Best Movies, Music, and TV of 2021
Best vs Favorite is an exhausted discussion topic for what each means. I tend to think they are different. The same way that successful doesn’t mean best. But I titled this best because it shows confidence in my choices. You and I both know that these are just what I liked best. Not what is “the” best. Art is subjective and you are your own person. I hope we agree some. The monoculture needs us.
Theres a video if you’d like to watch my supercut montage and top 10 in video form.
MOVIES
Wrote about this one a while back when I saw it. It’s sublime and special to me and I hope you’ll give it a shot.
available on amazon prime
2. Licorice Pizza
Paul Thomas Anderson is my guy. When Marc Maron asks me on my eventual WTF episode I will say it’s him, then a small drop off for my *dr. evil voice * number 2. He makes emotionally intense movies about unlikely dysfunctional families and lately he has been making movies about different types of relationships. He made the stoner deeper than most understand love movie adapting a great novelist’s book. Then he made a movie about being needed and the way some need each other. Now he has young love. How free and wild it is. How being a grown up sucks. How being uncertain on what you want in your 20’s can be terrible. How being a confident young man with ambition surrounded by grifters can lead to some questionable behavior that is fun for a time but won’t be in 10 years. I loved it, and although it is “lesser PTA” it is still a top movie of this year and any year for me. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper made his father proud in this one. Alana Haim is a natural actress, and Bradley Cooper steals the movie for 10 minutes. I can’t recommend it enough and to stress it’s a fun time.
Currently in theaters
3. The Worst Person in the World
A rare treat to see a movie take some classic romcom tropes or ideas and make a real great movie out of them. Some of the best performances of the year and filmmaking contained in a small coming of age movie. Joachim Trier is one of the best filmmakers working and he concludes his spiritually and geographically connected Oslo trilogy with the biggest hearted one. Renate Reinsvi is the star here. She captures so many different emotions and human experiences pitch perfect throughout. She has one of those faces that changes so easily depending on her feelings and style. She disappears so much into this movie and I think goes above and beyond what was even necessary. It comes out around February and should be nominated for the foreign film Oscar.
theaters in February
4. Quo Vadis, Aida?
A tense and heartbreaking movie about the powerlessness of the situation. When I hear a movie is about genocide that usually makes me pause because typically filmmakers aren’t trying to do anything new to the material. They show a few characters POV and the atrocities and that’s that. It was sad, here’s what happened after this in a title card. They seem hesitant to do much more. Understandably so by the way. And that is fine and not always bad. But it doesn’t always serve the real people who were massacred and get you to truly feel the circumstance without ever even being close to that yourself. Director Jasmila Žbanić crafts a first person movie where you can feel the effort but also the futility in that effort. The deep horror of diplomacy and common sense not mattering. It’s one of the best movies of the year and not because it doesn’t show the genocide, but because what it makes you feel and see other things instead.
available on Hulu
5. Violation
The most challenging movie on my list. Titane has many more sequences that stand out but this one grabs you and will start or end many convos. It isn’t trying to get you to agree with its conclusions. I found this to be one of the most mesmerizing watches of the year. I was shocked by how the filmmakers went with this story and I’m glad they did. The latter half of this really stuck with me and I’ll never forget it. Madeleine Sims-Fewer is a name to watch going forward.
available on Shudder
6. C’Mon C’Mon
Mike Mills makes tender & honest movies about parents and children. The generations passing on the positives and negatives to their offspring. This one takes a similar route but with more meandering and sweetness along the way. Joaquin Phoenix does something rare for him. He plays a sweetheart career driven guy who gets to spend some time with his nephew, played beyond his years by Woody Norman, and develops parts of himself he didn’t know he had. There’s a special tribute to motherhood in this even though the story itself is about the absence of it during this time. Gaby Hoffman is a perfect sister to Joaquin and plays this so well. She has become one of the most reliable character actors and was made for a Mills script. A perfect movie to see as a new parent and it is only this low because there’s something missing here. The black and white cinematography kept me distant and it felt like I should’ve been wanting to hug this movie but just gave it thumbs up. Maybe in a theater it would’ve been different. A great movie with great performances that didn’t impact me as much as it probably should’ve. Could easily improve on a second viewing.
available on VOD
7. Titane
Provocative in the best way. Not to shock but to get to a deeper truth of connection and love. That is an eye rolling sentence but I found this extremely french and occasionally grotesque movie to maybe have the biggest chrome and oily beating heart of any movie this year. It won one of the biggest award films can get and has a lot of acclaim for a reason. Julia Ducournau is the real deal and I would follow her film career anywhere. Not getting any kind of plot or explanation from me here.
Right there with C’Mon C’Mon with the tenderness and actually centered in on motherhood and childhood combined. Celine Sciamma made an impression with Portrait of a Lady on Fire and returns with a soft and quiet follow up that only makes me like her more. I prefer this to Portrait but it is close. A somber and sweet ode to growing up. Would recommend this to anyone.
9. Pig
Nicolas Cage starring in a movie called Pig might make you think it’s silly. I don’t find this silly at all. It has some moments that feel surreal but those fall away with the Cage performance guiding us through grief and the intimacy of cooking for one another. Go in without expectations and come out satisfied and full.
available on Hulu
10. The Card Counter
Paul Schrader is one of my favorite filmmakers/writers. As he ages he keeps coming back to tortured journal writing intense men with pasts or presents they resent and regret. Narration and long speeches about the morality and cruelty of man. Love and smooches being the only thing that saves anyone and even then can never actually redeem anyone. Only have them forget why they hate themselves in the first place. A movie that Barack Obama put in his favorite movies of the year and you should see this to understand why that is hilarious. Bless Oscar Isaac for using his Star Wars cache for this.
available on VOD
Best of the Rest followed by where to find them.
Bad Trip - Netflix
Dune - Blu-ray/DVD
The French Dispatch - VOD
Our Friend - Amazon Prime
Hit the Road - VOD
Wrath of Man - Blu-ray/DVD & VOD
Nobody - Blu-ray/DVD & VOD
John and the Hole - VOD
No Sudden Move - HBOMax
I’m Your Man - VOD
The Green Knight - VOD
Zola - Showtime
Judas and the Black Messiah - HBOMax
Those Who Wish Me Dead - HBOMax
Nine Days - VOD
Honorable Mentions
Best movie about Covid - Scenes from an Empty Church
Best performance in a movie that I didn’t list - Rebecca Hall in The Night House
Best comedy - Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar
Best Kristen Stewart movie - Spencer
Best Ben Affleck performance - The Last Duel
Best creature feature - Antlers
Best Dad Movie - The Dry
Best movie experience - Malignant
Predicted Oscar Winners
Best Picture - Belfast
Best Actor - Benedict Cumberbatch
Best Actress - Kristen Stewart
Best Supporting Actor - Ciaran Hinds
Best Supporting Actress - Aunjanue Ellis
Best Director - Jane Campion
MUSIC
my list with links to performances by them
Honorable Mentions
Take the Corners Gently by Steady Holiday
An Overview of Phenomenal Nature by Cassandra Jenkins
Maybe I Will See You at the End of the World by Sydney Sprague
TV
How to with John Wilson - HBOMax
Mare of Easttown - HBOMax
The Other Two - HBOMax
Billions - Showtime & Amazon Prime
Station Eleven - HBOMax
Ted Lasso - AppleTV
Hacks - HBOMax
Servant - AppleTV
Curb Your Enthusiasm - HBOMax
Great British Baking Show/Off - Netflix
Others I liked
The Good Lord Bird - Showtime
The White Lotus - HBOMax
Favorite Books I read this year - The Silence by Don DeLillo, Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas by Glenn Kenny, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino, and Intercepts by T.J. Payne
I had a daughter this year. There’s more about that if you click Annette up there at the top if you’re interested in that experience. That’s what 2021 is really to me. It’s that little face.
Stay safe everyone. Be kind.
Love, Major