From ‘King Richard’ to ‘Gunda’: The 10 best films of 2021

I distinctly remember when I saw my first movie on the big screen in 2021. It was “In the Heights,” the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical, and perhaps I can be forgiven for thinking, as the movie started up, that it was the greatest film ever made. I felt this way because the experience of sitting in a big, booming theater, at long last, with larger-than-life actors parading across the screen, was a revivifying reminder of what first drew me to the movies – and what draws me still.

Since that time in June, I have seen many more movies in theaters, and quite a few more on the home screen. I’ve made my tentative peace with this bifurcated approach to moviegoing. It was true, after all, even before the pandemic, that movie audiences were increasingly migrating to the small screen. But I do hope, in vain perhaps, that in a post-pandemic world, audiences of all ages will once again throng the theaters for all kinds of movies, not just the blockbusters. 

Despite many grace notes, this past year was predictably odd for movies. How could it not be when so many of the offerings were completed before the pandemic hit, with their releases delayed sometimes for a year or more? The coming year should restore some semblance of normalcy to film production, which is great news, but, again, under what conditions will these new movies be experienced?

The silver lining in this current movie maelstrom is that filmmaking, at least in the low-budget indie realm, has become a faster and cheaper process. Streaming channels both large and small make it possible for many more of these movies to be seen than ever before. However these movies are made or viewed, it will be an incalculable boon if young, talented filmmakers, many of whom might otherwise have lacked the opportunity, break through and do important work.

I was grateful in this fraught movie year for even partial pleasures. Some of the films I was rather mixed about still contained wonders: the remarkable, shape-shifty Kathryn Hunter, who plays all three witches in “The Tragedy of Macbeth”; Olivia Colman’s simmering despair in “The Lost Daughter,” Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut; actor Tôko Miura’s personal driver, with her deep well of grievance, in “Drive My Car”; Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench as the grandparents in “Belfast,” whose relatively brief screen time has a novelistic density; and, perhaps best of all, the freestyle verve of writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s coming-of-age-in-the-1970s mishmash, “Licorice Pizza.”

And now, in no particular order, my 10 best list, based on movies that opened in theaters and/or online, for a regular run in 2021.

1. The Disciple – Written and directed by Chaitanya Tamhane, this deeply heartfelt drama about a devotee of Hindustani classical music is one of the most powerful films I’ve ever seen about the ways in which art can both exalt and entangle the lives of its practitioners. Sharad (Aditya Modak), the young vocalist, must come to terms with the fact that, in the musical world he reveres, he has talent, not genius. And yet, by the end, what the movie is saying is that some things are even more important than art. (Netflix; rated TV-MA)

2. Quo Vadis, Aida? – The slaughter, in 1995, of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina is the centerpiece for this impassioned memorialization written and directed by Jasmila Žbanić, who was living in Sarajevo when the massacre occurred. It’s a political thriller but also, with its moral gravitas, so much more than that. Its main protagonist, Aida, a first grade teacher acting as a translator for United Nations officials, is played by Jasna Ðuričić, and the year held no finer performance. (Available on streaming services; not rated; English subtitles)

3. Gunda – A black-and-white documentary about the daily life of farm animals, with no humans in sight and no narration, may not sound like the stuff of greatness, but “Gunda,” directed by Victor Kossakovsky, transports us with a hushed reverence into their lives, especially Gunda and her dozen or so piglets. The film’s embrace of the natural world is absolutely transcendent. (Available on streaming services; rated G)

4. Summer of Soul – This jubilant documentary, the directorial debut of Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, utilizes long-unseen footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival overflowing with great Black artists, among them Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, and Gladys Knight and her irrepressible Pips. (Hulu; rated PG-13)

5. The White Tiger – Few movies have depicted the indignities of the caste system as devastatingly as “The White Tiger,” written and directed by Ramin Bahrani from the Booker Prize-winning novel and featuring a chilling, quicksilver lead performance by Adarsh Gourav. The film plays like the anti-“Slumdog Millionaire,” and it’s all the truer for that. (Netflix; rated R)

6. Mass – Years after a high school shooting tragedy, the parents of the shooter, by arrangement, meet for the first time face-to-face in a church basement with the parents of a boy who died in the massacre. Fran Kranz’s writing-directing debut is a searing moral examination of the possibility of forgiveness. The ensemble cast members, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney, Jason Isaacs, and, especially, Ann Dowd, are extraordinary. (Available on streaming services starting Dec. 28; rated PG-13)

7. King Richard – This is the most sheerly enjoyable crowd-pleaser of the year, with Will Smith’s best performance yet as Richard Williams, the exasperatingly driven father of tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams. Playing his wife, Aunjanue Ellis gives as good as she gets. Added bonus: Unlike most sports movies, the actors here actually look like they can play the sport. (HBO Max through Dec. 19, and in theaters; rated PG-13)

8. Milkwater – Writer-director Morgan Ingari’s auspicious feature debut is about a young woman (played by Molly Bernard) who agrees to act as a surrogate birth mother for her gay friend (Patrick Breen), and the emotional distance that comes between them. Touching, funny, unsentimental, and wonderfully acted. (Available on streaming services; TV-MA)

9. Boiling Point – During one night in a high-end London restaurant, filmed in a single take, the staff and chefs and clientele engage in enough hubbub (and cussing) to fill out a dozen lesser movies. Director and co-writer Philip Barantini is a wizard at drawing out sizzling performances on the fly. (Available on streaming services; rated R)

10. Language Lessons – Yet another terrific debut feature, this one is from director Natalie Morales, who co-stars in this two-character study with co-writer Mark Duplass. He plays Adam, who was gifted by his husband with 100 one-on-one online Spanish-language lessons before tragedy struck. He reluctantly goes ahead with the lessons – he in Oakland, California, and Cariño (Morales), his teacher, in Costa Rica. Don’t let the rom-com, Zoom-centric trappings put you off. The emotions coursing through this movie are deeply felt. (Available on streaming services; not rated)

A few other worthies: “West Side Story,” “Old Henry,” “Spencer,” “Pig,” “The Truffle Hunters,” “The Velvet Underground,” “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain,” and “The Last Duel.”

Peter Rainer is the Monitor’s film critic.