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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
Parallel Mothers
- 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
- 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
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
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
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
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
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
The Suicide Squad
- 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
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
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
The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain
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
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
Don’t Breathe 2
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.
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