Ars Technica’s favorite films in 2021—whether projected or streamed

[Karlston]

No matter where or how you saw films in 2021, these were your best nerdy options.

Aurich Lawson

When it comes to films in 2021, Ars Technica readers have been more likely to express their feelings about the logistics of seeing new offerings this year than about the films in question.

 

We get it. The past year-plus of world-shaking change has been a stern reminder that some stuff works just fine in our homes, which includes films—a fact that movie studios and massive theaters alike are uneasy about. Some companies embraced this reality for the entirety of 2021, committing to simul-launched films in theaters and on streaming platforms in the United States. Others toyed with the idea before backing off. Still others would rather not admit until at least 30 or 45 days after a film's launch that you might have a masterfully calibrated 4K screen and spatial surround-sound system in your home, variants be damned.

 

Still, we get into such a tizzy because the films in question remain fascinating and exhilarating, no matter how, where, or when we watch them. At Ars, our critical eye continues drifting toward a substantial range of "nerd"-appropriate cinema. This year, the best stuff ranges from mainstream comic- and sci-fi-inspired blockbusters to meticulously designed cult/horror madness to documentaries that explore the dire consequences of travesties like pseudoscience or climate change.

 

We're opting for an unranked list, with the exception of our "year's best" vote at the very end so you might peruse a variety of genres and options and possibly add surprises to your eventual watchlist. As ever, we invite you to head to the comments and add your own suggestions for films released in 2021, whether you watched them in crowded, masked cineplexes or OLED-lined isolation chambers.

A monstrous monster option: Godzilla Vs. Kong

Everything I hoped for from a picture like this comes to fruition in Godzilla vs. Kong—and then some.

Warner Bros.

As much as I enjoyed Godzilla Vs. Kong from the comfort of my living room, displayed on a nice television with a subwoofer cranked to near-max, its two hours had me craving a more collective, crowd-filled experience—perhaps more so than any film or TV series I'd seen during the peak of COVID's lockdown. This film is a lot like its titular beasts: big, splashy, and sometimes quite dumb on the surface, yet full of animal-like cunning and the ability to land massive blows at crucial moments.

 

Special effects can't be the only content in a silly monster movie, and thankfully, GvK's script walks a fine line between seriousness, heart, and outright cheese. The film's logic is never outrageously bad—though at times it's proudly paper-thin. Breaking into a disaster site full of the highest levels of corporate malfeasance? Just lick a screwdriver and jam it into the right plug. What about when a pre-teen girl sneaks past the highest-grade military security, meant to keep an eye on the murderous Kong, to go up to him and check on his feelings? GvK constantly waves its hand at these moments, since they whiz by so quickly, as if to say, "Don't worry about that plot hole, poindexter."

 

GvK's script and tone are paced nicely with action sequences that are the filmmaking version of a studio setting towers of money on fire—as lit by the blue-fire blasts coming out of Godzilla's throat. Every pixel pumped into the film's leading monsters is spent wisely. Whichever VFX house got this gig did a masterful job rendering the hairy, emotionally uncaged Kong within lush scenery—the shadows and ambient occlusion dance over his shaggy, unkempt frame. The same goes for the other monster in the film's title, and I'm afraid I can't say more than that for those of you who haven't had the plot spoiled already.

 

GvK is big, dumb, and fun—but don't be fooled. It takes serious filmmaking smarts to nail action and pacing like this.

 

—Sam Machkovech, Tech Culture Editor

 

The trailer for It's A Summer Film!

When a kid becomes a samurai: It’s A Summer Film!

It's a Summer Film! is the best movie seemingly no one has seen (or is able to easily see) in 2021. It's the kind of friends-on-an-adventure film I would've been obsessed with as a kid, yet it creates the same type of devotion for Adult Nathan because writer/director Sôshi Masumoto's script so cleverly weaves in genre elements and the thematic hallmarks that the samurai film's main character, Barefoot, is obsessed with.

 

Ostensibly, a group of three high school girls band together to make sure one of 'em, the samurai-story devotee Barefoot, gets to make the script she's been working on for the year-end student club festival. But It's A Summer Film! offers surprise after surprise as the plot unfolds. This film delivers laughs, heartwarming moments, and new challenges in equal doses, and it features a handful of my favorite film moments in recent years. If I could find the film's final samurai battle on YouTube, I might be watching it once a week this winter.

 

You will finish watching It's A Summer Film! and just feel good, whether your favorite cinematic genre involves high schoolers, young romance, sci-fi and fantastical elements, or jokes anyone with an affinity for AV Club will enjoy. And within the current iteration of the film industry, that makes It's A Summer Film! one of the easiest films to recommend. Society just needs some big US distributor, streaming or otherwise, to realize this.

 

—Nathan Mattise, Features Editor Emeritus

Parallel universes with new twists: A Writer's Odyssey

Based on a short story by Shuang Xuetao entitled To Kill a Novelist, A Writer's Odyssey has a decidedly ambitious, very meta premise, shifting between parallel realms: the real world and a fictional fantasy world. Director Lu Yang is best known for the 2014 Chinese wuxia film Brotherhood of Blades and its 2017 sequel. Elements of the wuxia genre are woven into the fantasy portions of his latest film. But the other half is set in the present day.

 

In the film, novelist Kongwen Lu (Dong Zijian) is the author of a fantasy series following a heroic teenager, also named Kongwen. The fictional character is on a quest to confront Lord Redmane, under the guidance of a Black Armor (voiced by Guo Jingfei). But through a strange twist of fate, the fantasy world of the novel begins to impact life in the real world, leading grieving father Guan Ning (Lei Jiayin) to accept a mission from Tu Ling (Yang Mi) to kill the author.

 

The fantasy storyline in particular features some eye-popping visuals and special effects, which embolden its spectacular action sequences. The talented main cast gives terrific performances, and it's impossible not to be moved by the dual quests of Ning and Kongwen, as the explanation for this mysterious linkage between the two worlds gradually becomes clear. The film is ultimately about dealing with tragic loss and the lingering grief that springs from it. With its sweeping epic scale, high-octane action, gorgeous cinematography, and high production values, A Writer's Odyssey is very much in the big-budget vein of 2019's The Wandering Earth.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette, Senior Writer

Trashtastic horror done right: Malignant

If Malignant was a nightclub ripped from an SNL skit, I'd say that this movie has everything: twins, repressed memories, grainy VHS tapes, a big old house, nightmares that come true, an imaginary friend, cobwebs, bones snapping, hearing voices through a radio, skeptical cops, and a lair. Oh, and a subtext about how families—both biological and otherwise—deal with trauma.

 

A nurse is the lone suspect in a gruesome, locked-room homicide, but she knows the real killer is a long-haired, malevolent force that can seemingly be anywhere at once. As more bodies pile up throughout the city, she and her plucky sister learn the murders have something to do with that abandoned cliffside hospital no one wants to talk about. (“That was a different time!” one of its former doctors pleads into a phone. Spoiler alert: his disbelief doesn't prove useful in the "staying alive" department.) And then she starts having... bad dreams. Director James Wan (Saw 1, Furious 7, Aquaman) has fun seeing just how much suspense he can pull out of characters staring down darkened hallways saying things like “Who’s there?” Also, Malignant plays fair with its central mystery: in its bonkers way, everything hangs together. I’m still marveling at how its Swiss watch of a plot portions out clues and red herrings.

 

—Peter Opaskar, Editor

The year's best horror remake: Candyman

Candyman is director Nia DaCosta's imaginative sequel (of sorts) to the 1992 horror classic, transforming the singular slasher known as Candyman into an ageless malevolence whose curse reverberates through time. It's set 30 years after the events of the first film. Visual artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his gallery-owner girlfriend Brianna (Teyonah Parris) move into a luxury loft in the now-gentrified neighborhood. With his career flagging, Anthony searches for inspiration and latches onto the urban legend of Candyman after hearing about it from the owner of a local laundromat.

 

The story is told not in traditional flashbacks but through re-enactments using shadow puppets—a novel and visually striking narrative device. The performances are terrific across the board, and DaCosta strikes a nice balance when it comes to the requisite gore by using it sparingly. Just as often, the violence occurs off-screen, at a distance, or in the reflection of a mirror, thereby avoiding the blood-soaked monotony of your average slasher film.

 

Above all, DaCosta has created a compelling story that explores how urban legends rise out of traumatic injustices; how those traumas continue to haunt communities over generations; and how the victims of those injustices can be turned into monsters by the stories we choose to tell. The end credits bring back the shadow-puppet motif to show the endless cycle of violence that leads to different incarnations of Candyman over the decades. What could be more horrifying than that?

 

—Jennifer Ouellette, Senior Writer

 

The trailer for Luca.

A surprising CGI animation risk-taker: Luca

The streaming era can be extremely infuriating, even for people who aren't Christopher Nolan. As more and more companies decide to start their own services, access becomes more splintered and you need to fork over more monthly dollars to watch an old favorite or some buzzy new thing that happens to be on Peacock or whatever (We Are Lady Parts' pilot episode was great!). And as things become more splintered, finding any one thing that your friends and coworkers and the people you're stuck next to in the DMV have all seen feels impossible. Pop culture used to be a great bit of social capital. In any given year without Game of Thrones or Black Panther, though, you're more likely to successfully navigate a conversation through the weather or football.

 

All the same, that newly expanded bucket for companies to fill with Content™ comes with perks, and Luca reminds us. This is the freakin' weirdest Pixar/Disney project to date, and those collaborators have written stories about anthropomorphic feelings. I adore how unusual this tale about a young sea monster off the Amalfi Coast who... has to win a triathlon(?)... is in practice. Luca combines vaguely Little Mermaid-ish motivations with Call Me By Your Name-vibes and a wonderfully storybook-y European everytown setting that Beauty and the Beast once explored. I know Luca was originally set to have a theatrical release, but "hyperspecific" and "offbeat" are two things available now more than ever because streaming has increased the need for more stuff to exist while simultaneously reducing old pressures like Nielsen ratings or box office numbers. Maybe in a non-COVID world Luca would have been a surprise summer hit—animated kids' movies remain one of the most bankable film exercises this side of superheroes—but it feels perfectly at home as something you can watch at home on the second or third streaming service you inevitably subscribed to in the last 18 months. It's definitely more fun and interesting than Falcon and the Winter Soldier at least.

 

—Nathan Mattise, Features Editor Emeritus

 

 

 

 

 

If Cocoon was darker, more realistic: Tiong Bahru Social Club

I'm partial to the near-future sci-fi genre, since it has the power to reflect a likely clustercuss outcome while reminding its audience that a lot of its horror already exists in the real world. Dave Eggers' The Circle/The Every world does this, as do Bong Joon Ho films like Okja. Writer/director Bee Thiam Tan's Tiong Bahru Social Club hits that sweet spot in style.

 

For the TL;DR, a young man named Ah Bee turns 30 and decides he needs a change of scenery. He moves out of his mom's condo and enters the Tiong Bahru Social Club, an algorithmic experiment in community living. In these sleek high-rises, elderly Singapore residents have their days guided by assigned Happiness Agents, young people hired to maximize both their residents' and the community's Happiness Index. What makes someone happy, you wonder? Don't worry about it—the algorithms figure it out. And if Ah Bee's scores aren't up to snuff, the algorithms will dictate what tactics he should try and whether or not he stays or goes.

 

It's a tremendous premise with many 2021 real-life inspirations, from the social scores of China to your Apple Watch reminding you to move or breathe. And Tan's script and direction highlight the shortcomings of this approach in style, with production design that may have you pining to watch The French Dispatch shortly after. But ultimately, like any good film, the best thing about Tiong Bahru Social Club is how it provides many ideas to chew on and stays on the mind well after you finish. Maybe I don't need to be so religious about logging MyFitnessPal after all.

—Nathan Mattise, Features Editor Emeritus

The year's comic book films: A solid fray, topped by Spidey

Having reviewed roughly 40 zillion Marvel and DC films in my run at Ars, I have to say that 2021 was actually a pretty fantastic year for the genre. (To be fair, the arguable winner for the genre's "best drama" award might go to Marvel's ever-changing logistics.) On the Marvel Studios side, the post-Endgame reset is fully in swing, and the studio has been bullish in making clear that it's eager to amplify new filmmaking voices and perspectives. The studio allowed Black Widow to experiment with smaller, more intimate stakes, which put out a tidy red carpet for Florence Pugh's scene-stealing turn, while Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was able to draw out the usual "Marvel origin film" formula with some fun, wild, and risky aspects. Both come highly recommended as refreshing post-"snappening" films. (Eternals, less so—at least until it lands on Disney+ in January 2022.)

 

DC had a quieter year as it formally bid the Snyderverse farewell, paving the way for next year's The Batman to lead a cinematic reset. Before doing that, however, it let James Gunn play around with DC's bad guys (see below for more on that one) and, more importantly, put the "Justice" in 2017's Justice League. HBO Max got a serious victory earlier this year by releasing Zack Snyder's original, massive cut of that film, and the results, despite some weak moments, are mostly quite good. Just, you know, pace yourself. The whole thing is better broken up into at least three separate viewings.

 

I don't think it's a spoiler to confirm that at least one familiar Marvel Studios character appears in No Way Home.

Sony Pictures / Marvel Studios

But the best comic book film, and serious rival for our Ars Film of the Year nod, squeaked into the field in December, co-produced by Marvel and Sony. My glowing Spider-Man: No Way Home review declared it the best comic book film of 2021, and I do believe that's decent praise. As I wrote last week, in a review that tiptoed around 40 bazillion spoilers:

 

Everything I loved about 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming is back and even better this time around. This is how you deliver a superhero storyline, and the film's biggest successes should wake up every media exec who might be holding back similar, surprise-filled movie possibilities.

 

—Sam Machkovech, Tech Culture Editor

Breaking out DC's best: The Suicide Squad

This 10th installment in the DCEU is a fast-paced, blood-soaked escapade that skillfully balances gore and goofiness, with equal amounts of irreverence and sincerity. Think The Boys pumped up on steroids. Director James Gunn's reboot boasts a jam-packed ensemble cast, and anyone familiar with The Dirty Dozen (a major inspiration for Gunn) knows that many of them will be bound for the comic book store in the sky before the credits roll. Gunn's willingness to sacrifice characters guarantees real stakes for this squad. That alone is a welcome change from your average superhero movie.

 

Gunn proved with the PG-13 Guardians of the Galaxy that he could take an ensemble cast of B- and C-list comic book characters and produce an entertaining, action-packed blockbuster with both humor and heart. He brings a similar, slyly self-aware sensibility to The Suicide Squad, but the R rating means the director can pull out all the stops on the blood and gore. This is not a film for the squeamish. The humor is darker, the body count is higher, and the finale goes bonkers with the appearance of a giant alien starfish. In Gunn's capable hands, it all comes together to give us the caliber of supervillains-turned-unexpected-heroes triumph that we'd hoped for five years ago.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette, Senior Writer

Our only Ubisoft-affiliated year-end win: Werewolves Within

After so many years of zombies dominating the horror genre, it's nice to see the classic werewolf making a comeback with the horror comedy (emphasis on the comedy) Werewolves Within, loosely based on the Ubisoft multiplayer VR game of the same name. The VR game is essentially a social deduction game, where players take on cartoon avatars, sit in a virtual circle, and try to guess which of them is the werewolf terrorizing a medieval village. With Werewolves Within, Director Josh Ruben updates the setting to a contemporary mountain town in the Hudson Valley (like Scare Me), but ultimately it's the same premise: the people of Beaverfield have to figure out which one of their quirky neighbors is a lying, murdering werewolf.

 

Werewolves Within is first and foremost a successful comedy, and the ridiculously talented cast members all possess the skills and onscreen ensemble chemistry to make the script come alive. Granted, the characters aren't especially deep—more akin to what you'd find in the best sketch comedy—but that suits the warmly satirical tone of the film.

 

And there is a moral to the tale, courtesy of Finn and his role model, Mister Rogers: that at heart the town is a community, despite their differences, and everyone is at their best when they remember their common humanity. The film is a worthy successor to the GOAT of the genre: 1981's An American Werewolf in London.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette, Senior Writer

Two very different kinds of car films

The breathtaking Cannes Film Fest winner Titane got our attention due to how its camera lingers over automobiles, along with the sci-fi concept of melding a human body with chrome. To be clear, however, how those elements are executed is well outside the usual Ars Technica coverage spectrum. The film's lead character struggles to bond with both friends and acquaintances, and a few early scenes make this patently clear in disturbing fashion. As a macabre French indie film with "body horror" motifs, Titane may not be for you.

 

Every Fast & Furious film has at least one stand-out car-brand showdown, and in Fast 9, that honor goes to Dodge (left) versus Ford (right).

Universal Pictures

But if you want to see a memorable 2021 film that melds cars, fantasy, and human augmentation, and you're okay having some wild images seared in your brain, Titane is far more compelling than something like this year's long-awaited Fast & Furious 9—a sequel whose popcorn-munching highlights don't make up for its general lack of cast chemistry. And as a site that spotlights innovative, cult-friendly filmmaking, I couldn't leave Titane off our year-end list, even if I have to smother it in asterisks. If Titane's spoiler-free, red-band trailer leaves you intrigued, check it out. If not, F&F 9 is a safer, sillier bet.

 

—Sam Machkovech, Tech Culture Editor

 

The trailer for HBO's The Last Cruise.

A compelling doc about a terrible trip: The Last Cruise

I'm not one for browsing social media in the middle of a disaster, but HBO's The Last Cruise makes me reconsider that position. Set on the infamous Diamond Princess cruise ship that eventually found itself in preliminary COVID-19 quarantine off the coast of Japan, this documentary is told entirely through the perspective of customers and crew members experiencing this unknown terror in real-time with very little information. Filmmaker Hannah Olson makes the experience even more intimate and claustrophobic by leaning on reams of personal videos, images, and social media posts from these individuals.

 

"As much as this film is about the early days of the COVID crisis, it's also about the way we narrate our lives—people were filming and taking photos the entire time, guests and crew," Olson told Ars ahead of the film's SXSW debut. "So what happens when your vacation photos become plot points in some real-life horror movie? What happens when your vacation photos become part of something larger, become part of an international news story?"

 

Like the passengers themselves, viewers never leave the boat and never get the global context and latest research people elsewhere were privy to from their quarantined homes. Olson does interview many of her main characters after the fact about the experience (so as you watch The Last Cruise, you do eventually know specific individuals made it through), but it's hard not to think of this as the most chilling found-footage horror film you could ever create for 2021.

 

—Nathan Mattise, Features Editor Emeritus

Fond of Craig’s fond farewell: No Time to Die

Full confession: Daniel Craig is my favorite incarnation of James Bond, Ian Fleming's iconic British spy with an eye for the ladies, fast cars, cool gadgets, and a martini that's shaken, not stirred. So it's fitting that Craig's 007 got the action-packed, emotionally powerful sendoff he deserves with No Time to Die. The film brings the character arc that began with Casino Royale to a satisfying and fitting conclusion.

 

No Time to Die has all the classic tropes we've come to expect from a globe-trotting Bond film, with plenty of excitement and spectacle, as well as touches of humor (and oh, those cars). Director Cary Joji Fukunaga knows his way around an action sequence, and it shows. True, there's nothing quite as fresh and exciting as that parkour chase scene in Casino Royale, and I would have loved to see more of CIA agent Paloma (Ana de Armas), who assists Bond when he infiltrates a SPECTRE gathering in Cuba and then just disappears.

 

But that's not what this film is ultimately about. It's not trying to one-up all the previous Bond films in terms of villainy, gadgetry, action sequences, romantic conquests, and so forth. Thematically, it's an exploration of past trauma, damaged relationships, and family, wrapped in spy thriller trappings. That's refreshing new territory for a James Bond film. Craig's swan song as Bond turns out to be the most personal and intimate look at 007 we've seen since, well, Casino Royale.

—Jennifer Ouellette, Senior Writer

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only (not) in theaters, and interesting anyway: Silk Road

It's been a rough two years for the film industry, and Silk Road knows a lot of those challenges firsthand. Adaptations of the Ross Ulbricht saga have been in the works for years, and this one (based on Rolling Stone's coverage) finally made it out of development hell by making a few clever tweaks. The film eschews a straight biopic and wants to instead be a cat-and-mouse detective film, and it opts for a narrow focus (only on Ulbricht and a fictional cop, and only from the site's start to Ulbricht's capture) to avoid falling into pricey production traps like globehopping location shoots.

 

And yet... Silk Road initially planned on having a big, flashy spring premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Fest, which was swiftly cancelled when the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic set in. The film pivoted to later film festivals believing it might be one of the only new, high-profile movies available, but the team was forced to back out when it was clear all of those would be digital-only. As 2021 began with seemingly tidier paths to theatrical runs, Silk Road had ambitions of debuting in Southern cities where COVID-19 restrictions were easing... only to have a historic winter storm coincide with that release.

 

Ultimately, this perfectly enjoyable sub-two-hour caper quietly rolled out on Hulu this summer, where it watched as films like Fast 9 and A Quiet Place II actually did play in many theaters. But Silk Road is every bit as delightfully popcorn-y and worthy of devoting a screen and some snacks—that setup just has to be in your house still.

 

—Nathan Mattise, Features Editor Emeritus

How to turn an epic poem into an unforgettable film: The Green Knight

Director David Lowery's atmospheric film is as richly textured and layered as the original 14th-century anonymous poem. Granted, he takes some necessary liberties with the source material. But he also artfully weaves in elements and symbols from that source material to create a darkly brooding fantasy quest that is just as richly textured and layered as the medieval poem on which it is based.

 

Lowery opted to make Gawain a callow young man who aspires to earn the right to join the Knights of the Round Table by proving his honor and bravery—confronting some hard truths about himself along his journey. Dev Patel is an inspired choice to play Gawain. He has the charisma to make a flawed, spoiled young man likable enough that we empathize with his struggles and humiliations.

 

The tapestry Lowery has woven out of so many disparate threads is every inch an original vision. There are no quick cuts or frenetic action sequences. Lowery takes the time to let the story unfold at a leisurely pace, drawing the viewer into the Arthurian world he has created, as seen through the eyes of young Gawain. At times, The Green Knight takes on a hallucinatory quality. Just as the 14th-century poem continues to fascinate us some 700 years later, this strange, powerfully evocative film will have you mulling over everything you've just seen, pondering various interpretations, long after you've left the theater.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette, Senior Writer

Ars’ best film of 2021: Dune, Pt. 1

Shortly after Ars Technica's review of Dune Pt. 1 went live, its largest criticism was rendered moot: the question of whether a Pt. 2 might ever be produced.

 

It only took a single weekend—and $41 million in opening domestic box-office revenue—for the Warner Bros. spice-trading powers-that-be to finally greenlight a feature-length sequel. With that confirmation, the film's awkward conclusion has become all the easier to stomach. Now we're assured to get more of what this film nailed: gorgeous cinematography, masterfully rendered CGI, and a finely scripted interpretation of Frank Herbert's original plot.

 

Paul (Timothée Chalomet), the heir of House Atreides, salutes you.

YouTube/Warner Bros.

Dune Pt. 1 may be a bit too long, with a momentum drop off that will push less-invested theater goers' bladders in the final 30 minutes. But Villeneuve mostly earns viewers' crossing of legs in the homestretch, in terms of delivering the most gorgeous and moody Dune interpretation yet—and he gets a boost from Chalomet as the film's surprising heart.

 

By nailing enough pieces of the sci-fi and tech-effects pipeline and stirring our imaginations with a newly exciting dig into the sands of Arrakis, Dune clinches its place as Ars Technica's film of the year. Though the cinematography is a stunning excuse to watch on either a big projected screen or a calibrated OLED panel, our staff heartily recommends you watch it as comfortably and safely as possible.

 

 

Ars Technica’s favorite films in 2021—whether projected or streamed

[funkyy]

I've seen all the Daniel Craig Bond films and I think Casino Royale was easily the best.

I was a bit disappointed in "No Time To Die", it seemed "patchy" at times..that's the

only way I can describe it.

I'm still trying to make time to see "Dune", "F&F 9" and "Candy Man".

"Godzilla vs Kong" was an ok popcorn movie that didn't strain your brain cells..or stimulate them lol.

I recently re-watched "Aliens", "El Cid", ""The Alamo" (John Wayne version), "Tombstone" and "Taras Bulba"...the old ones are still great!!