Best Movies of 2021: Best of the Genres

Continuing my look back at the best movies of 2021, I am now going to look at the best movies from each genre. I will be looking at the best foreign-language film, best comedy, and best action movie, along with other genres. Each category will have five “nominees” (a.k.a my personal top five) with my “winner” (my favorite) in bold, followed by short reasoning as to why I picked it the best. Here are my picks for the best movies from each genre in 2021.

 

 

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

A Hero

Drive My Car

Flee

Parallel Mothers

Titane

• It was an incredible year for foreign-language films and in any other year, any of these films would have been my favorite. But Flee is a movie I have not stopped thinking about since I first saw it in January.

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Belle

Encanto

Flee

Luca

The Mitchells vs the Machines

• One of the things that makes Flee as special of a movie as it is the stunning animation that helps elevate the true story of an immigrant and his story of escaping Afghanistan to Denmark.

 

BEST COMEDY

Bad Trip

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Dating & New York

Licorice Pizza

Werewolves Within

• I laughed the most in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, but Licorice Pizza is a playful, amusing odyssey in the summer of 1973 and one of the best movies of the year.

 

BEST MUSICAL

Annette

Encanto

In the Heights

Tick Tick…Boom

West Side Story

• It was a sensational year for musicals, but Steven Spielberg did the unthinkable with his West Side Story remake by making it feel new and fresh while also staying close to the original play.

 

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Bill Eilish: The World is a Little Blurry

Cusp

Flee

The Lost Leonardo

Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

• Yup, Flee again. It is one of the very best movies of the year. For further reasoning as to why it won this category, see Best Foreign Language Film and Best Animated Film.

 

BEST HORROR/THRILLER

A Quiet Place Part II

Malignant

Old

Sound of Violence

Werewolves Within

• James Wan’s Malignant was a wild and brilliant ride, but Shyamalan’s tense and gripping Old is the director at his very best.

 

BEST ACTION MOVIE

The Harder They Fall

Jungle Cruise

The Matrix Resurrections

Nobody

Wrath of Man

• 2021 was a surprisingly great year for action movies, but The Matrix Resurrections was a rousing return to a world we hadn’t been in almost twenty years.

 

BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE

Eternals

Shang-Chi

Spider-Man: No Way Home

The Suicide Squad

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

• I get more in-depth into this category in my Ranking of the Comic Book Movies of 2021, but Eternals is unlike any MCU movie made to date and yet another stunning film from Chloé Zhao.

 

FIVE MOVIES I LIKED MORE THAN A LOT OF PEOPLE

Eternals

Fatherhood

Jungle Cruise

The Protegé

Wrath of Man

• Whether audiences or other critics didn’t like them, they didn’t make any money or they came and went in the theater, these are five movies that I thought were rather good.

 

MOVIES A LOT OF PEOPLE LIKED MORE THAN ME

Bergman Island

Dune

Free Guy

Passing

Spencer

• I’m not saying that any of these more are bad. In fact, I genuinely liked most of these movies. But I’ve been seeing them pop up on Best of the Year lists or getting Oscar-nomination buzz, which is fine but won’t happen here.

 

GREAT MOVIES RELEASED IN 2021 YOU MAY NOT HAVE HEARD OF

Catch the Fair One

The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain

Sound of Violence

There is No Evil

Together Together

• You may not have heard of any of these movies, but I urge you to seek every single one of them out. From a breezy comedy to a tight thriller to a controversial foreign film, these are some of the best movies of the year from exciting filmmakers.

 

FIVE MOVIES THAT CAME OUT IN 2021 THAT DO NOT EXIST

Joe Bell

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

Spiral: From the Book of Saw

Thunder Force

Tom & Jerry

• I apparently saw all of these movies and even reviewed a couple, but I could not tell you what happened in any of them, which is probably better that way.

 

FIVE MOVIES I STRAIGHT UP DID NOT LIKE 

Cherry

Don’t Breathe 2

Home Sweet Home Alone

Malcolm & Marie

Things Heard & Seen

• I usually don’t like to make a Worst Movies of the Year list, so here are five movies from 2021 that I did not like, for one reason or another.

 

 

 

 

 

Follow Kevflix on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, and on Facebook by searching Kevflix.