I can tell you this right now, 2021 will be an amazing year for movies. Just surveying the release schedule, which combines many of my anticipated films of 2020 with brand new exciting features, is totally overwhelming.
I couldn’t possibly narrow my most anticipated features down to just one, so instead I will cut my yearly most anticipated list down in half — to 14 movies.
Sure, partly this is because of me having explored loads of new filmmakers over the quarantine, but 28 is still the largest most anticipated list I’ve ever had. For perspective, 2020 only had 9 films on the list (most of which were delayed).
It is also worth noting that I have not explored Paolo Sorrentino, Mia Hansen-Løve, or Terrence Davies this year. Those filmmakers’ 2021 movies could have been on this list if I had gotten to them sooner.
At #14 is the new Almodovar film Madres Paralelas. An Almodovar film about motherhood is always something to treasure. It’s low ranking is simply because it appears to be commonly tread ground for the Spanish filmmaker. Even with Almodovar coming off creating my favorite film of 2019, this premise can only get it so high.
At #13 is the new Edgar Wright feature Last Night in SoHo. This time last year a new Wright film would almost certainly be higher, but tastes change and the British comic filmmaker has fallen a fair bit in my mind (Though Scott Pilgrim is still a masterpiece). Still to see him do a comedy-horror, especially after the hilarious short film “Don’t”, is exciting.
At #12 is the new Wes Anderson movie The French Dispatch. I am currently more sold on Anderson as entertainer than as artist, but glimpses of brilliance in The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom have lead me to believe there’s still quite a bit of room to grow. Nevertheless, this is probably the least likely film on the list to be bad.
At #11 is the latest Damien Chazelle film, Babylon. It’s another Hollywood musical, likely in the style of La La Land. I am currently of the frame of mind that Chazelle is a deeply flawed Director, with poor dialogue and overly simplistic visual metaphors permeating each of his films, but all his movies also have flashes of brilliance. I am hoping Babylon, which seems more akin to his best film yet, will put me on the Chazelle train.
At #10 is the a new movie from Korean director Park Chan-wook: Decision to Leave. Best described as the Korean David Fincher, his films are twisted, clever, and visually gorgeous. This is his first movie since 2016, where The Handmaiden made my top 5 films of that year. We don’t know much about his latest, but any new movie from him is a cause for celebration.
At #9 is the first film from an all time favorite director, Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth. Normally a Coen film would be an instant top 5, but Ethan’s lack of involvement and my lack of enthusiasm for Macbeth (the play) take it down a couple notches. Still Joel Coen has one of the finest filmographies of anyone alive and McDormand and Washington are two of our greatest actors. I expect a wonderful film.
At #8 is the new movie from Masaaki Yuasa: Inu-oh. It will be a story about an ancient Japanese classical musician, which will of course be animated in the eccentric Yuasa style. A film about an art form that is rather rigid, combined with the idiosyncratic style of Yuasa, sounds endlessly fascinating to me. It doesn’t hurt that I love musicals.
At #7 comes the third feature from Robert Eggers, The Northman. Hearing about this movie just makes it sound like nothing we’ve ever seen before. A Viking adventure epic with period appropriate dialogue! Bjork as a sea goddess! I mean come on? It just sounds insanely new and exciting. I’ve really liked, but not loved, both of Eggers last two features and hope he takes a big leap here.
At #6 is this decade’s movie from Leo Carax: Annette. His last feature was in 2012 and his feature before that was in 1999. To say he isn’t prolific is an understatement, but it’s ok when every film he releases is as interesting as he makes them. Annette stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard as a stand up comedian and opera singer (!!!) who get embroiled in a mystery. Coming from Carax, I have no clue what to expect.
At #5 is the movie which was my #2 of last year, Dennis Villeneuve’s Dune. I am not totally (I’m mostly) sold on Villeneuve as a filmmaker, but he’s certainly turned in some of the biggest and best SciFi of the past ten years. Dune looks to continue that trend, with epic source material and big ideas in abundance. This is about as excited as I can be for an adaptation of a book I haven’t read.
The fact Paul Thomas Anderson’s new untitled project is as low as #4 is absurd considering he’s my highest rated director of all time, yet it’s emblematic of the relative sameness of his premise. It’s a coming of age story set in the San Fernando Valley in the 70s. Yes, it’s probably your best bet for a top five film of the year, but it also feels, at this point, like something I’ve seen before from the great master.
At #3 is Terrence Malick’s The Way of the Wind. News on this film has been sparse and it’s not even confirmed for 2021, but considering it’s already been shot I can only hope. What we do know about the movie is so unstoppably tantalizing.
The film follows Malick exploring the philosophies inherent to three scenes in the life of Jesus. This master of the religious film making his exploration of the subject so explicit is an achievement in artistic hubris — something Malick has always excelled in. Also Mark Rylance plays seven different versions of Satan.
Martin Scorsese is churning out masterpiece after masterpiece in his old age. Each of Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence, and The Irishman have been deeply personal, cumulative masterpieces. In my mind those 4 make up the strongest four movie streak of Scorsese’s illustrious career.
So that’s why my #2 is Scorsese’s Killer’s of the Flower Moon. This is a mystery-Western-detective-Epic based on an acclaimed book. It will certainly deal with themes Scorsese has been discussing for decades, and possibly conclude a couple of them. The fact the cast consists of DiCaprio and DeNiro, his two most used collaborators, makes that prospect even more enticing. It’s the past intersecting with the present.
Finally, at #1, is Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria. He who wins the prize of ‘my favorite director you may not have heard of’ has been churning out masterpiece after masterpiece in Thailand and is now transitioning into English.
This is a risky #1, as Weerasethakul (Or Joe as he lets Western reporters call him) could easily go the route of Wong Kar-wai and make a film far below his native work. But he also could become Yorgos Lanthimos and make the next great English films that use fascinatingly different cultural sensibilities. Memoria, with its South American location, casting of Tilda Swinton, and focus on the supernatural, looks to be the latter.
I will end this by saying that the film lovers of the world are being compensated. It wasn’t the best 2020, but 2021 could easily be the best year in a decade.
Picture Source Wikipedia
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