My end of the year list is just "everything good I happened to watch in 2021." Maybe it was released this year, maybe I just got around to it now. (First viewings counted only.) It's only movies and series - no videogames, RPG's, streams, podcasts, plays, or books, though I was privileged to have enjoyed many of those as well. Also I grouped the TV series into the seasons I saw this year.
These are only the works I enjoyed and would recommend to others. I had about a 50/50 hit rating for that. It's sorted from best to worst - I'm not doing the artificial suspense where I count down and you wonder if I entirely forgot a movie, or made it number one.
The point of this list is mostly to tell people "you want to kill time and see something good? Watch these." If you see something on this list and think "wow yeah, that was killer", then think how good all the things above it must be.
I went through all my streaming accounts and blog posts and came up with 51 pieces from recent years I saw this year. After that I also list seven much older movies I saw for the first time that are basically classics, let alone rank them. You don't need me to describe them or pitch them to you.
When I had previously written a post on the work, I just link to that post. Otherwise I write a sentence of short description for why you might want to see it. Though as we go down the list and it just becomes things everyone knows about, I stop bothering to write up the description. You know plenty about what "Witcher Season 2" is like already.
The first two entries are not going to surprise anyone who has read me recently...
| R | Movie/TV Series | Source | Commentary |
| 1 | Arcane | Netflix | https://prequelsredeemed.blogspot.com/2021/11/how-to-recommend-arcane.html |
| 2 | The Harder They Fall | Netflix | https://prequelsredeemed.blogspot.com/2021/11/megapost-six-movies-you-should-see.html |
| 3 | Lost Girls and Love Hotels | Amazon $ | https://prequelsredeemed.blogspot.com/2021/09/lost-girls-and-love-hotels.html |
| 4 | For All Mankind S1-2 | Apple TV | https://prequelsredeemed.blogspot.com/2021/10/i-watched-everything-good-on-apple-tv.html |
| 5 | Pig | Amazon $ | Nick Cage doing John Wick but as a chef assaulting the Portland Fine Dining scene. |
| 6 | WandaVision | Disney | You all heard about this this year. The core 6 episodes are worthy of the acclaim. |
| 7 | Vast of Night | Amazon Prime | An extremely mesmerizing close-up of two kids in a small town facing the existential mystery of an alien invasion. |
| 8 | The Guard | Amazon $ | Brendan Gleesan and Don Cheadle have great chemistry in an Irish Buddy Cop Comedy |
| 9 | Brand New Cherry Flavor | Netflix | Visceral horror movie drawn out over 8 hours, about the nature and costs of revenge. |
| 10 | Cruella | Disney | https://prequelsredeemed.blogspot.com/2021/06/black-and-white-and-red-all-over.html |
| 11 | Green Knight | Amazon $ | Tour de force of the meaning of masculinity and our understanding of Arthurian epics. |
| 12 | Killing Them Softly | Amazon $ | Modern mafia movie with Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini giving great performances and heavy commentary on the 2008 financial crisis. |
| 13 | Midnight Mass | Netflix | https://prequelsredeemed.blogspot.com/2021/09/midnight-mass-sun-rises-on-good-and-bad.html |
| 14 | Willy's Wonderland | Amazon $ | Nick Cage doing Five Nights at Freddies as a silent protagonist action hero. It's really amazing and the plot moves fast. |
| 15 | Locke | Amazon $ | Two hours of Tom Hardy making phone calls as his family crumbles and he tries to organize concrete logistics. WIll make you care about the world of concrete. |
| 16 | VAL | Amazon $ | Documentary of Val Kilmer, told in three voices, who was much more a demiurgic character than I knew. |
| 17 | Revolver | Amazon $ | Classic Guy Ritchie criminal romp that slowly turns into psychological-existential metaphor, plus kabbalah. |
| 18 | Nine Days | Amazon Prime | Metaphysical fantasy about souls who will be born into bodies, and how best to appreciate the many experiences of a human life. |
| 19 | Dune 2021 | Theaters | https://prequelsredeemed.blogspot.com/2021/11/megapost-six-movies-you-should-see.html |
| 20 | Tig Notaro Happy To Be Here | Netflix | This is more a general pointer to Tig's work. I only discovered it this year, and they do emotional devastation plus genuine comedy at the horror of it all amazingly well. |
| 21 | Cure | Youtube | My foray into japanese horror. |
| 22 | The Power of the Dog | Netflix | A very slow paced western focused on the emotional internality of a few characters, with very good, intense, and slow-moving scenes in the back half. |
| 23 | Katla | Netflix | Icelandic horror series about changelings, and the introspective questions their existence would inspire. |
| 24 | Nightcrawler | Amazon $ | |
| 25 | Bliss | Amazon Prime | Serious scifi that benefits from not being spoiled. |
| 26 | The Tangle | Amazon Prime | Cheap Amazon scifi sometimes turns out amazing set pieces. |
| 27 | Queen's Gambit | Netflix | |
| 28 | Army of Thieves | Netflix | The prequel to Snyder's zombie remake, it's actually more engaging in it's faux-mythic-fantasy trappings. |
| 29 | The Boys S2 | Amazon Prime | |
| 30 | Justice League: Snyder Cut | HBO Max | Much better than expected, changing the focal point of the entire work. |
| 31 | Army of the Dead | Netflix | |
| 32 | Expanse S5-6 | Amazon Prime | Really good political drama in space but the highlights at two characters (Avisirala and Amos.) |
| 33 | Loki | Disney | |
| 34 | Revenant | Amazon $ | |
| 35 | Spider-Man: No Way Home | Theaters | https://prequelsredeemed.blogspot.com/2021/12/spider-man-no-way-home.html |
| 36 | I, Origins | Amazon $ | Brit Marling at her most predictable, but I still love it. |
| 37 | Bo Burnham: Inside | Netflix | This comedian's intense introspection about a year in quarantine. Has some very compelling earworms. |
| 38 | History of Time Travel | Amazon Prime | Cheap Amazon scifi sometimes turns out amazing set pieces. |
| 39 | The Sinner S1 | Netflix | |
| 40 | Hell on Wheels S1 and S4 | Amazon $ | Very gritty exploration of race/class/gender divides on the frontier in the 19th century. Colm Meaney is amazing as an over the top villain. Common also takes my heart. |
| 41 | Angel Heart | Amazon $ | Laughable and grotesque New Orleans horror. |
| 42 | Mandalorian S2 | Disney | |
| 43 | Witcher S2 | Netflix | |
| 44 | I Care a Lot | Netflix | https://prequelsredeemed.blogspot.com/2021/02/i-care-about-bodies-lot.html |
| 45 | Helstrom | Hulu | Psychological horror that's presumably part of the MCU but not really. |
| 46 | THE Suicide Squad | HBO Max | It was what we expected based off the previous one. |
| 47 | Siren S1-S2 | Hulu | CW style soapdrama that focuses on mermaids, the northwest, and polyamory. |
| 48 | Melancholia | Hulu | |
| 49 | Art of Self Defense | Amazon $ | Jesse Eisenberg doing mumblecore building masculine identity in an LA cult. |
| 50 | Exit Through the Gift Shop | Amazon $ | Banksy's self-critical documentary about a person who mirrored him. |
| 51 | The Station Agent | Amazon $ | |
| | | |
| Y | Classics Corner | | |
| 1963 | Contempt | Amazon $ | |
| 1973 | The Last of Shiela | Amazon $ | Actually a puzzle hunt in movie form. |
| 1975 | Dog Day Afternoon | Amazon $ | |
| 1979 | Stalker | Amazon $ | Best of the classics. |
| 1988 | Last Temptation of Christ | Amazon $ | |
| 1990 | Total Recall | Amazon $ | https://prequelsredeemed.blogspot.com/2021/11/megapost-six-movies-you-should-see.html |
| 1994 | The Crow | Amazon $ | Unavoidably more goth due to the IRL story around it. |
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