In bed, on a couch, on my phone, and in a theatre fully reclined, here’s the films I watched this year. Spoiler alert I disliked the movies you loved and you didn’t fully grasp the subtle nuances of the ones I liked and you hated!!
Charleston, South Carolina, Polaroid SX-70 (2018)
1. Groundhog Day — ha ha ha GET IT welcome to 2021 (sobs)
2. I’m Thinking of Ending Things
3. Bringing up Baby — Grant and Hepburn, what else do you want?? Okay there’s also a panther
4. Kajillionaire — I loved this movie, especially the life-altering and screen-brightening performance by Gina Rodriguez.
5. Black Bear — Aubrey Plaza flexing every single possible artistic muscle, uncomfortable and visceral.
6. La Flor (pt. 1 only)
7. Captain Marvel (rewatch)
8. Black Narcissus — Some of the shots are beautiful, the dizzying heights and angles, the colors. And the full on Val Newton macabre breakout of the lapsed nun were wonderful. But ... ok
9. The Thin Man — touching base with an old friend to see how they’re doing (they’re beautiful and effortlessly glamorous, still)
10. Lawrence of Arabia
11. The Rules of the Game
12. Man from UNCLE
13. Cat Ballou — funny Jane Fonda is underrated.
14. Grosse Pointe Blank — touching base with an old friend to see how they’re doing (they’re a little sadder than I remember, somehow wilder, still)
15. Joe Versus the Volcano — I saw this in a dollar theatre when it came out. I didn’t get it. I don’t know if I do now, but there are moments of spiritual insight that I like to hold in my heart.
16. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House — well, I found the bad Cary Grant movie
17. The Hidden Fortress — I shouldn’t have gone into this hoping to see so many Star Wars parallels, and am unsure where to go next with Kurosawa.
Flowood, Mississippi, Polaroid 600 (2017)
18. Badlands
19. Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn — Pure chaotic joy
20. Dr. Strange (rewatch)
21. The Decline of Western Civilization pt. II: The Metal Years — MORE ODIN
22. Four Weddings and a Funeral — touching base with an old friend to see how they’re doing (they still all look so young and thin and wait I forgot she married that guy?? And then—wait what??)
23. On the Rocks — I started this with great enthusiasm and had it bled out of me long before the ending, which I don’t remember
24. Bullitt — God Is in the Machine
25. 8 1/2 — What a gorgeous world this is, or was; black & white and rich as can be.
26. L’Avventura — Possibly a horror movie, but one that is beautiful, sumptuous, and lush, with beautiful people and craggy, timeless landscapes.
27. Judex — One of the coolest crime capers / detective / proto-superhero movies I’ve ever seen. The story mutates every 5 minutes. It’s about capitalism, corruption, love, magic, intrepid kids, family, lockpicking, and whomping people on the head. It’s a masterpiece. OH AND NOW THERE’S A CIRCUS. Judex is the All-Story (plus a beautiful, evil mastermind + master of disguises).
28. Black Widow — I would watch a whole film based on the Russian spy part at the beginning. I would also watch a Yelena film. I paid the $30 or whatever to watch this on my couch and it was a riot.
Birmingham, Alabama, Polaroid 600 (2021)
29. Death Takes a Holiday
30. Seven Year Itch — well, I found the bad Marilyn Monroe movie
31. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
32. Vertigo — I texted my dad after this and asked if he had seen it in the past few decades. Good lord this is one of the bleakest, most intense movies there is. Fascinating.
33. Trainwreck — I don’t remember the ending of this but I put it on the list so?
34. We Broke Up — I had high hopes for this, but
35. The Big Chill — for so long I thought these people were all so old, and now I’m so much older than they are. The emotional beats ring truer now; I thought they seemed overblown growing up, didn’t think adults would act with such a lack of subtlety, or be so transparent. ha ha aha
36. Plus One
37. Serendipity — well, I found the bad John Cusack movie
38. Down by Law — I can still remember some of the landscapes and shots in this movie. Jarmusch, despite my frustration with some of his longer dialogue scenes, gives me a clearer vision for beauty in the collapsing decay of our world then anyone else.
Greenwich Village, NYC, Polaroid 600 (2019)
39. Daguerréotypes — A beautiful, quiet film about the people alongside a street in Paris — or the moon, perhaps they are on the moon, in the 1970s or 1940s. The people cut meat, cut hair, bake bread, pour perfume; they live and have dreams and fell in love, once; and then they all go to a magic show. A quiet triumph of a time not actually very long ago which seems so special now. Elevating the loved life and the love of life, our Varda.
40. Annette — possibly the worst movie I’ve ever seen, save the astonishing child actor at the end, and the guy from Big Bang Theory
41. The Nowhere Inn
42. Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) — Gorgeous, horrifying, desperate, beautiful, compelling, lush. I had heard this Bergman film called a horror flick; at first I understood why, and then when they go to the dinner party I started yelling AHHHH NOOOOOOO.
43. How It Ends — A lovely love story about a woman and herself, at the very end of it all
44. Best Sellers
45. Blow Out — “It’s a good scream,” good lord. The splicing, diving, clicking, physical nature of it all.
Gadsden, Alabama, Polaroid SX-70 (2020)
46. The Velvet Underground — beautiful and incomplete! More Sterling, more Moe! I want 5 more hours!
47. Date Night
48. Green Knight
49. The French Dispatch Of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun — I saw this at the movies, twice. It is sublime. I mean I loved the whole thing, the travelogue (the roaming schoolboys! The multiple dead pulled from the river per week!), the painting scene yes, revolution ok, but the third act? Incredible. Indelible. Life affirming. And the ending — “What comes next?” I started to cry as — WITH THE BODY IN THE ROOM — they rushed to write, to create. Like life, it’s not perfect, but if you let it wash over you, it is filled with beauty and hope.
50. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
51. Beatles: Get Back — Flashes of wonderful insight into the creative process absolutely obscured by a crushing, unnecessary runtime. Plus not enough Yoko.
The fun thing about looking back over this list is realizing which of these pieces of art I’ll carry with me to the future—that I’ll watch Judex again, intrigued and shocked by another improbable twist, or Vargtimmen, clutching a pillow as the despairing painter lashes out at the ghost of a child—or something else. In a few years I’ll watch Grosse Pointe Blank and Four Weddings and a Funeral again, and this time Kajillionaire might make that same “just enough happens to still hold your interest but it feels good and might still surprise you” rotation.
I think #52 is going to be Bergman Island, if I don’t get to Licorice Pizza first. Tell me what I just shouldn’t miss, or what really saved your soul this year.