Best Movies

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival kicks off this week and, as I’ve written many times, this festival is very near and dear to my heart. I started attending the Sundance Film Festival back in 2011 as a volunteer for the festival and over the last couple of years have had the honor of covering the festival as a member of the press. This is a film festival I truly love. I love the focus on…

It’s that time. Time to look at the best movies of 2021. Crazy that the year is officially over, but here we are. 2021 as a whole was an interesting one, but as a movie year, I thought it was rather great. Though the COVID-19 pandemic still lingered around the entire year, we saw movie theaters open back up and audiences head back to the cineplex. Film festivals had an interesting year, with some being…

Continuing my look at the best movies of 2021, here are my picks for the best performances in 2021. Every year this is the toughest list to make and every year I feel bad about leaving some performances off.  Like previous years, I have broken the performances down by category, much like the Oscars, with Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. For each category, I will list the “nominees” and…

Continuing my look back at the best movies of 2021, I am now going to look at some of my favorite movie scenes and moments from the movies of 2021. Whether it was a masterclass scene of acting, an exhilarating action scene, or a moment of pure entertainment, these were all scenes from 2021 movies that I loved. There were a ton of movie scenes that I loved in 2021, but this group of movie…

Continuing my look back at the best movies of 2021, I am now going to look at the best technical achievements of 2021. I will be looking at the best screenplays of the years, the best camera and set work, the best music, and other technical categories. Like Best of the 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…

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…

Comic book movies dominate the cinematic landscape today. It feels like every year more franchises and comic book characters are being brought to the big screen. Though 2020 was a very strange cinematic year, we still got a handful of comic book movies. Pandemic or not, comic book movies are here to stay. 2021 offered up eight comic book movies, which is close to the same number we got in 2019 and 2018 (we had…

It’s the Christmas season and with that comes Christmas movies. Of all the holidays, it feels like Christmas has the most movies and the most popular movies. Everyone has a favorite Christmas movie, whether you’re a traditionalist and like It’s a Wonderful Life or White Christmas, or you prefer a modern hit like Elf, or prefer to go for something different like Die Hard or Black Christmas, you have one that you love and that…

The 2021 Chicago International Film Festival kicks off this week and it is a film festival that I love with all my heart. This was the first festival that I attended back in 2008 and it is one I have attended every year since. This is a truly great festival that does not get the love and attention of some higher-profile festivals, but one that deserves to be mentioned as one of the best film…

The 2021 Fantasia Film Festival kicks off this week and it is a festival I am very excited to be covering once again. Last year was my first time covering the festival and I had a great time with it. The festival is full of diverse films from all around the world, focusing mostly on horror, thrillers, and science fiction films. This year’s festival, which is taking place in person and virtually, promises to be…