In our annual aggregation of some of the most respected Best Films of the Year lists, we like to highlight folks that offer unique opinions regarding cinema. We’ve already seen John Waters offer up a pretty offbeat Top 10 this year. And now, The New Yorker offers its Top 35 Best Films of 2021, with a healthy number of picks that will likely surprise people.
READ MORE: The Best Film Posters Of 2021
Sure, The New Yorker lists plenty of high-profile films in the Top 35. Films such as “The French Dispatch,” “Licorice Pizza,” “C’mon C’mon,” and “Passing,” all make the upper echelon of the list. But within the outlet’s Best Films of 2021, you’re likely going to find quite a few that you haven’t seen yet and maybe aren’t even familiar with.
Some interesting choices include Christopher Makoto Yogi’s “I Was a Simple Man” at #4 and Nanfu Wang’s “In the Same Breath” at #5. The latter of which offers up the first of what is a pretty large number of documentaries that populate the list. Other docs mentioned include “Procession” (#10), “The American Sector” (#15), “All Lights, Everywhere” (#16), “A Cop Movie” (#17), “Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue” (#18), and “Listening to Kenny G” (#19) all show up in the list. And those are just the ones in the Top 20. The final 15 picks include even more non-fiction picks.
Overall, it’s a pretty great list, full of diverse selections from all genres. Here’s the Top 10 from the New Yorker’s Best Films list (the full 35 films, with writeups, can be found on the New Yorker’s site):
- The French Dispatch
- Licorice Pizza
- Zola
- I Was A Simple Man
- In The Same Breath
- C’mon C’mon
- Passing
- Pebbles
- Petite Maman
- Procession