For the films I saw last year that were released in 2021, I split my list between films that got 4 stars out of 5 or higher, and everything else. I saw so many 2021 films last year that I ended up with 61 films with a rating of 4 stars or higher! I’m going to go through My Top 50 with slightly more detail, but today I am listing #’s 51 – 61, which are all 4 star films, but didn’t quite make the final Top 50.
#61 – Beans, directed by Tracey Deer – Quebecois coming-of-age film set during the Oka Crisis, the turbulent Indigenous uprising that tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990. It was certainly a dark moment in Canadian history, and the archival footage director Deer weaves into the narrative film is incredibly effective to tell this horrifically fraught tale. The coming-of-age story, centering on a 12-year-old girl whose Mohawk name is difficult to pronounce, so everyone calls her Beans, is slightly less successful, although makes for a nice humanistic touchstone while the racial prejudice threatens to smother everything around it.
#60 – Cowboys, directed by Anna Kerrigan – There was something about this modern-day western that is also a domestic drama, and a social commentary about gender, that really worked for me. Writer/director Anna Kerrigan hits all the expected tropes then upends them a bit, making them all that more real, and effective. Recently separated from his wife, Troy (Steve Zahn), who is treated for an unspecified mental illness after spending a couple of years in prison, runs off with his trans son, Joe, heading through the Montana wilderness in hopes of crossing the border into Canada. His ex-wife (Jillian Bell) refused to acknowledge their son’s gender, which was causing Joe great amounts of confusion and discomfort. The local law, in the form of a Detective named Faith (Ann Dowd), leads the effort to track them down. When Troy’s medication is lost in the woods, everything grows more complicated.
#59 – Red Moon Tide, directed by Lois Patiño – The Galacian coast in Spain featured in RED MOON TIDE is wild and beautiful, and provides a dark and mythic backdrop for this unique film written and directed by Lois Patiño. This haunting tale is told with an unnerving combination of staged, static shots… on landscapes, groups of people, people alone, mostly still, like mannequins staged for some sort of macabre exhibition, and voiceover, presumably the inner monologues of the frozen townsfolk in tableaux. They are ruminating about a fisherman, Rubio, who is convinced a massive creature is lurking in the depths of the ocean, hunting the shores of the town, as he discovers more and more corpses at sea. He retrieves the corpses to bring the villagers back home, but now his ship has run aground and he himself is among the missing. Along with Rubio, it seems the spirits of the villagers have fled as well, leaving only their bodies… immobile, waiting… for what, we are not sure.
#58 – Perfumes, directed by Grégory Magne – There’s nothing all that unique about this French comedy, but it’s quite noteworthy, and enjoyable, because it really does everything right. Guillaume (Grégory Montel) is a chauffeur, whose recent traffic violations are making his boss reluctant to use him on jobs. Going through a divorce, Guillaume needs a steady income in order to get a larger home so he can share custody of his daughter, who he adores, so his boss lets him take a client who is known to be difficult. Anne Wallberg (Emmanuelle Devos) is a former celebrity in the perfume world. but she has fallen out of favor and now takes jobs set up by her agent that take advantage of her ‘nose,’ a discerning sense of scents, to mask the smell of a odor-belching factory, or replicate the smell of a fine leather handbag for atmosphere. Anne is soft-spoken, but arrogant and with high expectations, treating Guillaume more as a personal valet than a driver. Their evolving relationship forms the core of the film.
#57 – Fish & Men, directed by Adam Jones and Darby Duffin – Filmmakers do a great job weaving multiple narratives into a cohesive story about the fishing industry from ocean to plate. From Gloucester, MA to Norway, Japan, Montauk NY, Washington DC, Wellfleet, and Los Angeles, this documentary manages to cover a lot of ground and a lot of fascinating, related subjects.
#56 – I Was A Simple Man, directed by Christopher Makoto Yogi – One of the many great films exploring grief that I enjoyed last year, this film follows Masao on his gradual journey from life to death. Much of that journey takes place in the form of memory, but like UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES, Masao is also visited by his beloved wife who died years before and sits with him as he loses touch with his life. Masao led a life of isolation, so it’s also difficult for the family he is leaving behind who now find themselves called upon to help out as his body starts to shut down. While Masao and much of his family live on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, they live on opposite sides, and one son lives on the mainland. It falls upon one of his grandsons, Gavin, to take care of him during his final days. Gavin is perplexed by this situation as he never really knew Masao very well when he was alive, and his rural way of life differs greatly from big city life in Honolulu. Masao barely registers Gavin’s presence, lost as he is in his memories, and preparing for his journey.
#55 – Ayar, directed by Floyd Russ – This experimental film blends the real life stories of the actors involved, with a fictional narrative about three generations of immigrant women exploring complex mother/daughter relationships and the difficult choices that they face. Ayar wants to attend her daughter’s fifth birthday party. She gets a cake, a balloon, and heads over to her mother’s home where the party is underway. When she arrives, Ayar’s mother, Renata tells her family to take the girl inside, while she confronts her daughter, telling her to leave. It turns out that Ayar left her daughter in Renata’s care five years ago when she headed to Vegas with a man who wanted to make her a singing star. It’s a tense, emotional confrontation, made all the more charged because of the COVID-19 pandemic the characters are dealing with. Most interestingly, the film features brief sequences when the two lead actresses are interviewed about their own life experiences and how some version of their lives ended up becoming the basis for the film’s narrative. This melange of family drama, pandemic horror story, and behind-the-scenes making of a film documentary come together to create something unique and compelling.
#54 – The Perfect Candidate, directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour – Maryam recently bought a sporty, blue car (almost all of the other cars seen on the roads are white or silver) and she is seen driving it in mammy scenes. Yet she still faces many of the limitations of her gender in modern day Saudi Arabia. Although she is a doctor, she must endure the disgust of many older, male patients who refuse to have her touch them, or even look them in the eye, and would rather a man, even an unqualified man, treat them when injured. In the catalyst situation for the film, Maryam seeks to travel to a medical conference in Dubai to interview for a position at a more progressive hospital, only to be denied when her travel papers are not in order, and her father is unavailable to help renew them. In an attempt to get help from a relative in an administrative government position, Maryam signs up to run for Municipal Council in her town, an action that changes her life and opens her up to possibilities she never thought possible.
#53 – Keep An Eye Out, directed by Quentin Dupieux – Dupieux has such an offbeat way of telling a story, and this film doesn’t really reveal itself fully until the end, so I won’t give anything away. What starts as a police interrogation, with maybe one or two hints that it’s a little quirky, end up as a bizarre examination of story-telling, or exposition. I really don’t know what else to say about it, but it’s fun and well worth a look at just over an hour.
#52 – Summer of 85, directed by Francois Ozon – I wasn’t really expecting a lot from this coming-of-age, cum summer romance between two beautiful young men (barely) in a seaside resort town in France. It seemed fairly straight-forward, except we are immediately dropped into a flashback where we know something terrible has happened. It quickly became apparent that this film had a bit of a melodramatic, nearly camp undertone that underlay the over-the-top romanticism of one young man’s first love, and another’s capriciously tormenting actions that lead to devastating consequences. The passion swirling around the boats on the sea, or in the fishing shop where the two boys work with one of their mothers is sweeping, and something that hopefully we have all been caught up in at least once in our lives. It certainly seemed authentic from a teen point of view, and somehow it all worked for me. Not in a serious way, but in a fun, over-the-top way.
#51 – Sweet Thing, directed by Alexandre Rockwell – A 14-year-old girl goes on the run with her younger brother and a new friend in this nicely balanced fantasy and hard-hitting slice of reality from Alexandre Rockwell, SWEET THING. Billie, named after the famous singer, takes care of her younger brother Nico, and her alcoholic father, who is caring a fairly functional sometimes, and horribly out of control at other times. Mom has taken off to spend time with a boorish boyfriend. Despite this, Billie is filled with caring, and she is the glue that keeps this family going, but it’s a burden to hard for anyone, much less a 14-year-old girl to bear, and when her dad is arrested and sent to rehab, and Billie and Nico must spend time with Mom and boyfriend at his beach house, that’s when things really take a turn for the even worse. Shot in gorgeous, grainy black & white the streets of New Bedford, MA never looked grimmer. Rockwell uses his family for the leads, with his two kids playing Billie and Nico, and their mother playing their movie Mom. As Billie, Lana Rockwell is a star in the making if she wants to pursue acting as a career. She is captivating on screen, with presence, warmth, and a gorgeous look.
#1 – AND THEN WE DANCED – I’m very hard on my gay, coming-of-age films, but writer/director Levan Akin’s powerful story of Merab, a young man in conservative Georgia, who has been training for years for a spot in the National Georgian Ensemble. When a new male dancer arrives Merab starts to see a whole know way of living. There are so many reasons why AND THEN WE DANCED is an outstanding film, from the sensitive and passionate screenplay, to the artful direction and cinematography, but much of the success lies in the hands of the young lead actor Levan Gelbakhiani, a dancer by training, whose every emotion washes over his open, beautiful face so transparently that your heart is always with him. And while this is a gay coming-of-age story there is so much more going on in this film, from Merab’s challenging home life, the rigors of his dance training, but central to it all, that rush of first love and first heartbreak. This one took me by surprise in so many ways, and has stayed with me strongly. 
#2 – LIGHT FROM LIGHT – While Paul Harrill’s lovely film is sort of marketed as a paranormal investigation story (and it is that) it’s more about a pair of folks who are haunted by their own circumstances and how they are able to help each other. As a child, Shelia had a couple of visions that came true, and from there she went on to investigate paranmoral occurrences. A widower whose wife died under unusual circumstances hires Shelia to see if his wife’s spirit is still lingering in the house they shared. This is a truly slow burn, but once it’s got its hook in you, you’ll be glad you’re dragged along. The power of these quiet scenes took me by surprise, and the acting by Marin Ireland and Jim Gaffigan is just gorgeous. Josh Wiggins does great as well, as Shelia’s son, who is struggling with some big decisions that are colored by his mom’s history. Lovely cinematography in the Appalachians, and through the potentially haunted house cap things off beautifully. A powerfully and unexpectedly moving film. 
#3 – NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS – Eliza Hittman follows-up the impressive BEACH RATS with a somber character study about a young woman from Pennsylvania who travels to New York City with her cousin to get an abortion. Things don’t go quite as planned, and the pair end up having to stay longer than expected, with no money to afford them a place to stay. Hittman found her lead actress in fist-timer Sidney Flanigan and effectively uses tight close-ups where the gifted young woman conveys her doubts and anguish through facial expressions alone. The sequence where the film’s title is explained took my breath away. Eliza Hittman is clearly a director to keep an eye on.
#4 – PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE – It’s so rare in a film to actually watch two people fall in love. It doesn’t happen set to a sweeping score, or in a delightfully sweet montage. It doesn’t happen all at once, with locked eyes, or a catching of breath. It happens slowly, over time, starting perhaps with admiration, then intrigue, perhaps desire, and slowly, that first blush of love. Céline Sciamma, already notable for her films WATER LILLIES and GIRLHOOD, creates an exquisite portrait herself, of a female painter in late eighteenth century Brittany, who is hired to paint the wedding portrait of a very unhappy… and unwilling young woman. As the painter paints, she peers, she gazes, she examines her subject, and in doing so, becomes the object of her subjects gaze as well. Stunningly beautiful, intensely engaging, a technical marvel, Sciamma’s PORTRAIT is a work of art. 
#5 – SOUND OF METAL – I went into this film knowing nothing… in fact, I went into it with misinformation. I assumed, from the photo I saw, that it was a documentary about a heavy metal drummer who develops tinnitus. Instead, this stunning narrative follows the difficult path of a young man, a recovering addict involved in a slightly co-dependent relationship with a woman with whom her performs in a quasi-punk, quasi-art due, who damages his hearing to the point of deafness. Featuring a bravura performance by rising star Riz Ahmend, this drummer is entirely focused on a cure, while the community around him works tirelessly to help him to accept his lack of hearing and to adjust to a new way of living. First time director Darius Marder has created s powerful exploration of a man facing a challenge that shakes him to his core identity, and follows him through the arduous journey he must take to adapt.
#6 – SORRY WE MISSED YOU – Ken Loach tackles serious subject, and often his characters are struggling, working-class folk. In this film, he focuses on a family who’s just barely getting by in London: Ricky (Dad) drives a delivery van (think Amazon), Abbie (Mom) does home health care with horrible hours, Seb is technically in high school, but he’d rather be out spray painting some graffiti, and Liza Jae is the youngest, trying desperately to keep everyone happy. Despite best intentions and potential opportunities, things the Proctor family just can’t catch a break, and things just get worse and worse. Arguments turn into fights, things are done that can’t be taken back, but the incredible power of this film is through it all, Loach shows us by the actions of his characters that there is deep, familial love here, despite everything. It’s a tough film that broke my heart. 
#7 – FIRST COW – Kelly Reichardt returns to an historic era, this time the 1800’s and the Westward Expansion, to tell a tale of friendship and early entrepreneurship during a rough and tumble time. An out of work cook helps a fugitive Chinaman, forging a quiet friendship then dreaming of what they could do to become successful in a frontier settlement. A number of things come together, the chef’s baking skills, the lack of interesting bread and sweets on the frontier, and the introduction of the first cow in the area, owned by a wealthy landowner who needed some cream for his afternoon tea. Reichardt has evolved into one of my favorite filmmakers, and her attention to detail, her skills with portraying friendships, and her comfort with silence create some beautiful cinematic tales. 
#8 – SONG WITHOUT A NAME – Late 80’s Peru, on the precipice of being overwhelmed by terrorism by a group called The Shining Path. First-time feature director and co-writer Melina León paints a portrait of life in both the City, and the outskirts where the indigenous communities live in poverty. She focuses on one young woman, Georgina, who is about to give birth, but is too poor to cover the costs of the clinic. When she hears an ad on the radio of a clinic helping people avoid these costs, she takes the opportunity. Unfortunately, she becomes part of a growing newborn kidnapping movement, and as a poor, migrant woman, she is ignored by both the police and the judicial system. Her only hope is an eager young reporter who is assigned to dig into her story and uncover the truth, even while he is concealing his own truth that could put his life at risk. This grim story is told with powerful visuals the both highlight and counter the harsh life that Georgina faces. 
#9 – CAT IN THE WALL – Illustrating both the strong bonds of family, and the gritty, harsh reality of current day life for some in London, CAT IN THE WALL follows a family of Bulgarian immigrants whose lives are thrown into disarray when a conflict with their neighbors over a cat escalates. This artfully written film that feels like improv, but must surely be carefully scripted, gives us a look into a housing development with a mix of residents, and a decision made to renovate the windows despite none of the tenants asking for it. The cost is borne by those who have long-term leases, and lead character Irina, struggling to find work as an architect but making ends meet working in a pub, tries to rally her fellow tenants in protest. Meanwhile, her conflict with her neighbors around the cat, puts her entire family in jeopardy.
#10 – KAJILLIONAIRE – Miranda July is consistent with her quirky characters that deliver powerfully moving messages from both her debut, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, and its follow-up, THE FUTURE. In KAJILLIONAIRE, she steps out of the performance aspect of the film sticking to the writing and directing, but allows Evan Rachel Wood to bring to life an amazingly strange, yet wonderful character in Old Dolio, daughter of an aging couple who decades ago stepped away from capitalist society to live a life off the grid, making their ways through cons and grifts. It’s amazing how July can weave such odd and off-putting characters into a narrative that not only reveals, but redeems them with heart and soul.
#11 – THE VAST OF NIGHT – After reading a 
#12 – TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH – Yoko is the host of a popular Japanese travel show. While filming at various cultural landmarks in Uzbekistan, we see Yoko shooting hip deep in a lake supposedly filled with large, mysterious fish, repeatedly riding a nausea-inducing, carnival ride, and eating not quite cooked food at a local eatery. On camera, she does this all with a smile and a perky, upbeat demeanor, but off-camera, Yoko is brooding and withdrawn, missing her boyfriend in Japan, and putting up with her dismissive, male director and cameramen. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is known for his more chilling, horror-themed films, and he uses some of those talents to highlight Yoko’s isolation and fear at being a woman alone in a foreign city. Beautifully understated with some striking moments of musical magic.
#13 – MOUTHPIECE – A marvelous return to form from Patricia Rozema, who adapts a uniquely challenging play bringing all her strengths to bear: a feminist perspective, an intellectual analysis, and an emotional heart. It helps that the playwrights, and lead actresses from the play also star in the film. Having two people play a single character, representing her different aspects is greatly aided by the pair that have lived in her skin for so long. Another beautiful analysis of the affects of grief, and another film with startling moments of musical magic.
#14 – HOUSE OF HUMMINGBIRD – Despite its roots in actual events (the film feels very autobiographical) the central coming-of-age focus makes it less historical and more personal. 14-year old Eun-hee is searching to find her place in the world as she enters into that adolescent period were every decision seems both completely irrelevant and life-changing at the same time. Her family is caught up in the middle-class struggle to improve. Casual neglect, abuse by her brother, misunderstandings in adolescent love, and a tragedy involving a true historical event add up to make writer/director Bora Kim’s narrative film debut something really special. 
#15 – MONSOON – Kit returns to his birthplace in Saigon after fleeing post-war Vietnam over thirty years ago with his parents. Nothing seems the same, as he struggles with his heritage. Hong Khaou’s film is another story about grief that resonated with me strongly given my mothers Filipino heritage. She never went back after coming the America after World War II, and now I feel if I visited, it wouldn’t be the place she knew. Henry Golding does a great job as Kit, and the opening scene contains some spectacular imagery that inspires both calm and tension. A later scene that depicts a family harvesting lotus flowers for tea is similarly outstanding. 
#16 – BEANPOLE – The setting is post World War II Leningrad, and when we’re watching a Russian film after World War II, you can count in it being pretty grim. The central characters are Iya and Masha, two young women who experienced the war first-hand. Iya, toweringly tall and eerily pale, fought on the front lines until a concussion sent her back to the City where she now serves as a nurse tending men, many of whom have had their lives permanently shattered. She’s also taking care of a young, preternaturally cute toddler. Problem is, her concussion also sends her spiraling periodically into numbing fugue states where her body seizes and she becomes unaware of what’s going on around her. One such moment, early in the film, sets the devastating tone for much of the rest of the film especially after Masha returns.
#17 – THE TRUTH – In a normal year, Hirokazu Koreeda’s English language debut would be in the Top 5, but the competition is fierce this year. Koreeda goes to France and assembles an international cast including Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, and Ethan Hawke, but sticks close to his favorite theme of family. In this case it’s the strained relationship between a mother, Fabienne, star of French cinema, and a daughter, Lumir, a screenwriter, now living in New York with her husband and daughter. You see, Fabienne has just published her memoirs which has caused some additional friction in the relationship. She’s also starring in new science fiction film where her own mother never grows old, unearthing her own insecurities about aging and her relationship with her own daughter. Another triumph for the master!
#18 – THE NEST – Sean Durkin (MARTHA, MARCY MAE, MARLENE) has created a simmering drama modeled on the classic haunted house horror story, but where the supernatural element that is haunting the unfortunate family within is represented by wealth. THE NEST tells the story of a family that is falling apart due to the pressures and excesses of the late 1980’s culture. Led by outstanding performances by the always exciting Carrie Coon, and a surprisingly mature Jude Law. This one stuck with me and my appreciation of it grew with the passage of time.
#19 – HAM ON RYE – High School children from all across town ritualistically prepare for a big event then travel in small groups to a common destination. Is it prom? It’s hard to tell, but when the destination appears, the town deli, and the rituals continue, from everyone touching the entryway sign as they arrive, or the amusing dance sequences, we understand there’s something else going on. For anyone who has ever grown up… which is pretty much all of us, this surreal and beautifully shot film is for you. Writer/director Tylor Taormina’s feature debut makes its mark boldly and beautifully.
#20 – SHE DIES TOMORROW – A fascinating premise reveals a psychological malady spreading from person to person that causes them to believe with certainty that they will die tomorrow. Actress Amy Seimetz wrote and directed this film after going through a bout with severe depression, and she captures the isolation and foreboding perfectly. What makes this film so fascinating is how each person so afflicted responds quite differently. Jane Adams is that standout in a quirky but realistic supporting role.