'Spencer' to 'Summer of Soul': Favorite films of 2021

The Patriot Ledger's movie writers pick their favorite films of 2021:

DANA BARBUTO:

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, the Oscar-nominated writers of "Bridesmaids," reunite to stir up more funny business. The duo, BFFs in real life, wrote the script and co-star as a pair of fluffy-haired best friends who leave their Midwestern town for a vacation in Florida. You’ll laugh out loud, especially if you're a card-carrying member of the culottes crowd.

Where to watch: Hulu

Review: 'Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar' is a trip worth taking

CODA

With warmth, humor and a stellar cast, the movie follows a budding 17-year-old singer (Emilia Jones) from Gloucester torn between obligation and ambition. The only hearing member of a deaf family, Ruby must decide if pursuing her love of music is worth risking the downfall of her clan’s fishing business. Keep the tissues close.

Where to watch: Apple TV+

C’mon C'mon

In a year full of stories about the complexity of parenthood, none truly sees mothers and fathers quite like writer-director Mike Mills’ understated drama. Joaquin Phoenix, Woody Norman and Gaby Hoffman co-star.

Where to watch: In theaters and available to rent via video on demand

Review: Go along for the ride in 'C'mon C'mon,' a tender drama about parenthood

Drive My Car

There’s a reason why Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's intimate three-hour epic is landing on all the best-of-the-year lists – it’s that good. Japan’s entry to the Academy Awards, the movie tells a story of grief and loss through the eyes of a widowed actor, deftly played by Hidetoshi Nishijima.

Where to watch: Opens in Boston on Jan. 14

And the winners are: Boston film critics take 'Drive My Car' for a spin

The Many Saints of Newark

People either loved or hated David Chase’s “Sopranos” prequel. I got swept away in the nostalgia and Boston native Alessandro Nivola’s irresistible mix of charm and menace as mobster Dickie Moltisanti. Ray Liotta, Vera Farmiga and Corey Stoll add heft.

Where to watch: HBO Max

A mob hit: Boston actor Alessandro Nivola is the boss 'Many Saints of Newark'

Parallel Mothers

You won’t be able to shake Penelope Cruz playing Janis, a conflicted single mother struggling with a big secret in Pedro Almodovar’s latest melodrama. It’s full of twists and turns while also paying homage to those who were victims of the genocide during the Spanish Civil War.

Where to watch: Opens in Boston on Jan. 14

The Rescue

The documentary by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (the Oscar-winning “Free Solo”) recounts the terrifying rescue of 12 members of a Thai boys soccer team and their adult coach, all of whom were trapped in a cave rapidly filling with rainwater deposited by a string of monsoons. It was the most tense and harrowing film of the year.

tick, tick … BOOM!

Andrew Garfield sings, dances, laughs and smiles his way into your heart in the film adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical musical chronicling the playwright’s many setbacks on his way to success with his masterpiece, “Rent.” The film also marks the directorial feature debut for “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Where to watch: Netflix

Spencer

Kristen Stewart disappears into the tortured headspace of Princess Diana during the royal family’s 1991 Christmas celebration. Many moments stand out, but the best is the finale, which finds Diana creating some fleeting happiness. It’s a sublime scene, set to the perfect song.

Where to watch: Available to rent via video on demand

Review: Kristen Stewart reigns as Princess Diana in 'Spencer'

West Side Story

Steven Spielberg did the impossible in updating the Oscar-winning musical for a new generation. Newcomer Rachel Zegler hits all the right notes as Maria and Rita Moreno (Anita in the original) lends gravitas and more as the shopkeeper, Doc.

Where to watch: In theaters

On the screens: 'Nightmare Alley,' 'West Side Story' and more new movies to check out

The next 10: “Pig,” “House of Gucci,” Last Night in Soho,” “Being the Ricardos,” “King Richard,” “Summer of Soul,” “In the Heights,” “Luca,” “Black Widow,” “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain”

Top 5 foreign: “Quo Vadis Aida?,” “Hand of God,” “Only the Animals,” “Sweat,” “Hive”

AL ALEXANDER:

The Power of the Dog

Writer-director Jane Campion (“The Piano”) roared back to relevance with her gorgeous, intricately plotted masterpiece exploring toxic masculinity through Phil Burbank, a sociopathic Montana cowboy played with a mix of bravado and underlying torment by Benedict Cumberbatch. Abetted by Oscar-worthy supporting turns by Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the primary targets of Phil's bullying and humiliation, Campion cuts to the heart of a vicious cycle of manhood defined by brawn and might over love and compassion.

Where to watch: In theaters and streaming on Netflix

'A work of art': Saddle up for the Netflix Western 'The Power of the Dog'

Drive My Car/Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

Writer-director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi enjoyed perhaps the best year for a filmmaker since Steven Spielberg in 1993 (“Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List”) by delivering two equally fabulous meditations on modern life in Japan. “Drive My Car,” his poignant rumination on loss and how it relates to the legacy of the bombing of Hiroshima, is generating the awards buzz, but his much simpler “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” a triptych featuring three examples of women who have loved and lost, was equally powerful. In both, Hamaguchi reveals a deft ability to turn love, sex and regret into a wrenching reminder of how history forever informs our present and our future.

Where to watch: "Drive My Car" opens in Boston on Jan. 14 and "Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy" opens in Somerville Jan. 31

The Worst Person in the World

Joachim Trier completed his “Oslo trilogy” with vigor and verve, fortified by a star-making turn by Renate Reinsve as a fiercely independent young woman eager to explore her uncertainties when it comes to love and career. Some may perceive her Julie as flighty and clueless. But courtesy of Trier’s gift for edgy storytelling – and fanciful touches (like time literally standing still) – it reveals that the existential roots of her indecisiveness sustain a refusal to be defined and pigeon-holed. It may cost her dearly emotionally, but it’s rousing and inspirational to witness her remain true to herself, win or lose, right or wrong.

Where to watch: Opening in Boston on Feb. 4

A Hero

The fabulous writer-director Asghar Farhadi (“A Separation,” “The Salesman”) continues his hot streak with another slice of absurdist Iranian life via his gripping story of a parolee (Amir Jadidi) released from debtor’s prison, and soon after paying an immense price for attempting to do the right thing. By the time everything works its way out, you’re stunned and unable to decide whether to laugh or cry. Me, I did a lot of both.

Where to watch: Opening in Boston on Jan. 7 and streaming on Amazon Prime on Jan. 21

Licorice Pizza

Not much happens in writer-director P.T. Anderson’s episodic tale of love and ambition among the disaffected youth in his native San Fernando Valley, circa 1973. But it sure as heck exhilarates, with a potent mix of irony, slapstick and heart-melting romance. The combination of Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour Hoffman) and rock star Alana Haim as mismatched lovers thrust into the absurdist California culture of the '70s – best exemplified by Bradley Cooper’s hilarious parody of famed Hollywood hairdresser Jon Peters – was irresistible, as the two learn the hard way that idealism has its costs.

Where to watch: In theaters

'A slice of nostalgia': 'Licorice Pizza' soaks up the 1970s in the San Fernando Valley

Red Rocket

It would seem nearly impossible for Sean Baker to top his Oscar-nominated “The Florida Project,” yet he does with his subtle-but-stinging commentary on our nation’s embrace of the democracy-destroying grifters infiltrating our body politic. It’s a point well made thanks to breakout performances by Simon Rex and Suzanna Son as oddly matched, narcissistic schemers who know only how to take. They are a mere microcosm of the disingenuous targets Baker and co-writer Chris Bergoch place in their satirical cross-hairs. But, boy, do they make their metaphorical points powerfully.

Where to watch: In theaters

Ready for liftoff: 'Red Rocket' is full of surprises, including *NSYNC

Parallel Mothers

The potent combination of Pedro Almódovar and the director’s muse, Penelope Cruz, reaches its intensity with this heartbreaking tale of Spain’s infamous past under the Franco regime and how it poignantly relates to two mothers haunted by the absences of people unfairly taken from them. It’s pure melodrama, drawing inspiration from the genre's master, Douglas Sirk. But it’s brilliantly masterful in reminding that forgetting the past can result in great peril to one’s future.

Where to watch: Opens in Boston on Jan. 1

Petite Maman

Celine Sciamma follows up her brilliant “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” with this much simpler, but no less effective, fantasy in which she asks the intriguing question: What if we could journey back in time and befriend our parents as children? The result is both charming and profound, as Sciamma compels us to consider our perception of the people who raised us, with an empathetic observation of the events and situations that molded them, good and bad. “The Lost Daughter” is getting all the buzz, but for me, this gem is a far more effective study of the unspoken strains of motherhood.

Where to watch: Opening in Boston in February

I’m Your Man

German actress Maria Schrader moves behind the camera to create an intriguing tale of a lonely but acerbic middle-aged academic (Maren Eggert) futilely attempting to resist falling for a humanoid robot (a sensational Dan Stevens) she’s asked to take home for a three-week test drive. The results are as funny as they are thought-provoking, as Schrader presents a timely and cautionary consideration of where to draw the line on technology infiltrating our lives. As with the internet, a lack of vigilance can ultimately devalue our humanity, a point well made in the confines of a film that compellingly flips the rom-com formula on its head.

Where to watch: Available to rent via video on demand

Summer of Soul

“Tonight Show” bandleader Questlove (aka Ahmir Thompson), delivers an indelible directorial debut, gathering dozens of hours of long-lost concert footage from what’s become popularly known as the “Black Woodstock” and assembling them into the year's best, and most fun, documentary. It’s a musical and cultural bonanza recorded over six consecutive Sundays in the summer of 1969 in Harlem’s Mount Morris Park, featuring superstar acts such as Stevie Wonder, The 5th Dimension and Nina Simone. The result is an irresistible time capsule filled with the era’s best and brightest Black performers, all in their prime.

Where to watch: Streaming on Hulu

Review: Questlove's 'Summer of Soul' is must-see musical history

The next 10: "The Velvet Underground," "tick, tick … BOOM!," "CODA," "Passing," "Lamb," "The Rescue," "Mass," "Luca," "Annette," "Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain."

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Reach Dana Barbuto at dbarbuto@patriotledger.com.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: licorice pizza drive my car parallel mothers top best 2021 films