For most of the first half of 2021 cinemas were shuttered but VOD,
streaming services and online festivals served up plenty of treats in our
living rooms. At the halfway point of the year, here in alphabetical order
are the 25 movies that most impressed us so far in 2021.
1982
We said:
Oualid Mouaness has achieved something of a marvel with his
remarkably accomplished debut. He's crafted a story set in a part of
the world synonymous with hardship, but from the first frame it's
clear he's not interested in our pity.
A Dark, Dark Man
We said: With immaculately framed widescreen imagery that often recalls Sergio
Leone, A Dark, Dark Man plays out like a Film Noir transplanted to a
western setting. It's the sort of movie the McDonagh brothers have
been trying and failing to make their whole careers.
After Love
We said: The great Joanna Scanlan, of course, offers a tour de force of
emotional subtlety. She is both dignified and desperate, frightened
and, at times, even funny.
Apples
We said: The titular fruit has proven a metaphor for sentience ever since Adam
took a bite out of one in the garden of Eden. Apples suggests that no
matter how rotten things may seem, there's always a fresh apple left
in the bowl.
Cocoon
We said: What makes Cocoon such a sincere pleasure is its affection for its
subject matter, warts and all.
Cowboys
We said: As a domestic drama lovingly painted within frontiersman wide-frames,
and with its deliberately old fashioned milieu offering centre stage
to a contemporary cultural issue, the film is a winning combination of
seemingly incongruous styles and ideas, aesthetically fitting for a
storyline which features the disaffection and estrangement of a
transgender boy.
Dead Pigs
We said: The weighty two-plus hour runtime of the film can be felt at times
but Dead Pigs is largely a treat for the eyes, intellect and
emotion.
Deadly Cuts
We said:
A silly, funny and irresistibly warm-hearted film. Never mind a bit
off the back and sides, I’m wondering how I will ever remove the wall
to wall grin which Deadly Cuts has styled me with.
The Djinn
We said: In this age of helicopter parenting and molly-coddled kids, it's
refreshing to see a movie that dares to inflict horrors - of both our
own world and other dimensions - on a child without coming across as
mean-spirited. I would have loved this had I seen it as a kid, though
I may have slept with the lights on that night.
The Fallout
We said: The Fallout tells a remarkable story about an important modern
subject through amazing character work, topped off by the most crucial
ending it could have conceived.
The Father
We said: For anyone either approaching old age themselves or with loved ones
at such a milestone, The Father is a sobering, difficult watch, more
disturbing than any horror movie. It's a warts-and-all glimpse of a
future we're all set to face, and that's if we're lucky enough to make
it that far.
Fidelity
We said: Nigina Sayfullaeva's sexually explicit drama suggests that women
like its heroine are progressing at a rate that Russia is unwilling to
keep up with.
Gatecrash
We said: It’s not so much that the narrative turns of Gatecrash are
surprising, more that the plot developments are destabilisingly
strange, unsettlingly leftfield and coolly shocking.
Ham on Rye
We said: Imagine Haddonfield without Michael Myers, Springwood without Freddy
Krueger, Lumberton without Frank Booth. Now imagine the teens of those
fictional suburbs dealing not with evil men but with the existential
dread of encroaching adulthood.
The Killing of Two Lovers
We said: Most of the movie plays out in long takes, the protagonists regularly
framed at the bottom of the screen, dwarfed by an indifferent
landscape. As they argue and carry out their petty human dramas, the
Utah mountains refuse to stir, like a house cat that's heard it all
before. But it's that indifference of the natural world that makes
this story so tragic and so human.
Malmkrog
We said: It’s Cristi Puiu’s commitment which astonishes, the unflinching
dedication to his theme: his challenge to the audience. Although,
while the film’s raison d’etre is talk, there are visual pleasures to
savour, too.
Nomadland
We said:
Chloé Zhao is as poetic a filmmaker as it gets, the closest to a
John Ford figure we have today; and like that great American master,
she knows where to find poetry in America, in its people and its
panoramas.
Offseason
We said:
Mickey Keating traps us in a hell of his creation along with his
terrified but resolute heroine. If that's your cup of tea, you'll be
drawn to the eerie delights of Keating's terrifying tourist trap.
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
We said: Chloé Zhao may be Chinese, but her films are more American than most
of the movies made by her American contemporaries. Her storytelling is
as American as that of Ford, Hawks and Peckinpah. Her stories are
populated by the same sort of people – stubborn, rugged individuals
who symbolise everything that makes America so equally fascinating and
frustrating.
The Stylist
We said:
Most of the best horror movies take a very simple, even well-worn
premise and enliven it with a combination of a creator's personal
vision, a gripping central performance and an understanding of the
technical tricks that make the genre tick. The Stylist checks all
these boxes, and I'll certainly be booking an appointment with
director Jill Gevargizian in the future.
Threshold
We said: Using limited means, directors Powell Robinson and Patrick R. Young
have crafted an engaging horror story that focusses on the one element
so often overlooked by low budget practitioners of the genre – the
people at its centre.
Treasure City
We said: Hungary may be in a sorry state as a society, but Treasure City is
the latest of many recent movies that prove the Eastern-European
nation boasts one of the continent's most exciting film industries.
Verdict
We said: In the film canon of women enacting retribution for violence, Verdict
is a sobering tonic to the cathartic pleasures of rape revenge movies,
where sluggish, and obscured due process is almost as painful and
beleaguering as the crime itself.
Witch Hunt
We said: Witch Hunt offers an effective metaphor of racism, this time through
one of the best modes of political storytelling – the horror movie.
Zana
We said: In the fragmented culture of Kosovo, Antoneta Kastrati seems to
suggest, fringe beliefs and archaic misunderstandings proliferate
within the cracks.