1. "Summer of Soul." On first blush, it's a jubilant record of a concert series in 1969, as told by the people who performed (the Fifth Dimension, Gladys Knight) and attended. But Questlove's film deepens every time you watch it (four and counting here) because of a question it poses: Why was this monumental event forgotten?
Monster hits, monster royals and just plain monsters highlight the year in movies
December 23, 2021 at 12:00PM
2. "Licorice Pizza." The most joyous movie ever from the great Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights," "The Phantom Thread") nails the hesitation, recklessness and energy of first love, with a bouncy soundtrack of early '70s AM radio hits.
3. "West Side Story." Me, on the way in: Seems unnecessary. Me, 2½ hours later: Well played, Steven Spielberg. Well played.
4. "A Quiet Place Part II." John Krasinski's taut, emotional sequel — among the first movies to invite audiences back to multiplexes — was everything you want a summer thrill ride to be.
5. "Passing." Nella Larsen's devastating novella becomes a tightly focused tragedy in the hands of writer/director Rebecca Hall. It's the story of two Black women in 1920s Harlem, one of whom "passes" for white.
6. "The Mitchells vs. the Machines." The year's best comedy, about a family road trip, happens to be animated. The Mitchells think they're taking their daughter to college but technological disasters, questions about identity and an apocalypse were not mentioned on their GPS.
7. "The Dig." Warm and pleasingly old-fashioned, it's a British drama about a grieving woman (Carey Mulligan) and the neighbor (Ralph Fiennes) who helps her unearth a long-lost treasure and return to the living.
8. "Drive My Car." The first of two coming-soon titles from overseas is a good bet to win the next international film Oscar. Clocking in at three hours but needing every minute, it's the shattering story of a theater actor/director. Drowning in grief, he discovers that the strangers he encounters and the plays he works on (including, in a couple of astounding sequences, Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya") have a lot to teach him.
9. "The Worst Person in the World." Norway's contender for the foreign-film Oscar spotlights a spellbinding performer (newcomer Renate Reinsve) as a maddeningly likable young woman who makes a lot of mistakes in her personal and professional life.
10. "Spencer." Kristen Stewart is extraordinary as Princess Diana in a miniaturist movie that imagines her emotional state during a fraught Christmas week when, on the verge of a breakdown, she struggles to find a way out of royal prison.
The mega Marvel hit did not just bring back Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman but also quite a few familiar faces.
