Top 10 Best and Worst Films of 2021

As mentioned in the AggRetsuko article, 2021 has come and gone and it's been slightly better than 2020. Vaccines have made it possible to do more things inside such as eating out, visiting friends, and going to the movies. With the virus evolving to have variants that are causing complications in the world, I guess we have to get used to living with this disease. We have a ways to go before we have any sense of normalcy.

The movies that were delayed until this year were really special, for better and for worse. The rules are pretty straightforward like in previous years. I haven't seen every movie that came out this year, especially with the worst since I wanted to spend my time wisely on what I want to watch plus the ones on the worst list were either disappointing or boring with a few entries being both. Horror movies of the supernatural kind are not going to be here, as expected. I don't have all the streaming services at this point, so anything from Paramount+ and Apple TV+ didn't make the cut. Finally, foreign films like anime count this year if they were released this year on a dub even though they officially released in the previous year.

As per usual with these lists, we start with the worst of the year to end these articles on a high note. As noted in the preamble, I didn't see too many bad movies, but there are enough for at least a couple of dishonorable mentions. Let's roll:

Dishonorable #12: House of Gucci (7/10):

It looks great in terms of production design, acting from Lady Gaga, and cinematography from Ridley Scott and company, but the story was pretty weak.

Dishonorable #11: The Last Duel (7/10):

Another Ridley Scott movie that has cinematography and production design, but with a Rashomon-style story with very abrupt and awkward scene cuts, not enough action, and too many gross sex scenes.

With those out of the way, the bottom of the barrel of 2021:

Worst #10: Space Jam: A New Legacy (7/10):

I thought it was enjoyable in terms of the many nods to the WarnerMedia library which ranged from Animaniacs to Rick and Morty as well as the great animation it contained. However, it was a little too reliant on the product placement to where it seemed like a shameless advertisement rather than a charming movie with a plot like the first movie.

Worst #9: Mortal Kombat (5.5/10):

The most successful HBO Max film launch to date, and it's based on a series of video games that I only know some details such as character names, the theme song, and general gameplay. Unfortunately, to fully enjoy it you had to know some stuff from the games that it's based on.

The action is excellent with familiar callbacks to the games, but the acting is bleh with the dialogue sounding robotic. At some point, you see a character rendered in terrible CGI, even though the rest of the animation and effects didn't look as bad at that point.

Not much happens in the plot until the end when it does pick up, but the only thing that kept it afloat were the action sequences, which is a telltale sign the plot is pretty thin. It's good if you're a fan of the video games, but for newcomers, it's pretty harsh.

Worst #8: Tom and Jerry (5.5/10):

Tom and Jerry is a classic series I'd see almost every time I put on Cartoon Network growing up, and has some infamous TV movies in its lineup for the past several years. The trailer I saw for this was okay given the stigma these live-action adaptations have had since the 2000s with films like Smurfs, Garfield, Underdog, and Alvin and the Chipmunks, but was a little worried with the casting for the human characters they got.

I don't really hate this one per say because I really did like how the animals and certain foods like fish were designed in the similar style as the cartoons with animation done by CG animators that are passionate about 2D animation. They blended really well with their live action settings and had really good comedic timing. It also helped to make all the animals cartoony or it would've been really inconsistent if it was just the titular duo and Spike the Dog, who does make an appearance in this as a supporting character like in the original shorts. The people of Framestore did very excellently with capturing the slapstick and spirit of the source material within the characters portrayed in this. I applaud all involved with the animation of this movie.

However, I really can't sing praises for the story and the live action cast. The acting in this is very phoned in, even from Michael Pena, who was really funny in this for the most part. I also found that there was no chemistry between the human characters. The rap music soundtrack was a really awkward choice for this movie. Tom and Jerry essentially are only in this movie for being essentially plot devices rather than feeling like characters in a story.

A common comparison with this movie is those live-action Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks movies with how there's poop jokes everywhere. Those toilet humor jokes, the product placement of drones, and pigeons narrating everything that happens in the most in-your-face and annoying fashion possible are indicators of the biggest problem with a bad kids movie: treating your audience like they're toddlers. It's insulting because it tells the audience that they can't comprehend what goes on in the story and it talks down to them.

The biggest problem with the movie is mostly with the plot, which is obviously not about Tom and Jerry themselves, but on this one girl played by Chloe Grace Moretz, who plays the most unlikable character of the bunch. She quits her job, manipulates a lady applying for a job at a fancy hotel to not go through with the job application, steals the lady's resume, and applies for the job while impersonating this woman. That's the main character and she basically told kids watching this to lie, cheat, and steal to get what you want. She essentially gets put in charge of handling the preparations for this huge celebrity wedding but loses a wedding ring in the process and has to call on Tom and Jerry to help her find it, all because she was grossly unqualified for the position. The wedding plot takes up a huge portion of the plot. Overall the film lacked a lot of the cartoony feel that is essential for a Tom and Jerry movie. It felt more like an expensive, predictable Saturday Night Live sketch where the antics of the titular duo at a high production event was obviously a recipe for disaster. However, the way that the disaster wedding and the arc with Moretz's character were resolved without consequences made me so angry with how the main character essentially got away with her crimes scot-free, further reinforcing that terrible lesson that kids took away from it.

As it stands, it was just another one of those live-action adaptations of a popular cartoon that just panders and treats the kids like they're dumb, but the reason why this isn't number 1 is because the animation was its saving grace. It would've easily taken the number 1 spot but I must always acknowledge decent animation.

Worst #7: Those Who Wish Me Dead (5/10):

A movie with the director of Sicario and has an all-star cast like Angelina Jolie, Nicholas Hoult, Jon Bernthal, and Tyler Perry based on the novel of the same name. The acting and some of the action scenes were pretty great with really good stakes. The plot, however, seems pretty vague and average, even though it doesn't have too many subplots to where it's hard to follow the story. It just seems like a standard action film with assassins going after a boy and his father and they have to call upon a loose cannon firefighter dealing with grief from not being able to save some kids in a forest fire. Further, some details were vague like who sent the assassins and why they're targeting this family and also how a character survives being struck by lightning in the middle of the forest area.

To top it off, it also contains a mostly bad climax fight and an ending that was just as frustrating with a lack of answers to the questions it raised.

Worst #6: The Matrix Resurrections (4.5/10):

I remember a class on science fiction films I took in my junior year of college that was influenced by myth and literature. Within this class, we learned about various sources of inspiration for cult science fiction films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and Inception. The first film we covered in that class was The Matrix. I know it inspired various parodies and homages and I knew of the infamy of the sequels that came after it, but I never thought those two sequels were terrible when I saw them a few months prior to watching this recent sequel.

The same cannot be said about Matrix Resurrections. The action was really great, but there very few and far between action sequences, as the rest of this film was both disappointing and boring. Nothing really happens except that it was a repeat of the first movie but with nods to the fact that seemed more like a cash-in rather than a story that had anything new to add to the story.

I really don't have anything else to add except the film was really mediocre and boring.

Worst #5: Black Widow (4.5/10):

The first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie to come out since the end of the 23-movie Infinity Gauntlet Saga. Definitely a tough act to follow, even with the release of shows on Disney+ like WandaVision and Loki, except that this was an interquel set between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, made several years after its conception upon release of Avengers: Age of Ultron when there was demand for there to be a solo film for this character, only for the fans to see the end of the character within Endgame. The bad luck with this movie didn't stop there. It also got delayed because of the pandemic and a major lawsuit between Scarlett Johansson and Disney. Black Widow was having the same simultaneous release strategy Warner Bros and HBO Max did throughout this year, which was a serious breach in contract for not giving her compensation from the movie having Premier Access on Disney+, in addition to the money from the theatrical box office itself.

All that bad luck aside, the movie was a major disappointment to me and my family when we decided to watch it on Disney+. I had heard the movie got bad reviews ahead of time and I can see why. It had a few great action sequences sprinkled throughout the runtime, but the rest of it was really boring. Lots of scenes of characters standing around, doing nothing but talking exposition until an action sequence comes up, and it was incredibly slow in its pacing. Even with good action scenes, because this was made as an interquel rather than a prequel, the stakes to this movie felt pretty nonexistent because no matter what life-or-death situation was going on, it didn't really matter due to having the knowledge that the title character doesn't die in this movie.

At some point, I was reminded of the weakest MCU movie: Thor the Dark World. However, at least with this film, the villain of Taskmaster looked kind of interesting, but was not enough to carry this movie. Dark World was unmemorable except for the credit scene. Similarly, Black Widow was also a huge disappointment. I can only hope that MCU finds its footing with the future movies in the coming years, but it'll take some time for them to find something that can follow up the epic saga of the Infinity Stones.

Worst #4: The Tomorrow War (4.5/10):

This one had a very deceptive trailer, hyping up the fact that it was going to be some crazy exciting action film similar to Independence Day. However, it was anything but exciting. In fact, it was very slow at getting to the main setup of the time traveling soldiers drafting civilians into a war meant to prevent a bad future where humanity almost becomes extinct as a result of aliens attacking at some point down the line. A good portion of the first half is overutilized on exposition of characters. Information about the aliens who are the main threat to humanity is missing which is crucial to understanding the story. Also, the future military barely gives the heroes any training before throwing them all into those years expecting them to outman the aliens. Essentially, a good chunk of the civilians were also sent in to get killed off since they too were ill-equipped for essentially the equivalent of falling out of a plane without a parachute, save for several who survive the fall through sheer luck.

Things pick up when the aliens are shown, but a lot of the action sequences within seem repetitive with a lot of fruitless shooting at the enemy until their numbers are too overwhelming to where they have to run away with what they acquired like it's some video game level in Resident Evil. There's a lot of plot points and jokes that go nowhere and comic relief that doesn't land.

Despite time travel being the backbone of this film, it also comes with a plethora of plot holes. One of the biggest ones is how the people of the future made the tech in a future where society collapsed and humanity is on the brink of extinction. It would seemingly take a lot of time and resources to make something like this in an apocalyptic event like that, I'm pretty sure. People talk about future events during the film when they note how changing those events would negatively affect the future and time itself. Further, they even note how people with pre-determined death dates that occur before the future war happens are the only civilians who can go into the future war to avoid paradoxes, but didn't think of how bringing a weapon from the future to kill the aliens in the past would do just that as well.

Simply put, this movie was a literal waste of time by just being slow and not having any intrigue to its plot.

Worst #3: Chaos Walking (4.5/10):

Another year, another bad dystopian young adult movie adaptation that failed big critically and at the box office. This time, it's set on another world colonized by humans in the future and the trailer made it seem like a world where the humans living there were at their last generation with all the women seemingly killed off and the men can hear each other's thoughts in streams of images, words, and sounds called The Noise. However, a woman drops down onto the planet from a colony ship suddenly.

On paper, it seemed like a premise that would be interesting. That is, until you realize this was meant to be released in 2019, but got pushed back by for reshoots, following bad test screenings and then got delayed by the pandemic in 2020, only to flop badly at the box office and result in a massive write-down for Lionsgate.

I was right to fear that this movie would be bad with my experience with movies that adapt young adult book series like 5th Wave and Artemis Fowl. The worst thing about this one was that it had interesting ideas, but it couldn't deliver any of them or the charm of its lead actors upon execution. Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, and Nick Jonas felt very stiff and one-note in their performances. The Noise itself comes across as annoying at times, which pretty much shoots down quiet moments to the point the movie is constant noise.

By the end of this movie, you're left confused and pretty bored with it. I couldn't put this at number 1 because it was considered too easy of a target to put, considering my reputation with these kinds of movies. As you can imagine, this adaptation certainly walked into chaos on arrival.

Worst #2: The Little Things (4.5/10):

This movie came out very early in the year and that has made it hard to remember certain details from it despite having a great cast like Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto. It was a noir film with a great buildup at the start, but failed to pay off with a conclusion that was unsatisfactory. It's a movie about two detectives trying to solve a case, with one being newly appointed and the other having some experience with investigating murders. This seemed like an Oscar-bait movie, even though it got nominated for a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Jared Leto's performance which was a good performance as I remember. It's just that it's a standard noir film with two detective characters that contrast each other, but nothing happens in this movie.

I've seen episodes of Chicago PD and Criminal Minds that were much more satisfactory than the entirety of The Little Things, especially when the movie doesn't just stop at its conclusion, but just fizzles out when it gets close to its narrative peak. It really does leave you scratching your head at what just happened and then you get angry once the credits roll, thinking, "That's it?"

This movie was number 1 for a very long time, but there was another movie that dethroned this one as quickly as I remembered the frustration I felt with this one.

Worst #1: Eternals (4/10):

I'm not going to lie. When I walked out of the movie theater and placed this in the list of worst movies with the ranking it got, I was genuinely surprised to see that this movie took number 1 on the worst of this year by proxy of its score. I had heard this movie was being called the worst of the MCU movies before it even got released, but I had no idea how horrendous it turned out to be until seeing it in the theater.

The only things about this movie I can say were great are the designs of the Celestials and the Deviants. The Celestials are essentially like giant robot gods that have power over the cosmos and keep the universe in balance. The Deviants are different in this movie compared to how they are in the comics, but are still portrayed as the enemies of the titular Eternals, who also have a different origin in the movie compared to the comics. To summarize, in the comics, the Eternals and Deviants were creations of the Celestials, with the former being immortal offshoots of humans that defend the Earth with superpowers and are seen as beautiful, while the latter are seen as hideous and have random physical mutations and powers that are not as great as their rivals. In the movie, the Deviants were created to ensure the development of intelligent life that's necessary for the birth of a Celestial within a planet by eliminating apex predators on the planets that threaten the population. However, the Deviants eventually became the very apex predators they were created to eliminate through evolution, and as a result, threatened intelligent life. Thus, the Eternals were made as synthetic, robot-like beings with superpowers to rid planets of Deviants and ensure the growth of native intelligent life on planets for when the birth of Celestials comes.

On paper, this was very interesting lore and the scenes with the Deviants and how they evolved to be a challenge to the Eternals were great. However, like Black Widow, the story was boring where not much happens except for flashbacks that come out of nowhere with no setup, to the point that it damages the flow of the story itself; character arcs that don't amount to anything; and very few action sequences that seem to happen because the plot said that it should happen.

Thus, with the way this was executed, this easily took the number 1 worst of the year.

Now that the worst movies are out of the way, let's get on to the best of this year. There were a lot more great movies this year than really horrible ones surprisingly, but there are a lot of honorable mentions regardless. So they are as follows:

Honorable #16: Godzilla vs. Kong (7.5/10):

I initially gave this a 9 out of 10 when I first saw this on HBO Max back in April, but ever since I gave it that score online, I started realizing that there were some problems with the film itself to the point that it was not as good as Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

First, it introduces elements that were in prequel comics that tie in to these movies, which is a problem with some films and shows based on source material where it expects you to know certain things ahead of time, alienating the audience that is unaware of details such as Skull Island being riddled with storms in between this and Kong Skull Island's time frame. Second, due to criticisms with King of the Monsters' human characters (myself included), the human characters in this are either pre-existing ones that have changed very drastically (even with a time skip) to where they seem very out of character from how they were in the previous movie or contribute nothing (such as Kyle Chandler's character losing his grudge against Godzilla out of nowhere and also not doing anything about the strange behavior in the giant lizard); or some new ones that, on paper, could have interesting stories be told only to not be addressed and then swiftly swept under the rug (such as the character of Ren Serizawa, who could've been explored in the movie as the son of Dr. Serizawa with a possible opposing view to the Titans, but is delegated to being a henchman that gets swiftly killed as quickly as he is introduced).

Not all the characters are like this such as Jia, a little deaf girl who knows sign language and forms a special bond with Kong, and her adopted mother played by Rebecca Hall. However, because of the negative reception to the human characters in the previous movie, they had to have whatever characterization they could've had in the original drafts of the script be stripped and let the kaiju have more focus. To be fair, this criticism on human characters isn't new to these kinds of movies since they're pretty vital for familiarity for the audience to relate to and keep the story grounded.

The best thing about this movie really is the monster fights and their take on the iconic MechaGodzilla, despite the villains that created the character being very flat and stereotypical corrupt businessmen in suits. It's also got really great music and locations to it.

It's been noted that all these MonsterVerse movies were made with the intent to build up to this movie and that future films for the franchise depended on if this film does well in the box office, but with how well this did in theaters and HBO Max, I look forward to what the next films are going to be like.

Honorable #15: Zack Snyder's Justice League (8/10):

I avoided the movie made by Joss Whedon like the plague since it came out, and I had been watching the animated series alongside Static Shock on HBO Max. It has great special effects, action sequences, and characters and villains, but the length made it hard to sit through to the point it took several hours to complete and I had to rewatch it twice to fully understand everything that happened. It teeters between cool and boring, but it was great that this got made because of the horror story of executive meddling that came from the development and production of this movie. I regret having been on the bandwagon of having Warner Bros fire Zack Snyder ever since the release of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Honorable #14: No Time to Die (8.5/10):

Despite knowing very little about James Bond except for parodies and homages, I can say this was a proper send-off to Daniel Craig's take on the character and that Rami Malek did an excellent job with the villain.

Honorable #13: The Suicide Squad (8.5/10):

I had to watch this twice on HBO Max because the first 13 minutes felt pretty weak, but once the plot got the ball rolling with characters like King Shark and Ratcatcher 2, the movie picked up with some witty jokes (not all the jokes land, mind you) and visuals from James Gunn.

Honorable #12: Dune (9/10):

I helped in the production of a trailer breakdown for this film that helped hype me up for this movie going in and it was a movie that had the best usage of the Dolby Atmos technology in theaters. It didn't disappoint in its visuals and music, and the story was mostly fine, even though it was missing some elements here and there.

Honorable #11: Spider-Man: No Way Home (9/10):

A proper way to close the trilogy on Tom Holland's take on the character while also being a love letter to the incarnations that came before these and succeeding at that.

With all those out of the way, on to the cream of the crop, the genuine gems of the listing, the very best this year had to offer.

Best #10: Encanto (9/10):

A very beautiful film in a cultural setting and world that's very interesting to see and has some great animation and themes about transgenerational trauma, family dysfunction, and pressure from expectations of others within the realm of magical realism. Characters like Mirabel and Bruno are popular for their arcs being seen as allegories to disabilities and being on the spectrum and they work well.

It originally was a solid 10 until I realized two things. The first thing being that the ending kind of undercut its message a little about how you don't really need a gift to be special and that family is the greatest magic there is. The second thing is, ironically, the music, while there's nothing wrong with the songs themselves, they actually didn't resonate with me except for "We Don't Talk About Bruno", which I had a strong feeling towards it to where it actually skyrocketed in popularity really quickly to where it beat out Frozen's "Let It Go". "Surface Pressure" was another that resonated but wasn't as good as the song about what seemed like the film's villain.

Best #9: Wish Dragon (9.5/10):

A very interesting and heartwarming take on an Aladdin-like story with an Eastern dragon as the genie in this case and in the modern day world.

I only know of one dragon genie in all of fiction, which is within the Dragon Ball franchise through Shenron and the various incarnations that come with the Eternal Dragon. Yeah, other sources with wish-granting beings are usually fairies, dragons with divine power, genies, leprechauns, gods, and other beings with a lot of magical power, but a dragon genie or at least a genie that had the form of a dragon was pretty rare outside of something from Dragon Ball.

It was enticing to see a movie like this since I'm something of an aficionado of dragons, but it wasn't just the fact that the dragon was a genie that made this film a joy to watch. This revolves around the main guy, Din, who wants to reunite with a childhood friend of his years after she moves away and becomes rich and famous essentially. He stumbles upon a teapot housing the titular dragon, who wants nothing more than to go to the Spirit world by being quick with his master on his three wishes. The arcs that these characters go through flowed really well and it didn't feel generic, and I was satisfied with the endings to their arcs by the end of the runtime, especially the wish dragon's when he starts learning his purpose for being a wish-granting dragon.

With all the praises this has, why doesn't this have a solid 10? I feel like the goons the villain has that drive the bulk of the plot, on top of the twist of who the head villain was, was pretty predictable. The head villain's motive was enough to let him slide, but I can't say the same for the goons, who felt like cookie cutter henchmen with an agenda for their own desires and wishes. They kinda bogged the film down a little to a degree, but not enough to make it below a 9.5 because of how satisfying the rest of it was.

We need more dragon genies in film and TV like this and Shenron.

Best #8: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (9.5/10):

A Marvel character I never really knew much about until this movie was announced and released. The viewing of Black Widow on Disney+ the day before seeing this in the theater made me a little nervous with how Marvel Cinematic Universe movies these days are struggling with finding the next best big story to tell after the decades-long Infinity Stone Saga. Not going into the history of the character since that has no impact on my thoughts on the character and also cause the backstory behind the character's conception were a product of the times.

So the film and folklore was excellent, while also jabbing at Iron Man 3's take on the villain, Mandarin, who was seen as a disappointment in that movie by many fans. The martial arts action was great, the mythical creatures were awesome and accurate in design, and the characters were excellent.

Here's hoping the sequel explains the origins of the Ten Rings.

Best #7: Venom: Let There Be Carnage (9.5/10):

A film that I saw coming quickly when the credit scene of the previous film set up Venom's greatest enemy, Carnage. I know people were clamoring for this film to be R-rated since a villain like Carnage on the big screen deserved such treatment for the sheer brutality he alone imposes. I was certainly clamoring for it since the films reminded me of the 2 live-action Guyver movies with the first film being PG-13 and the second being R-rated. Alas, this film got the PG-13 rating for having a very brief connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Spider-Man: No Way Home, but both credit scenes from these made the intersection with the MCU as brief as those scenes were, which were disappointing to say the least.

People who have read my articles before know not only of my love of the Venom mythos, but also the fact that the first film has the same score as this movie. I've said in the article on 2018 movies that it had uneven pacing and logistical problems, not just the fact that the Spider-Man connection was why it didn't feel like the film couldn't stand on its own and also couldn't be as violent as the comics were. I was also a little worried about the humor going in, that it would be too ridiculous, but I avoided trailers for months until I saw the movie.

Surprisingly, the pacing was much better than the previous film and the humor worked really well for the goofy tone of the sequel that doubles down on the humor from the first film that I thought worked just as well. The dynamic between Eddie and Venom worked really well, even with a rough patch in their relationship that could've honestly used more setup and time to have them realize they need each other and work well together. They were a blast to watch, whether by themselves or when interacting with other characters. I'm interested to see what the third film will do with the relationship next.

They also did really well with setting up the main villain, Cletus Kasady, the man who becomes Carnage, by showing his psychosis in an animated sequence that seems like something out of Jhonen Vasquez' repertoire like Invader Zim and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. The main thing about Cletus is that he's a psychotic monster that has a horrifying bloodlust and sadism to him way before he gets his symbiote. The Carnage symbiote itself matches the backstory with how he's a child of Venom that bonded to the man while in prison, with his power and form manifesting during his death sentence in one of the best introductions I've seen in villains in a while. The scene in question involves an escape from the death sentence and the prison he was kept in that showed the power and intimidation that is in line with the character himself and why he's considered Venom's greatest enemy in his solo comic stories.

Unfortunately, while the film improved in some areas, it didn't rise above a 9.5 for the whole thing with how it still couldn't stand on its own because of the MCU looming over its head, especially with the mid-credit scene that brings the character into the MCU (albeit briefly). There is another reason why it has the same score as the previous film, which is that it contained plot details and elements that are vague in explanation or are completely glossed over. A drawback to this movie was introducing mutants without much explanation. Cletus' girlfriend played by Naomie Harris is essentially a mutant that has more prominence than other mutants that were introduced within this movie. It makes you think how mutants work in this story compared to something like X-Men and even the MCU. This is illustrated especially when another character that was supposedly killed off, Patrick Mulligan, a cop character, is revived with signs that he either had mutant powers the whole time or was mutated by the girlfriend somehow. Another detail revolves around the creation of the Carnage symbiote and how a red symbiote is seen as something to fear for Venom himself. It's never really explained what red symbiotes are in relation to regular symbiotes beyond being frightening. There weren't as many logistical problems as the first one, but they were there.

I could go on about the vague details and logistics, but nonetheless, this movie was pure fun and I really look forward to the next installment in store from these with Andy Serkis in the director chair.

Now on to the movies that scored solid 10s, and it's surprising to see the number of 10s for this year alone. So let's get into it.

Best #6: Judas and the Black Messiah:

The first solid 10 of the year. A movie that seems like a spiritual sequel to The Trial of the Chicago 7, cause that's how I felt this movie was with how this was set in Chicago and also has an ending that ties into the background story of the Chicago 7. The stuff with the trial didn't really spoil the movie, but it was very compelling to see this powerful story about historical racial injustice that is still very topical with racial injustice still being a huge problem. Those of you who saw The Trial of the Chicago 7 should give this a watch.

Best #5: A Quiet Place Part 2:

Despite the delays this movie faced due to the pandemic, it did really well at expanding on its world and story while never losing sight of what made the first film effective: sound design and minimal dialogue. The film even induced the moviegoers to keep their own noise to a minimum to heighten the experience and become part of this world. The movie also has an open ending that can leave room for movies to come in the future or stand as a proper ending to the story itself if no sequels came.

Best #4: Free Guy:

One of the most surprising films of the year to get a 10. I wasn't too sure how this film would turn out at face value when I saw the trailer in 2019 and then it got delayed a lot because of the pandemic. Usually the films that got delayed that weren't a result of the pandemic were destined to be dead on arrival, but when I saw this on VOD, this was a very pleasant surprise.

A movie about a Grand Theft Auto-like video game that has non-playable characters that grow and develop like actual people and a Blizzard-like company that's trying to sweep this game under the rug because its popularity is causing problems for an upcoming game the higher-ups want to launch. That's actually pretty original in concept and execution. You never really see movies about the inner workings of video games. You only see stories that are based on video games. It's also really clever in its self-aware humor, heartwarming moments, and amazing visuals.

We need more movies like this and I would love to see a sequel to this.

Best #3: Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train:

A movie based on one of my top 10 favorite anime of all time: Kimetsu no Yaiba or Demon Slayer. An anime about a boy named Tanjiro, his demon-turned sister Nezuko, and the Demon Slayer Corps fighting demons that feast on human flesh to get stronger.

The movie revolves around Tanjiro and his friends going on a train to assist a high-ranking demon slayer in hunting down a demon that killed many Demon Slayers, but the train is anything but ordinary as everyone falls into a deep sleep with dreams about the deepest desires of all involved.

A very groundbreaking anime movie that adapts an entire story arc from the manga. From my experience with anime movies about pre-existing series, the stories within those are usually standalone side stories that don't offer too much to the main story and have endings that show how inconsequential they are to the main story. The closest movies that ended up being canon to the stories were the first two Dragon Ball Super movies, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F, and the first My Hero Academia movie from 2018, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes. This is a very rare occurrence where this is actually canon to the anime that adapts from the manga source material, with a huge boost in the beautiful animation, wonderful music, and the amazing characters, world, and voice cast (since I saw the dub in theaters).

The movie was number 1 for the first half of the year, but the fact that it adapts from a part of the source material results in the movie creating an expectation where you need to know the anime series and the source material that it's based on. It's not something newcomers should go into without knowing what they're getting into. It's purely a film for those in the know of the series.

For a film that adapts a huge story arc, it succeeded at adapting the source material while making us clamor for more to come for the series, especially when this is the highest-grossing film of all time in Japan, which is an impressive feat in of itself.

Best #2: Luca:

The first Disney+ exclusive Pixar movie, and it certainly won't be the last Pixar exclusive. I know Turning Red is coming to Disney+ instead of theaters, which is disappointing, but consider this: Onward became a box office bomb because of the unforeseen circumstance that is the COVID pandemic, and it was a huge loss for Pixar since The Good Dinosaur flopped hard in 2015. Rather than make the same mistake as the previous year and let Luca and Turning Red go to theaters and take any chances with COVID cases during their initial releases, they're playing it safe and smart by putting these on Disney+ to avoid anymore losses.

Luca is a much more small scale story in comparison to Soul and Inside Out, which are basically pinnacle Pixar movies hands down, but that's a good thing. Not all movies need to be very grand in scale with explosive action sequences scattered about and complex world building as a backdrop to the story. This is a character-driven story set in the late 1950s about two sea monster boys from the waters of the Italian Riviera that can take human form when on land, but must be careful not to let the humans in the nearby city know this detail lest they be hunted like animals.

The dynamic between the titular Luca and Alberto is very sweet and heartbreaking, with many interpreting their friendship and their reveal to the townsfolk at the end being within the LGBT umbrella. They really captured the summers of one's youth and also how we should celebrate being different from others. The film felt very accurate in terms of the time period and setting of Italy, while also feeling organic in showing how this world with the humans and the sea monsters worked.

This felt more satisfying than Encanto even though they both feel small in scale but have similar themes about celebrating people that feel different from others.

Best #1: The Mitchells vs. the Machines:

From the producers that brought us the Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and a director who worked on the critically-acclaimed Gravity Falls, we have our number 1, which is, without a doubt, The Mitchells vs. the Machines.

Words can't describe how excellent this movie works as a high-octane action comedy movie, a heartwarming family movie, a commentary on our reliance of technology, and the best representations on LGBT, people on the autism spectrum, and the experience of going to an art school to follow your dreams.

If that's not enough, there's also the beautiful visuals that range from not just CG that's made with the same technology as Spider-Verse, but also various other forms of animation, and an aesthetic that feels like a quirky Disney movie of the past. This will definitely take home a lot of Annie Awards and it deserves them all.

In a year with a lot of great animated movies, The Mitchells vs. the Machines easily took the number 1 best of this year. This is right up there with Klaus and Spider-Verse as the top-tier animated movies I would recommend to anyone with an interest in the medium.

So what do you guys think of my list? What are your favorite or least favorite films of 2021? Comment below and let me know.