The best films released in cinema and streaming in 2021 and where can you see them
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27 Comments John Tones@johntones2020 wasn't exactly the best of years for the film industry. Delays in releases of months or even, in some cases, a whole year, have left a mark on the industry that may never be erased: the consumption of streaming movies has skyrocketed, and theaters have a future before them that, even recovering normality in many previous aspects, it is more uncertain than ever.
With 2021, the industry has had the chance to recover some of the lost ground: the premieres that were suspended, new ways of approaching the exhibition... Superhero cinema seems to have recovered its pulse at the box office while other genres are going little by little recovering some ground. These are some of the best movies of the year, both in theaters and on streaming platforms.
'The map of the perfect little things'
Two films of time loops and romantic comedy ways have coincided in time. This one has a more youthful approach than 'Palm Springs', but that doesn't make it less suggestive: without needing to go into explanations or waste time, this surprising emotional adventure, deeper and at the same time more carefree than it seems, is a Amazon Prime Video original to definitely pay attention to. Especially for the excellent performances by Kyle Allen and Kathryn Newton.
'Saint Maud'
The first horror bombing of the year works at a low intensity and immersed in codes of intimate drama. A young woman obsessed with religion and God speaking through her (Morfydd Clark) believes she has a divine mission to save the soul of her last patient, a terminally ill former famous dancer. . The fine line between extreme devotion and maniacal unreason is crossed over and over again in a film that plays at being pious and profane at the same time, with a sublime and atrocious aesthetic, and which is one of the most overwhelming debuts in recent years. , that of the writer and director Rose Glass.
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An emotional and luxurious drama produced by Netflix, based on the true story of the Sutton Hoo excavation and with an extraordinary leading duo: Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan. This is a landowner who commissions an excavator to unearth what could be a major archaeological find, while World War II rages around her. A film with classic echoes that confronts serious and transcendent themes, but with exquisite sensitivity and stupendous visual invoice.
'The Painter and the Thief'
A very singular documentary, one of those that can be enjoyed as if it were a true suspense film full of plot twists, in which a Czech painter, Barbora Kysilkova, engages a curious relationship of sincere friendship with one of the thieves who stole a couple of paintings from him some time ago. The feelings that blossom between them, unexpected and full of twists and nuances, are at the heart of this amazing documentary.
'New Order'
An uncomfortable, brutal film, with a slightly dystopian tone but that portrays a reality that we have before our noses: that of an unstable society, which vibrates dangerously transforming itself into a tinderbox, and that with a single step in the wrong direction he can be blown up. A starting point as simple as the armed rebellion of the underprivileged finds a unique balance between post-apocalyptic fiction, the traditional thriller and social drama. Not for all palates (especially because of its conservative streaks), but precisely because of this, it is almost compulsory viewing.
'Swallow'
Through its section of unpublished films that did not reach theaters last year due to the pandemic, Movistar+ is recovering very interesting films. 'Swallow' was seen a couple of years ago in Sitges, it drew a lot of attention, and no wonder: it is a sinister fable of horror with touches of pop satire in which a housewife (impressive Haley Bennett) who wears a seemingly perfect life begins to ingest objects as a secret protest against his frustrations. Suffocating literally and metaphorically, 'Swallow' is a poisoned parable of the superficiality of everyday life.
'The Assistant'
One of the best (if not the best) film that has been seen around the cases linked to the #metoo movement. Although this Kitty Green film doesn't give real names, the symbolic link to the Harvey Wenstein case, here in clever constant off-screen, is obvious. Its thriller pace in no way softens the harshness and tragedy of the subject matter, and Julia Garner rightfully becomes one of the season's breakout actresses.
'Salvaje'
Wild thriller with the spirit of series B that easily became the most unprejudiced and shameless show of fun of these first months of the year. An imposing Russel Crowe channels the Michael Douglas of 'A Day of Fury' just at the moment when it seems that that emblematic film by Joel Schumacher is once again, more than a wacky thriller, a piece of social commentary. You take it as an urban drama without fuss or as a skid festival, a must for the brothers of the Brotherhood of Strong Emotion.
'Palm Springs'
The other film of time loops and romantic comedy released in a few months has a more openly acid and thirty-something tint than the commented 'The Map of Perfect Moments'. It was one of Hulu's biggest recent hits in the United States and has come to streaming this year after its theatrical release was thwarted by the pandemic. With magnificent performances by Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti and a stupendous capacity for constant surprise, it is one of the comedies of the year, and also one of the most vital and appropriate films for the times we are living in, condemned as we are to an eternal return. constant.
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With his usual elegance, Peter Strickland (director of the incredibly sophisticated 'The Duke of Burgundy' and 'Berberian Sound Studio') raises, from a material that is pure thematic demolition (the story of a cursed dress that passes from owner to owner, with lethal results) a film that It drinks from the Asian genre cinema, the giallo and the Euro-horror of the seventies, while remaining completely contemporary. A small marvel that many will dismiss as "high terror", but in the end it is good horror.
'Zack Snyder's Justice League'
The final version of 'Justice League' ended up being more than just a darker remake and a few deleted scenes. There are four hours that HBO aired as a single movie and that connects with Zack Snyder's vision of DC characters. If bright, festive Marvel-style heroes are your thing, you might not be into it, but if you're captivated by the idea of super-angry, tormented Superman and Batman, this movie is like Christmas coming soon.
'Godzilla vs. Kong'
One of the first blockbusters within Warner's plan for 2021 to launch all its major releases simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max, and which, in the past, may be causing it more trouble what a joy In this case, the clash between the two colossi of monster movies came together in a show that was more violent and brutal than ever, with spectacular twenty-minute fights of unbridled destruction. Adam Wingard has reinvigorated the Monsterverse and has ensured the continuity of the giant monsters of the house.
'Mortal Kombat'
The adaptation of the popular and bloody fighting video game undoubtedly pointed in the right direction: necromancers and cyberninjas, fatalities, gore, orientalism of everything to a hundred and constant fights and better executed than more ambitious martial arts vehicles like 'Shag Chi'. The formula is simple; adjusting to it by transmitting the intensity and brutality of the original is no longer so, but this 'Mortal Kombat' is a real gift for fans of the franchise, and the best thing: it guarantees continuations.
'Black Widow'
The film that should have given continuity to the MCU after the end of the previous phase was finally a little off the hook from its predecessors after being delayed a year. Finally, this film that takes up the Avenger and her life as a spy, with a plot that mixes thriller, some comedy and a great cast with Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz and David Harbour, has worked. The set has those sometimes somewhat nondescript (despite the budget) airs of Marvel side products, but it's very competent entertainment.
'Army of the Dead'
Zack Snyder, who this year can see his ego more than satisfied thanks to his Director's Cut of 'Justice League', returns to his origins revisiting the post world -apocalyptic of his debut, 'Dawn of the Dead'. This time he sends the survivors of the end of the world to Las Vegas, where in the middle of a veritable ocean of the dead, a group of mercenaries try to attack a casino. Brimming with Snyder's visual tics, its curious mix of genres make it a remarkable diversion.
'Cruella'
Partially following the formula of 'Maleficent', but seasoned with a few drops of recent films like 'Birds of Prey', the first trailers for 'Cruella' pointed to an interesting reinterpretation of one of the great Disney villains, Cruella de Vil. The result didn't hide too many surprises, but luckily it channeled more the energy of the wonderful Glenn Close from the live-action remakes of '101 Dalmatians' than from Angelina Jolie's redemption stories.
'A Quiet Place 2'
A long-awaited sequel (among other things, due to the continuous delays) and whose main challenge was to maintain the feeling of an unprotected family that was worked so well in the first installment . To justify the return of all the characters, there have been flashbacks to the origin of the invasion, and the constants of the franchise return, including many scenes in absolute silence. Somewhat derivative, but overall, an excellent exercise in apocalyptic tension.
'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings'
An entirely oriental cast and the promise that the action scenes would live up to the classic seventies comics intended to make us forget the last one the company's martial arts disaster (Netflix's 'Iron Fist', the worst of its Marvel series). In the end, the result falls somewhat below those of 'Mortal Kombat', but it is still very estimable entertainment, with abundant doses of Chinese fantasy to please the Asian market (and without fully achieving it, although in global terms the film is succeeding ).
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A family discovers that the paradisiacal beach to which they have going on vacation makes them age quickly, reducing their life expectancy to a single day. After his knock on superhero cinema, closing his trilogy of excellent films on the subject, Shyamalan returns to the mysteries without an apparent explanation, with a film that is more enjoyable the less one knows, and that is more drama-oriented than fantastic.
'The Suicide Squad'
A sequel that was intended to make us forget the worst DC movie of recent times, and the truth is that it had a lot going for it: James Gunn takes the baton before his return to Marvel, which guarantees laughter, hooliganism and ultraviolence. Margot Robbie or Viola Davis return to the cast, and they are joined by a vast cast of outcasts, including Michael Rooker, Idris Elba, Peter Capaldi, Nathan Fillion or John Cena. We were expecting the most brutally fun superhero movie of the year, and it falls a bit short of its promise of pure hooliganism, with a movie too long and bulky to be genuinely provocative.
'Dune'
The most spectacular cast of the year (Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem and many more) They lead what was undoubtedly the most important and risky film of the year for Warner. A very expensive, very ambitious and complicated adaptation of a highly respected science fiction classic - not especially commercial, moreover. Denis Villeneuve ('La llamada') directed with his usual aesthetic sumptuousness a production that arrived almost a year late on the originally scheduled date, but managed to sustain interest in a very complicated adaptation.
'No time to die'
One of the first films delayed due to the pandemic has also been one of the most hard-pressed to be seen. The new installment of James Bond, the last one with Daniel Craig at the helm, looked great, with Rami Malek as a disfigured villain and Ana de Armas giving the reply to 007. In the end, the pandemic has also been able to with Bond and production went a bit unnoticed, but not for that reason it is still the most luxurious action movie of 2021.
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Until the premiere, it was not clear if the film would affect the Spider- verse that Sony has the possibility of building, and finally chose to continue the tone and style of the first installment, which is not bad at all as a proposal that distances itself from the monolithic MCU for good. The duo of Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson are perfect to embody the multimorphic leads, and the balance between action, humor, terror and pure extravagance returned without problems.
'Titane'
One of the most talked about and unclassifiable films of the year, which has aroused out-of-control admiration and also a few discussions due to its explicit violence and how far it takes its proposal. All along the lines of Julia Ducournau's previous film, the fantastic 'Raw', and where surreal terror, body horror and social commentary are intermingled. Of course, not a film for all tastes, but one of the essential events of the year if you are interested in the most daring and transgressive cinema.
'El Caballero Verde'
A true indie extravaganza that we're not used to seeing fluently and without the need to resort to extravagant physical editions. It is a reformulation of an Anglo-Saxon legend that experts such as Tolkien studied in depth and that here is the result of a modern and precious revision. Aesthetically captivating, crossing horror and classic fantasy, an essential appointment for rarity trackers... and believers in the dream that streaming bigwigs can still surprise us.
'Last Night in Soho'
The latest film by Edgar Wright, director of 'Zombies Party' and 'Scott Pilgrim Against the World', looked terrific and had a cast that was breathtaking , led by Anya Taylor-Joy, Thomasin McKenzie, Matt Smith, Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg. Finally, he has not lived up to his promises, and he is carried away both by his tacky side and by an expository laziness that is unusual for Wright. Still, this psychological thriller about a young fashionista who is mysteriously transported to the 1960s is one of the most visually powerful films of 2021.
'Finch'
Apple is making a big bet on movies on its streaming platform. One of the clearest examples is this science fiction story starring an inventor, the last human on a post-apocalyptic Earth who creates a robot to keep his dog company when he dies. Miguel Sapochnik, responsible for the Battle of the Bastards in 'Game of Thrones', directs with a good pulse for the dramatic stage, and the result is a black but hopeful humanist vision of the end of the world with which it is inevitable not to get excited.
'Ghostbusters: Beyond'
On paper, it seemed like the full-blown nostalgia formula that was clearly going for this new installment of 'Ghostbusters' would work better than the sex-change reboot of the reviled latest installment, but 'Beyond' is more in tune when it forgets its precedents the most. The new cast, the relationships between them and the setting radically different from the New York of the original films is a breath of fresh air where this film, to be well-rounded, should have stayed throughout the entire length.
'Spider-Man: No Way Home'
The film with the highest-grossing opening weekend of the year had us for a good part of 2021 chaining conjectures about its homages to the past and the extent of its multiverse. Finally, things remain in a somewhat confusing gibberish, more pending to satisfy the nostalgic than to propose a film as consistent as its two predecessors, but the result is striking enough to be crowned the best Marvel movie of the year without problems.
'Matrix Resurrections'
This one has managed to reserve all the details of its plot until its very premiere, barely revealing details in the previous months beyond the fact that a good part of the cast of actors and technical team of the original trilogy. This time Lana Wachowski directs alone, but for the rest, old acquaintances such as Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss or Jada Pinkett Smith return. The result is highly stimulating, a film full of references to the first trilogy but brimming with a critical spirit and reflections on nostalgia and the state of the genre. An overwhelming and intelligent proposal to close the year.
'Don't look up'
Another million-dollar Netflix production to end the year that wants to measure itself against the films that are released in theaters, and this one does so with a cast of stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett, Timothée Chalamet and Ariana Grande in an ensemble film about a couple of scientists who have to convince the rest of humanity that the world is ending. The result is far superior to the somewhat faded 'Red Alert' and proposes a political and social satire about our relationship with science.
'Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City'
Pure fun with this new adaptation of Capcom's million-dollar saga of survival horror games. More oriented towards terror than action, with characters as recognizable as the Redfield brothers, Jill Valentine or Albert Wesker, among others, and making -on paper- the effort to explain the origins of two emblematic settings such as the Spencer mansion and Raccoon City, the proposal is a true riot of mutations, unbridled action and general nonsense. One of the funniest movies of the year, though more in keeping with previous Paul W.S. Anderson than with the latest video games.
'Sacred Spirit'
Chema García Ibarra makes his feature film debut after a long and fruitful career of success in the field of short films. Her obsessions are still very present here and she channels the spirit of the story of the bizarre Levantine encounters in the third phase with her own obsessions and her delirious aesthetic, so everyday it seems from another planet. Undoubtedly, one of the Spanish films of the year, although it has not garnered as much attention as others.
'Evil'
In a year in which genre cinema has promised much and only rarely delivered as much as it promised, James Wan's new film is a refreshing addition. Crazed and brutal, with insane plot twists and zero compromises with the director's own fans, who will be disappointed if they look for another 'Warren File', 'Maligno' has elements of giallo, slasher and supernatural nonsense, and although it is not perfect, she has plenty of shamelessness.
'The Woman in the Window'
A true paranoid madman who lived an erratic career in the United States, between delays to make comebacks after disastrous test passes and the inevitable pauses in distribution due to from COVID. Netflix finally released it exclusively and we have found ourselves with a hilarious exercise in shameless trotting suspense, a rehash of 'Rear Window' in an agoraphobic key with a top-notch cast and plenty of old-school suspense surprises.
'The Mitchells vs. the Machines'
The best animated film of the year did not come from Disney or Pixar, but was released exclusively by Netflix after Sony decided to sell it distribution rights in 2020 because of COVID. A rebellion of the machines in the middle of a family trip crossing the United States from one end to the other is the excuse for a hilarious production that dodges the typical anti-internet cheesy message to advocate for intergenerational understanding thanks to technology. Produced by the virtually infallible Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, creators of 'The LEGO Movie' and 'Spider-Man: A New Universe'.
'Psycho Goreman'
It was a success a couple of editions ago in Sitges and has revealed itself as one of the most stimulating surprises of the year now that it has reached our screens. Brimming with the ineffable spirit of 80s and 90s direct-to-video movies, this film falls right in that indescribable middle ground where a kids' movie could just as well be full of monsters and gore. A wonder with intergalactic warlords, bounty hunters and talkative kids, remote-controlled for a very specific type of viewer, whose hearts will possibly burst in a shower of glitter.
'Hidden Passenger'
A delicious scoundrel that recycles a classic American fantasy plot (the urban legend of the gremlin in warplanes that later became a landmark in popular culture thanks to Richard Matheson and 'Twilight Zone') with a combative and fun reading of the genre and a fast pace. Chloë Grace Moretz is trapped with an all-male crew and a creep in the belly of an airplane, in one of those movies that take away all the pain.
'The Empty Man'
We close with the best possible taste in our mouths: what is perhaps the best horror film of the year (and of last year, when it was released in theaters on the sly). Pure, suffocating and Lovecraftian horror that vibrates in the vein of current literary authors such as Thomas Ligotti, and that raises a series of topics as current as lies that become truths based on repetition... but in a transcendent key. A wonder that will take time to lose strength.
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