And these past two years of pandemic viewing has made things even more challenging. On the one hand, there are more avenues than ever to find and discover new films. A number of the films on my list were viewed as part of virtual film festivals or online screening series. But on the other hand, as theaters began reopening and accessible viewing options for new and limited releases has been dwindling, those of us with disabilities or conditions that put us at greater risk from COVID are finding ourselves left behind.
So I tried to be conscious of all these factors while selecting the films for my list this year. I only chose films that, as of the end of 2021, were accessible to individuals who could not attend physical theaters – either through a regular streaming service or a virtual cinema option. This meant leaving off some fantastic films that I was fortunate enough to see via screeners, festivals, and screening series – but I’ll be sharing more about those over the coming year as they’re more readily available to see.
And, as always with these lists, this is an intensely personal grouping of films. These are the works that spoke most directly to me. With the exception of the first film on this list (which is my most personal selection here), I’ve organized the list in pairings that resonated for me. I first saw Justin Chang, film critic at the Los Angles Times, do this several years ago, and it’s a practice that has stuck. I love the way films can end up unintentionally speaking to one another as we watch them during the year, with themes and ideas building on each other as we blithely go about our moviegoing. And I like to try capture that a bit in my own list of favorites.
So, without any further introductions, here are my favorite films of 2021.
11. Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma | Passing
They may explore their themes in very different ways, but Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma and Passing are two films from this past year about the codes and struggles of Black Americans living in a racist and oppressive society. Topaz Jones, Simon Davis, and Jason Sondock’s Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma is a short work of creative non-fiction that places surreal vignettes of absurd comedy alongside compelling interviews with Black activists to create a portrait of the contemporary Black experience. Rebecca Hall’s Passing tells the story of two Black women living in the 1920s, one of whom passes for white and is married to a white man. One film is a joyful delight, the other moody and atmospheric, but both are thoughtful reflections on the ways Black Americans navigate white society and its systemic oppressions.
Where to Watch Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma
Where to Watch Passing
10. The Lost Daughter | Shiva Baby
Where to Watch Shiva Baby
Where to Watch The Lost Daughter
9. Bergman Island | Labyrinth of Cinema
Two films that explore the power of art and cinema – the power to reshape our own experiences and even to transform the world – Bergman Island and Labyrinth of Cinema both look back into cinema’s history and craft meta-narratives that are beguiling, delightful, joyous, and deeply moving. Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island follows two filmmakers romantically involved spending time on the island Ingmar Bergman called home, and as the narrative folds in on itself, we’re left to reflect on the nature of art, the latitude given to male artists, and the burdens placed on women. Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Labyrinth of Cinema is a kaleidoscopic journey through the history of Japanese cinema and provides a profound meditation on violence, war, and those who suffer most from nationalism and aggression. Both films leave you with a profound sense of the possibilities of cinematic storytelling and the hope of art to inspire change.
Where to Watch Bergman Island
Where to Watch Labyrinth of Cinema
8. Delphine’s Prayers | Zola
While Delphine’s Prayers and Zola both explore the nature of sex work, they are also fundamentally studies of storytelling, the dynamics of power, and the way race and gender complicates those dynamics. Rosine Mbakam’s Delphine’s Prayers is a documentary of rigorous and formal simplicity that consists of a series of interviews between the director and Delphine, her long-time friend, about the events that led Delphine into a life of prostitute. In Janicza Bravo’s Zola, two dancers go on a road trip to earn some extra money, but one of the women isn’t prepared for the complications that arise when her new friend brings along a roommate – who might also be the friend’s pimp. The act of storytelling is vital in both of these films – in the one, it produces incredible empathy and connection, in the other, it’s exuberant and playful, with an ironic detachment. But both challenge our limited perceptions and the explore the ways that race and gender become major dynamics within racist and misogynistic societies.
Where to Watch Delphine’s Prayers
Where to Watch Zola
7. The Power of the Dog | Summertime
The Power of the Dog and Summertime both explore loneliness, isolation, and the yearning for connection – albeit in two very different tonal registers and with two very different outcomes. The four characters at the center of Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog each make flailing attempts to address their loneliness and sense of isolation, and in doing so, contribute to the film’s tragic final act. Carlos López Estrada’s Summertime features an ensemble of young adult poets, each isolated and longing for community, drawn together one night out of a mutual love for beauty, the spoken word, and the perfect burger. One film is a tragic Western, haunting and spare. The other utilizes the structure of a musical (with spoken word poetry substituted for singing) and is a vibrant delight. However, both films use their respective formats to examine how destructive this unmet desire for connection can be, and how joyous and moving it is to finally find your community, your people… your home.
Where to Watch Summertime
Where to Watch The Power of the Dog
6. Censor | Spencer
Two isolated women are haunted by the ghosts of their past in both Censor and Spencer, films about women yearning to break free from those pasts, their grief, their loss, from systems that no longer see them as human. In Prano Bailey-Bond’s Censor, a British censor views a film that bears a striking resemblance to the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of her sister, and she soon begins to experience a heightened reality influenced by the violent and disturbing images she consumes for work. Pablo Larraín’s Spencer follows Princess Diana as she spends the Christmas holiday at the Queen’s estate and finds her agency ever more restricted and haunted by the past, looking for an escape and a way to break free. Both films tell their stories from their protagonist’s closely subjective points of view, featuring tour de force performances from their leads. While one is clearly a horror film, the other uses tropes from haunted house narratives to explore the terror of losing one’s agency and freedom. And while they end on very different notes, these are two films that explore the very real misogyny and sexism that women everywhere face – be it from colleagues, clients, servants, or spouses.
Where to Watch Censor
Where to Watch Spencer
5. The American Sector | The Card Counter
The American Sector and The Card Counter hold mirrors up to American society, showing us what it is that we truly value as a nation, what “victories” we choose to memorialize, what crimes and atrocities we choose to forget, and who pays the price for the sins of our nation. A formally constrained work of non-fiction filmmaking, the filmmakers behind The American Sector, Pacho Velez and Courtney Stephens, traveled the country, filming sections of the Berlin Wall and capturing conversations that touch on questions of why and what we memorialize, as well as our efforts to possess history. In Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter, a formerly incarcerated military interrogator spends his days living out a purgatory in an endless series of casinos, biding his time, until the possibility for revenge (or potentially redemption) presents itself. These are two films that reflect back to us hard truths about America’s soul at the present moment – all without preaching or laying out their arguments in neat, clean bullet points. These are spare, simple films that ask you to reflect on your own values, that ask you to think deeply about our past, our collective guilt, and the kind of nation we want to build moving forward – tearing down walls and connecting with one another.
Where to Watch The American Sector
Where to Watch The Card Counter
4. All Light, Everywhere | A Cop Movie
Works that explore the ethics of their own creation, All Light, Everywhere and A Cop Movie are documentaries that deconstruct their form in order to reveal deeper truths than you’re liable to find in your standard social issue doc. Theo Anthony’s All Light, Everywhere explores surveillance, the history of the camera, and the ways this is all bound up with the history of policing, warfare, and weaponry – all while consistently pulling back to reveal the fundamental gaps in our attempts at so-called objectivity. With Alonso Ruizpalacios’s A Cop Movie, actors are hired to recreate scenes from the lives of two Mexico City police officers, and the film shifts to give us the opportunity to hear the actors’ doubts about playing police officers and to raise questions about telling such stories at a time with so much rampant corruption. Both films are constantly pulling back to reveal the world that many documentaries keep hidden outside the frame – be it the way the filmmakers coach an interview subject on how to enter a room or the training actors undergo so they can play credible police officers. Neither film provides us with easy answers to any of the questions they raise. But both films do cause us to reflect deeply on our relationship to objectivity and help us remember that there are always going to be gaps in our vision.
Where to Watch A Cop Movie
Where to Watch All Light, Everywhere
3. Annette | Titane
Questions of forgiveness and redemption lie at the heart of Annette and Titane, two films which feature selfish and destructive protagonists at their center committing horrific acts and reaching out for connection, forgiveness, and grace. Leos Carax’s rock musical Annette follows the tumultuous relationship between a standup comedian, his opera singer wife, and their young daughter – all leading to tragic consequences. In Julia Ducournau’s French horror film Titane, a young woman (who also happens to be a serial killer) goes on the run and pretends to be the son of a man who’s child disappeared a decade earlier. Both films use heightened aesthetic elements to explore their themes – the use of a puppet in Annette as the daughter highlights the ways adults attempt to control their children, and the body horror in Titane graphically illustrates the ways that we can never truly run from the pain and sorrow we inflict on others. Both films ask whether or not forgiveness is possible – in the face of such wreckage, can we ever truly receive redemption for the wrongs we have done to others? And when others have wronged us, can we release our anger and offer forgiveness in return?
Where to Watch Annette
Where to Watch Titane
2. Procession | The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin)
Art, cinema, and the very process of crafting the films in question become part of the healing process for the participants in both Procession and The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin). In Robert Greene’s Procession, a group of survivors who had been sexually abused by Catholic priests work with a drama therapist and the filmmaker to film fictionalized recreations and short vignettes that allow them to take back their agency and power. With C. W. Winter and Anders Edström’s The Works and Days, the filmmakers embedded themselves in a rural Japanese community in order to recreate the final year Tayoko Shiojiri had with her husband, providing her with a measure of closure and healing. In both cases, the onscreen participants and performers are active, vital collaborators with the filmmakers, working together to write and craft the sequences and scenes that will be shot for each project. One film has a much more traditional pacing and rhythm, while the other uses its eight hour running time to focus on moments of quiet and stillness. But both films are deeply moving and contain powerful reflections on the ways that community can help us heal (from trauma, from grief) and that the process of creating together can be a beautiful act of catharsis.
Where to Watch Procession
Where to Watch The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin)
1. Mogul Mowgli
My choice for favorite film of the year is my most personal selection for this list, a film I saw not long after I was rushed to the emergency room with a life-threatening medical condition and began the long journey to recovery that continues to this day – maybe that’s why I couldn’t find any other film that felt right to pair with it. Bassam Tariq’s Mogul Mowgli came to me at just the right moment in my life. A film about a British-Pakistani rapper who develops a rare auto-immune disease just as his career is taking off, this is a film that understands chronic illness and disability in a way that few films ever seem to get right. It understands the anger and the grief and the deep sense of loss when your body stops functioning the way it has always functioned, when you suddenly have to put your life – your dreams and aspirations – on hold. This is a film that understands the ways that loved ones sincerely want to help, but so often come with platitudes, vague encouragements, or bits of advice that run contrary to the health care professionals who are attempting to give you the best (and most realistic) shot at recovery. Tariq’s use of surreal imagery to explore the protagonist’s loss of control over his body is haunting, and it also connects him to a familial legacy that he has been running from most of his life. This is an astonishing work that understands disability, deferred dreams, and the complications of family expectations – a film that has given me much succor during a year of my own disability and dreams deferred.
Where to Watch Mogul Mowgli
Honorable Mentions
A list like this is, by its very nature, incomplete. There were too many incredible films to include on the main list, so here are a few honorable mentions:
- Pig and Riders of Justice* both complicate our relationship with revenge narratives and stories of traditional masculinity, allowing us to truly grieve alongside their protagonists.
- Ascension and Faya Dayi* are two gorgeous and meditative documentaries that rely more on their poetic imagery to explore their themes than on any talking heads.
- Attica and In the Same Breath are two essential political documentaries, one on race and its ramifications for today, one on propaganda and the COVID-19 crisis – both are emotionally overwhelming.
- C’mon C’mon and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy are two lovely films about the imperfect and fumbling ways we attempt to make connection with one another.
- Deep injustice is explored and exposed in the stunning documentary from the Democratic Republic of the Congo Downstream to Kinshasa and the heartbreaking Iranian film on the death penalty, There Is No Evil*.
- Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time and Rocks are two more films about the search for connection – and the fears that come with making yourself vulnerable.
- Steve McQueen produced three (and directed one) incredible documentaries to complement last year’s Small Axe anthology of films, all about the struggle of the Black British community – Uprising, Subnormal: A British Scandal, and Black Power: A British Story of Resistance.
- One of my favorite music documentaries of the past year is the gleefully delightful The Sparks Brothers.
- Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar is one of the silliest and most delightful comedies I’ve seen in years.
- The Rescue is a thrilling documentary with incredible re-creations of the daring underwater cave rescue of the Thai soccer team that is unexpectedly moving.
- The Green Knight is a visually stunning visual feast about learning to lose yourself to find yourself, to willingly sacrifice yourself for others.
- Some of my favorites from this last year’s Oscar race that were released widely in 2021 include Another Round**, The Father**, Judas and the Black Messiah, and Quo Vadis, Aida?** – all fantastic films.
Notes:
*Films watched during the Seattle International Film Festival. I didn’t take enough notes from these viewings to write a review for these films.
** Films watched during my annual Oscar run. I didn’t take enough notes from these viewings to write a review for these films.
