What a year, and what a year for films—many of them delayed in production or distribution due to COVID, but roaring back as the theaters reopened. Below is my list of top theatrically released films of 2021; films I have had a chance to see thus far.

I’m struck by how many were directed by women—a group which usually represents less than 10% of directors in the top 250 grossing films in the US, according to the long-running “Celluloid Ceiling” study. In my list, they are more than half. It’s also interesting that several super-hero/sci-fi films made my list—it’s not a genre I’m fond of, because they usually rely heavily on traditional and very tired tropes with white guys saving the world—but the ones below are not typical.

 

 

Black Widow
Directed by Cate Shortland

More blow-’em-up action from the Marvel franchise, but the backstory to Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and her foster sister (Florence Pugh) makes this a better than average superhero saga. You see, both were raised to be spies and assassins by the nasty Patriarch to serve his nefarious ends.

CODA
Directed by Sian Heder

A coming-of-age film about Ruby, a 17-year-old living with her deaf, working-class family in Gloucester, MA. She’s discovered music, and yearns to leave and continue her studies, yet wants to remain part of that family. The film is anchored by a most winning performance by Emilia Jones as Ruby.

Drive My Car
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi

This quiet masterpiece takes its time unpeeling layers of the characters’ complicated and unhappy pasts. Trying to forget his wife’s untimely death, a stage director (Hidetoshi Nishijima) goes to Hiroshima, casting for and rehearsing a multi-lingual version of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” while being chauffeured around by a young woman (Toko Miura) with an unexpected past of her own. Miura is mesmerizing, playing someone numbed by tragedy, and who survives by keeping a close watch on the world around her and filtering the truth from lies.

Dune
Directed by Denis Villeneuve

True, this film is ponderous and bloated, but wow, is it epic! In adapting the sci-fi classic by Frank Herbert, auteur Denis Villeneuve creates a good ripping yarn about a hero’s journey on a faraway planet patrolled by giant worms. Young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) has to protect his family and save the enslaved people of this strange new world. The casting of hypnotic Rebecca Ferguson as his sorceress mother is brilliant.

Eternals
Directed by Chloe Zhao

Long ago 10 Eternals were put on earth to fight the Deviants whenever they showed up. This film has a slow burn, but at the end you feel the moral dilemma of the superheroes’ mission and the split in their loyalties to one another. Despite being handicapped with the need to tell too many stories, director Chloe Zhao has injected real heart into this increasingly eroded genre.

King Richard
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green

The story of tennis-dad Richard Williams, whose ambition for his two daughters, Venus and Serena, led to their becoming world-class tennis champions. Will Smith plays the dad, with charm and conviction.

Lamb
Directed by Valdimar Jóhannsson

A childless couple on a remote sheep farm in Iceland find themselves with a gift child—except is the child theirs to have? You feel their loneliness, you feel their joy, and you feel their deep fear of loss in this remarkable debut feature.

The Power of the Dog
Directed by Jane Campion

Campion returns to the big screen after a decade-long hiatus with this Western about the toxic masculinity that undergirds so many Westerns. Set on a cattle ranch in 1920s Montana, the movie has Benedict Cumberbatch playing a bullying Alpha male who decides to take his brother’s new bride (Kirsten Dunst) down a few notches—partly by training her “sissy” son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) in manly ways.

Never Gonna Snow Again
Directed by Małgorzata Szumowska

This is a strange and strangely memorable fable about a kindly masseuse (Alec Utgoff) who works the homes in a wealthy gated community in Poland—entering lives filled with silence and sadness.

In the Same Breath
Directed by Nanfu Wang

This documentary covers the unfolding of the COVID crisis in China —including government denial followed by the complete shutdown of Wuhan, the first pandemic city. The interviews with ordinary people who caught the virus, lost loved ones, and worked in hospitals are compelling. Wang shows how the crisis has been twisted to political ends, in both China and the US.

The Velvet Underground
Directed by Todd Haynes

The story of Lou Reed, John Cale and the band that created that pre-punk wall of sound against the backdrop of New York’s art scene in the 1960s. At one point they were the house band of Andy Warhol’s notorious Factory.