Movies had a smoother ride in 2021 than they did last year, but that's not really saying much. It was harder to gauge any film's success given that many were released on streaming services at the same time as they were in theaters, but things still didn't look promising. It's not a great sign when Spielberg or Matrix movies can't even make money. Basically, if you weren't a comic book film, the box office was not your friend this year. Sometimes the pearl clutching about Disney's stranglehold on the industry can get a little melodramatic, but it's hard not to feel like anything but the biggest tentpoles will be vanishing over the course of the decade.
That kind of prognosticating is too grim to dwell on for too long, so let's focus on the year at hand. Since theaters opened back up and films were no longer getting pushed back, I did see more new releases this year: a total of 69. It's not quite back to the numbers I was putting up in 2018 and 2019, but it's much better than last year's paltry 48 new releases watched.
And yet, despite that 21 film increase, the number of list worthy material I saw didn't appreciably increase. I don't want to blame it on the quality of 2021's output, because there are a handful of lauded films that I still haven't gotten to, but either way I didn't necessarily feel enthusiastic enough about my number 16 through 20 films to write full entries on them. (I'm choosing not to admit that the fact that I'm running closer to my deadline than usual this year contributed to this as well.) Hopefully, this is the last year that my film list just a top 15, because I hate the unevenness of not having my three end of the year lists all be top 20s. Anyway, let us tarry no further. On to the list!
The rules: Any film that got their first non-festival release in 2021 -- whether that's theatrically, on VOD, or exclusively on a streaming service -- qualifies for this list.
