Best Movies, Films, and Streaming Features of 2021 - 26 to 50
When it comes to the silver screen, there really has been something special for everyone in 2021. Taking over the cinemas and our living rooms in 2021 were pricelessly funny comedies, high-octane action blockbusters, a new batch of superheroes, amazing animation, indie treasures, brilliant documentaries, tense dramas, and a whole bunch of movies and films we're still dying to watch.
Welcome to Part Two - 26 to 50 of our Best Movies, Films, and Streaming Features of 2021.
In case you missed it, head here for Part One - 25 to 1 of our Best Movies, Films, and Streaming Features of 2021.
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26. Kate
It comes together thanks in no small part to its charismatic leads, a heaping helping of style, and a story that is effective, surprisingly emotional and led by sober feelings of remorse and atonement.
For those just looking for bones breaking, faces getting stabbed, assassins delivering perfect headshots, ‘Kate’ more than delivers. This film is a solid, fun action-thriller in a world filled with subpar ‘Wick’-ian clones.
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27. Pig
This is so much more than a movie where Nic Cage hunts down the men who kidnapped his beloved hog. Like the animal itself, Pig is considerably smarter and more ardent than it appears at first glance, and unearths treasures that are barely evident on the surface level. We’d have settled for much less, but what a rare treat to be offered a great deal more.
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28. The Courier
While espionage thrillers in the 007/Mission Impossible vein rely on spectacle to elevate the pulse and obscure plot hiccups, The Courier is content to tell an engaging story and rely on the circumstances and characters to hold the viewer’s interest. It replaces action scenes and stunts with slow-burn suspense.
Dominic Cooke’s unadorned style and pacing work for the material and the result is a spy story worth telling and experiencing.
Read full review.
29. The Little Things
The opening scene in the midnight-dark, period piece serial killer thriller “The Little Things” feels like a lift from a certain segment in “The Silence of the Lambs,” as if to acknowledge we’re in for a derivative thrill ride. Rami Malek and Denzel Washington are electric together in this atmospheric, moody thriller that will keep you guessing and on the edge of the proverbial seat (or living room sofa). You won’t be able to shake this one off for a very long time.
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30. A Glitch In The Matrix
The conceit of Rodney Ascher’s computer-haunted documentary “A Glitch in the Matrix” is that our perceived reality is not a physical reality where we haul our fleshy conveyances of bone, skin, and muscle around looking for sustenance, pleasure, and maybe a comfy chair. For the men whom Ascher interviews (and yes, to no surprise, they are pretty much all men), everything we see and feel is just the ones and zeroes of a computer simulation.
Ascher’s appropriately discombobulating stew of queasiness, comedy, and terror seems well-cued to the subject matter, even while missing a certain editorial sharpness that might have brought some of its notions into greater clarity.
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31. No Sudden Move
It forcefully snaps into focus in the simple notion that this is a movie about people under pressure. As is his usual style, director Steven Soderbergh doesn’t fully lay the play out— he lets us figure it out as it happens, alongside his characters. What occurs is a dizzying series of bluffs, set-ups, deals, double-crosses, and MacGuffins (I counted two, your mileage may vary).
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32. Schumacher
It’s consistently entertaining and informative, allowing non-racing fans to care about the culture, life, and storylines of the 1990s Formula One circuit, something I’d never given a moment of thought to before.
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33. F9
Is F9 the best blockbuster ever? No. Is it absolutely perfect? You bet. If you wanted to teach a course on the platonic ideal of the big-budget, distinctly Hollywood-born action blockbuster, F9 could furnish the whole syllabus.
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34. Old
Old is unsettling and creepy, beautifully shot and weirdly visceral. You know - an M. Night Shyamalan film. It’s the sort of supernaturally-tinged story we’ve learned to expect from him, with the same brand of ludicrous/intriguing elevator pitch description. It is also precisely the sort of premise with which a filmmaker like Shyamalan can have some fun.
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35. Monster Hunter
There are monsters, there are explosions and there is Ron Perlman with beautifully feathered hair. This is a film that is all about spectacle. There is no need to ask questions or wonder about certain aspects of the plot: This is another dimension populated with monsters, that’s all you need to know. Monster Hunter asks you to let every fantastical second wash over you.
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36. Willy's Wonderland
Nicolas Cage battling evil, murderous animatronics? It’s an earnest-yet-crudely executed low-budget horror flick about a drifter who gets trapped inside a haunted Chuck E. Cheese-style pizzeria and left to die at the claws of a robotic weasel and its malicious minions.
Willy's Wonderland is a no-frills splatterfest that finds chills and thrills thanks to bashing the hell out of weaponized pizza parlor characters.
Read full review.
37. Pixie
“Pixie” is a jaunty, Tarantino-esque contraption, loaded with double and quadruple crosses, genre-mashing diversions and loads of idiots dying sudden, violent deaths.
The film simply wouldn’t be much, without Olivia Cooke’s quick-witted performance. She’s formidable and disarming at the same time, all the time.
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38. The Beta Test
Jim Cummings rivets as a Hollywood agent in a Twilight Zone of temptation. The actor-director's latest DIY movie is at once a film-world satire, an erotic thriller, and a meditation on identity. I’ve rarely seen an actor portray this kind of hotshot sociopath while showing you, as Cummings does, the torrents of anxiety that drive him.
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39. Till Death
In spite of its icy backdrop, the part home-invasion chiller, part murder-mystery Till Death could prove to be the actual summer movie you’ve been craving for a while: undemanding, a little silly, but a thoroughly engrossing and handsomely paced edge-of-your seat experience all the same.
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40. Cruella
This witty, zesty, high-energy prequel succeeds by creating its own wild world - one in which we follow Cruella on a darkly comic quest from cradle to catwalk. It’s hands-down Disney’s best and punchiest prequel yet, one whose playful perils make for a deliciously rowdy ride.
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41. The Forever Purge
With Native American activists (Zahn McClarnon), anti-Mexican cartel women vigilantes, and the eye-opening power of white guilt when indebted to someone for your life, The Forever Purge is erasing the line separating its high-concept fiction from the nation outside our window. This franchise has never looked quite so familiar.
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42. Army of the Dead
Zack Snyder’s best movie since his debut, the zombie film “Dawn Of The Dead” (2014), Army Of The Dead is tremendously compelling and deftly navigates a lot of different tones, even if it quickly leaves more interesting ones behind.
Largely captivating and thrilling, for all is gore, darkly twisted comedy, and delicious tension— surely something satisfied audiences will walk away with—there’s also a minor but palatable sense of loss and melancholy. One that echoes the hardships of the pandemic age and ruthless American capitalism and gives the film some socio-political edge.
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43. Luca
A brisk and bright sun-dappled fable of above-ground adventure and below-the-surface identity, Enrico Casarosa’s “Luca” — a bright, shimmering, fish-out-of-water fairy tale — is one of Pixar’s most pure and condensed enchantments.
Casarosa’s film comes and goes like a soft summer breeze, but that doesn’t stop it from being utterly charming and, by the time of its magnificent final shot, a little devastating, too.
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44. Justice Society: World War II
Justice Society: World War II is an entertaining romp that ranks among DC's best animated movies. It's easy to see the comic book DNA of Justice Society: WWII, but it never feels beholden to any one particular DC Comics story. Heck, it seems as much influenced by movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Rocketeer as anything else, hence why the fun factor is so high on this one.
Read full review.
45. Last Night In Soho
Last Night In Soho is an intoxicatingly distinctive, delirious creation that soars out of every pigeonhole you put it in. It's a hyperactive, free-flowing, intensely emotional, must-see movie.
It also marks a refreshing change for the director and co-writer of “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” and “Baby Driver.” Left behind is Edgar Wright’s trademark hyperactive editing and insistent post-modernism; in its place is flowing movement and intense emotion. It’s not just different from his previous films; it’s different from everyone else’s previous films.
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46. Wrath Of Man
A star vehicle for Jason Statham at his meanest, "Wrath of Man" is one of Guy Ritchie's best-directed movies—and one of his most surprising, at least in terms of style and tone.
The completeness and sureness of the movie’s aesthetic is a joy to behold, even when the images capture human beings doing savage things. You don’t really root for anyone in this film. They are criminals engaged in contests of will. But the film is not a value-neutral exercise. There is an undertone of lament to a lot of the violent action.
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47. Spiral: From the Book of Saw
It might be a controversial opinion among the fanboys and girls of the Eighties slasher franchises, but the Saw series is one of the most interesting mainstream horror franchises of all time. Spiral embodies the franchise James Wan and Leigh Whannell built, while being totally refurbished for a new generation.
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48. Dune
For science-fiction devotees, especially those who have long-worshipped Frank Herbert’s dense tome and waited decades for it to be brought to the screen in a more successful incarnation than previous filmmakers have managed: Villeneuve’s Dune is the adaptation you always dreamed of.
It will wow existing acolytes, and get newcomers hooked on its Spice-fuelled visions.
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49. Zola
Zola earns its cutting observations about how social media encapsulates culture’s ability to commercialize anything. Janicza Bravo prioritizes character and personal eccentricity, in the process truly earning the screenplay’s cutting observations about how social media encapsulates culture’s ability to commercialize anything, especially ourselves.
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50. Mortal Kombat
The Mortal Kombat reboot nails every neck-snapping reason people love the series. Heart-ripping? Yes, there’s heart-ripping too.
That go-for-broke violence has always been a core component of Mortal Kombat, and this reboot succeeds because McQuoid and his team remember that, and have the self-awareness to acknowledge it. It isn’t a flawless victory, but it is lizard-brain fun.
Read more here.
In case you missed it, head here for Part One - 25 to 1 of our Best Movies, Films, and Streaming Features of 2021.
The Sea Shell mobile app is available worldwide as a free download on the App Store and the Play Store. Download it today.