (Theo Anthony)
26. HER SOCIALIST SMILE (Gianvito)
27. SUMMER OF SOUL (Questlove)
28. CRYPTOZOO (Shaw)
29. AFFAIRS OF THE ART (Quinn)
30. THE VELVET UNDERGROUND (Haynes)

RUNNER-UP:

JUNK HEAD (Takahide Hori), SPINE OF NIGHT (MG King), RIDERS OF JUSTICE (A. Thomas Jensen), DEAD PIGS (Yan), EVANGELION: 3.0+1.0 THRICE UPON A TIME (Hideaki Anno), WOJNAROWICZ (McKim), PARALLEL MOTHERS (Almodovar), C'MON C'MON (Mills), WOODLANDS DARK & DAYS BEWITCHED (Janisse), GAIA (Bouwer), STRAY (Elizabeth Lo), NOBODY (Naishuller), FRIED BARRY (Kruger), BETA TEST (Cummings./McCabe), BAD LUCK BANGING (Jude), NAVOZANDE (Riahi), BARB & STAR (Greenbaum), RED ROCKET (Sean Baker), NO ORDINARY MAN (Joynt/Chin-Yee), MANDIBULES (Dupieux), RED POST ON ESCHER STREET (Sono), WILD INDIAN (Corbine Jr), DUNE: PT. 1 (Villeneuve), THE DISCIPLE (Tamhane), NIGHT COLONIES (Weerasethakul), SIN SEÑAS PARTICULARES (Valadez), APSTJÄRNAN (Hambäck), 

FRENCH DISPATCH (Wes Anderson), ICH BIN DEIN MENSCH (Maria Schrader), BELLE (Mamoru Hosoda), THE LOST DAUGHTER (M. Gyllenhaal), BERGMAN ISLAND (Hansen-Løve), THE WOMAN WHO RAN (Sang-soo), ANNETTE (Carax), CENSOR (Bailey-Bond), SIBERIA (Ferrara), YOU WILL DIE AT 20 (AA Alala), LOS HUESOS (León/Cociña), SURVIVAL SKILLS (Q.Armstrong), 

ROCKS (Gavron), FLEE (Rasmussen), GLITCH IN THE MATRIX (Ascher), STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET (Agrelo), POKOT (Holland), THE DRY (Connolly), ROH (Ezwan), BAD TRIP (Sakurai), TRONA PINNACLES (Mathilde Parquet), CRIME ON THE BAYOU (Buirski), RAYA & LAST DRAGON 

(CL.Estrada/D.Hall), MALIGNANT (Wan), BOXBALLET (Dyakov), TITANE (Ducournau),

 NIGHTMARE ALLEY (del Toro), HOLD ME TIGHT (Robert-Tourneur), KALA (Rohith VS), LAST DUEL (Ridley Scott), ONLY A CHILD (lots of people), IN THE SAME BREATH (Nanfu Wang), UN KILOMÈTRE À PIED (Georis), THE BEAST (Kuttikatt/Tamez/Nuenen), COME TRUE (A.Scott Burns), ASSASSIN IN RED (Lu Yang)

MAD GOD [feature version] (Tippett) 2022 release
PETITE MAMAN (Sciamma) 2022 release
WE'RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD'S FAIR 

                               (Jane Schoenbrun) 2022 release

STRAWBERRY MANSION (Audley) 2022 release
SWEETIE, YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT 

                             (Yernar Nurgaliyev) 2022 release

BEYOND THE INFINITE 2 MINS 

                          (Junta Yamaguchi) 2022 release

(festival films I loved that got no 2021 theatrical release & no distribution deal)

DAYS (Tsai ming-liang), CYRANO (Wright), SAINT MAUD (Glass), TENDER BAR (Clooney), JUST DON'T THINK I'LL SCREAM (Beauvais), CRY MACHO (Eastwood), CLIFF WALKERS (Zhang Yimou), THE HUMANS (Karam), LUCKY (Kermani), EYES OF TAMMY FAYE (Showalter), THE MANOR (Carolyn), BROADCAST SIGNAL INTRUSION (Gentry), SILENCE & DARKNESS (Barkan), SUMMIT OF THE GODS (Imbert), KNACKNINGAR (Kempff), NEW YORK NINJA (J.Liu/Spieler), TICK TICK BOOM! (Miranda), AN UNQUIET GRAVE (Krey), ANYTHING FOR JACKSON (Dyck), THERE'S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE (Brice), THIS IS THE NIGHT (DeMonaco), I ONDE DAGER (Wirkola), ON THE JOB: THE MISSING 8 (Matti), AZOR (Fontana), NORTH BY CURRENT (Minax), SCENES FROM AN EMPTY CHURCH (Tukel), ONE & ONLY DICK GREGORY (A.Gaines), AGNES (Reece), BILL TRAYLOR: CHASING GHOSTS (Wolf), UNCLENCHING THE FISTS (Kovalenko), VOYAGERS (Burger), SANDEEP AUR PINKY FARAAR (Dibakar Banerjee), GWLEĐĐ (Haven Jones), SEANCE (Barrett ), KID 90 (Moon Frye), A COP MOVIE (Ruizpalacios), TILL DEATH (Dale), JFK REVISITED: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (Stone), SABAYA (Hirori), STILLWATER (T.McCarthy), FRANCE (Dumont), SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST (Nekrasova), BINGO HALL (Gigi Saul Guerrero), VIVO (DeMicco), THE VOYEURS (Mohan), ATTICA (Nelson Jr.), KATE (Nicolas-Troyan), STE. ANNE (Vermette), LISTENING TO KENNY G (P.Lane), LE BAL DES FOLLES (Mélanie Laurent), MAYDAY (Cinorre), WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED (Ghani), SPACE SWEEPERS (Jo Sung-hee), EL PLANETA (Ulman), COMING HOME IN THE DARK (Ashcroft), JOHN & THE HOLE (Sisto), CODA (S.Heder), WISH DRAGON (Appelhans), THE DIG (Simon Stone), MY SALINGER YEAR (Falardeau), SWEET THING (Rockwell), SUBLET (Fox), THE WORLD TO COME (Fastvold), SUMMER OF 85 (Ozon), SUMMERLAND (Swale), SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE ON THE RUN (Hill), THE STYLIST (Gevargizian), SLAXX (Kephart), FINAL ACCOUNT (L.Holland), SATOR (Jordan Graham), MAINSTREAM (Gia Coppola), NOTTURNO (Rosi), HOLLER (Riegel), MLK/FBI (Pollard), LIMBO (Sharrock), VIOLATION (Mancinelli/Sims-Fewer), THE AMERICAN SECTOR (Stephens/Velez), SKYFIRE (West), TAMING THE GARDEN (Jashi), DIÁRIOS DE OTSOGA (Gomes), WORKS & DAYS: OF TAYOKO SHIOJIRI IN THE SHIOTANI BASIN (Edström), TWO LOTTERY TICKETS (Negoescu), AN DÀ SHEALLADH (Bonnetta), SLOW MACHINE (Felten/DeNardo), A DIM VALLEY (Colvin), À L'ABORDAGE (Brac), PRAYERS FOR THE STOLEN (Huezo), MY NAME IS PAULI MURRAY (Cohen/West), SUMMERTIME (Lopez/Estrada) CLOUD IN HER ROOM (Zheng Lu Xinyuan), PREPARATIONS TO BE TOGETHER FOR AN UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME (Horvát), MALMKROG (Puiu), DEREK DELGAUDIO’S IN & OF ITSELF (Oz), ALL THE MOONS (Legarreta), THE OUTSIDE STORY (Nozkowski), TROLLHUNTERS: RISE OF THE TITANS (Schmidt/Matte/Velasco), THE ALPINIST (Mortimer/Rosen)