Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 2021
No. 1 at the box office for the year.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Review · Top Five · Interview
Top Five Movies of 2021. Plus: Denis Villeneuve on ‘Dune’!
December 7, 2021/ 108 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, Chris Ryan, and Adam Nayman each bring a top five for a strange, pandemic-scrambled year in movies, then Denis Villeneuve talks about turning a 40-year dream into Dune.
45 films across 10 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
2021 at the Box Officethe top 10 domestic grossers of the year, for context
Venom: Let There Be Carnage 2021
No. 2.
Black Widow 2021
No. 3.
F9 2021
No. 4.
A Quiet Place Part II 2021
No. 5.
No Time to Die 2021
No. 6. Adam didn't much care for it but calls it a fascinating work given its intent toward the whole Bond series.
Eternals 2021
No. 7. Adam never saw it, but finds it historically interesting for the way it follows an Oscar-winning director's prior work with a big commercial swing that both succeeds and, in the discourse, kind of fails.
Free Guy 2021
No. 8. Comes back later as the centerpiece of the Ryan Reynolds conversation.
Jungle Cruise 2021
No. 9.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife 2021
No. 10.
The Distribution Messwindows, roadshows, and vanishing streaming titles
Memoria 2021
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's film, which Neon is releasing city by city, one theater at a time, with no DVD or streaming release planned. Adam calls it heroic and also a little bit of a screw-you to anyone who doesn't live near the right theater.
Last Night in Soho 2021
Edgar Wright's film, cited as the opposite extreme: already on VOD after about six weeks in theaters.
King Richard 2021
Sean reminds Chris he's got about 10 days left to watch it before it leaves its window.
Netflix, Ryan Reynolds, and Red Notice
Red Notice 2021
Netflix's numbers say it's the most-watched movie of the year; the panel doesn't buy it. Amanda was sold an international art-heist movie and got a green-screen shoot on an Atlanta soundstage instead. Adam admits it's his No. 1 anyway, mostly for the cast's off-the-cuff Twitter feud.
The Power of the Dognot on anyone's top five, but too big to skip
The Power of the Dog 2021
Jane Campion's first film in 13 years, adapted from Thomas Savage's 1967 novel, with Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Amanda calls it a masterwork that left her alienated rather than cold, partly the film's intent and partly because a Telluride review spoiled the plot for her. Sean and Chris were both floored by the last 30 minutes; Adam ranks it among Campion's best and expects it in the Best Picture conversation alongside Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Kenneth Branagh, and Denis Villeneuve.
Oscar Season Chatterbest picture and best director speculation
Belfast 2021
Kenneth Branagh's film, named alongside Campion, Spielberg, and Paul Thomas Anderson as a likely Best Director nominee.
The Tragedy of Macbeth 2021
Joel Coen's film, floated as a possible director spoiler.
Don't Look Up 2021
Adam McKay's film, floated the same way.
A Hero 2021
Asghar Farhadi's film, the fifth-spot dark horse Sean is considering swapping into his own director predictions after a second viewing.
Amanda's Top Five of 2021ranked best to worst
No. 1
The Worst Person in the World 2021
No. 1. Shared with Sean at No. 2. Joachim Trier's Oslo trilogy closer, about a woman turning 30 who doesn't have her life together. Amanda calls it her Norwegian Francis Ha, the highest compliment she has. Renate Reinsve, the lead, gave her favorite performance of the year.
No. 2
The Beatles: Get Back 2021
No. 2. Peter Jackson's recut of the Beatles' 1969 studio footage. Amanda: the best eight hours she spent in November.
No. 3
The Souvenir: Part II 2021
No. 3. Joanna Hogg's sequel to her 2019 film, continuing the story of a young filmmaker (Honor Swinton Byrne) working through what her first serious relationship taught her about becoming an artist.
No. 4
West Side Story 2021
No. 4. Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner's remake, which Amanda went in skeptical of and came out of joyous, an act of, in her words, personal accountability.
No. 5
C'mon C'mon 2021
No. 5. Mike Mills's film with Joaquin Phoenix, whose performance Amanda ranks among her favorites of the year.
Adam's Top Five of 2021ranked best to worst
No. 1
Drive My Car 2021
No. 1. Shared with Chris. Ryusuke Hamaguchi's three-hour film about a theater director staging a multilingual Uncle Vanya while working through grief. Adam calls the pick a bit of a cheat (Hamaguchi also wrote Wife of a Spy and directed Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy this year), but Drive My Car is the official one.
No. 2
Licorice Pizza 2021
No. 2. Shared with Chris. Paul Thomas Anderson's San Fernando Valley film. Adam expects it to reward return viewings the way Anderson's other 2000s-and-on work has.
No. 3
Azor 2021
No. 3. Andreas Fontana's quiet thriller about a Swiss banker in the aftermath of Argentina's Dirty War, reassuring wealthy clients their money is safe while a missing colleague's disappearance pulls him into local corruption. Adam's discovery of the year.
No. 4
Benedetta 2021
No. 4. Paul Verhoeven's film about a nun (Virginie Efira) who claims visions of Jesus. Adam's octogenarian-auteur pick, a notch below Black Book and Elle but still better than most filmmakers' best.
No. 5
Annette 2021
No. 5. Léos Carax's rock opera with Adam Driver, who Adam calls the best actor of the year for it. Fluctuating feelings throughout, but the ending's puppet reveal got him anyway.
Chris's Top Five of 2021ranked best to worst
No. 2
Licorice Pizza 2021
No. 2. Shared with Adam. Chris saw it the day before recording, in one of the four theaters it was playing in. Warmer and less sentimental than he expected.
No. 3
Dune 2021
No. 3. Shared with Sean. The best time he had in a theater all year, and, per a filmmaker friend of Sean's, one of the more sophisticated blockbuster endings in years for choosing to close on a grounded, one-on-one fight instead of noisy CGI.
No. 4
No Sudden Move 2021
No. 4. Steven Soderbergh's noir crime thriller, with what Chris calls a career-best Don Cheadle performance. Third year running a Soderbergh has made his list.
No. 5
A Cop Movie 2021
No. 5. Alonso Ruiz Palacios's documentary-that-isn't-quite about police in Mexico, where the line between fiction and nonfiction keeps moving. Chris recommends watching it twice.
Sean's Top Five of 2021ranked best to worst
No. 1
The Velvet Underground 2021
No. 1. Todd Haynes's split-screen documentary about the band, built from archival footage and first-person interviews with John Cale, Mo Tucker, and others from the Warhol Factory years. The movie that hit Sean hardest this year.
No. 3
Dune 2021
No. 3. Shared with Chris. What sells it for Sean is the fusion of practical production and digital effects, something Denis Villeneuve credits to what he learned working with Roger Deakins on Blade Runner 2049.
No. 4
Can't Get You Out of My Head 2021
No. 4. Adam Curtis's eight-hour BBC documentary series, a sprawling cultural history running from the 1960s through the 2000s. Sean spent a week during lockdown trying to get his wife to watch it with him.
No. 5
The Card Counter 2021
No. 5. Paul Schrader's film about a gambler (Oscar Isaac) and former Abu Ghraib guard working through what he did there. Not the best Schrader God's-lonely-man movie, Sean says, but not the worst either.
In conversation
Denis Villeneuve on
Dune 2021
Villeneuve had wanted to adapt Frank Herbert's novel since he was a teenager. He got the job in a 45-second meeting with producer Mary Parent, who'd just secured the rights and happened to already know it was his dream project. He talks through the film's feminist framing (built around Lady Jessica and the Bene Gesserit), the decision to end Part One on Paul and Jamis's duel rather than push into the Fremen story, and the fight to get the film back into IMAX theaters after a day-and-date HBO Max release.
Denis Villeneuve on
Blade Runner 2049 2017
Villeneuve says he spent a year on that shoot just listening to cinematographer Roger Deakins direct the VFX team, and tried to apply the same lighting lessons on Dune with VFX supervisor Paul Lambert.
Denis Villeneuve on
2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
His reference point for the kind of intellectual vertigo he chases as a filmmaker, and for how much a theatrical screen changes a film: he says you lose something like 35 percent of a movie like this watching it on TV.
Denis Villeneuve on
Tenet 2020
Asked for the last great thing he's seen, Villeneuve names this, praising Christopher Nolan's handling of time and the sense of stepping into an unseen mental landscape.
Denis Villeneuve on
The Revenant 2015
Producer Mary Parent's prior collaboration with Alejandro Iñárritu, the reputation that got Villeneuve comfortable putting Dune in her hands.
Denis Villeneuve on
Polytechnique 2009
Villeneuve's own earlier film, based on a real Montreal massacre, which he contrasts with Dune: the pressure there was about depicting real people and a real tragedy, not the more purely artistic pressure of a big-budget adaptation.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing PrisonersEnemyGreen Room
Hamaguchi's other 2021 films Wheel of Fortune and FantasyWife of a Spy
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Hawkeye (episode 3)
Ads Boar's HeadNetflix's FIFA World Cup Launch Edition (game)
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