The Best Movies We Saw in 2021: Our Contributors’ Top Tens

This article is part of our 2021 Rewind. Follow along as we explore the best and most interesting movies, shows, performances, and more from this very strange year. In this entry, we present the best movies of 2021 through the individual Top Ten lists of our wonderful contributors. 

Over the past several weeks, we’ve spilled plenty of digital ink in pursuit of highlighting the wide array of great movies we watched in 2021. From listing the Best Action Movies of 2021 to exploring the year in Non-Binary representation to highlighting the Best Documentaries of 2021, our year in review has been a labor of pure love for cinema.

And as we round out the last few entries in our 2021 Rewind series, we’d like to take this opportunity to present the individual Top Ten lists of our group of contributors. This incredible group of writers spent the entire year diligently hunting down the best movies wherever they could be found — at festivals, on streaming apps, and even a few times in real movie theaters. The sum of this team’s efforts can be found in the 50 Best Movies of 2021 list we published last week, but this is all about each individual’s most important contribution — their own personal list. Through these selections, you can see the wide variety of films we absolutely loved last year — if you count our Chief Critic Rob Hunter’s list (which we do), our contributors submitted 12 different lists and only two had the same film at number one.

Explore each contributor’s Top Ten list below and click the ℹ️ icon to visit their profile and read more of their work here at Film School Rejects.

Anna Swanson ℹ️

1. The Matrix Resurrections
2. Licorice Pizza
3. Benedetta
4. The Last Duel
5. Bergman Island
6. The Card Counter
7. Undine
8. Quo Vadis, Aida?
9. Malignant
10. Dune

Aurora Amidon ℹ️

1. Licorice Pizza
2. The Worst Person in the World
3. The Power of the Dog
4. Bergman Island
5. Dune
6. Red Rocket
7. Titane
8. Drive My Car
9. The Lost Daughter
10. Don’t Look Up

Brad Gullickson ℹ️

1. The Beatles: Get Back
2. The Suicide Squad
3. Summertime
4. Dune
5. West Side Story
6. Nightmare Alley
7. No Time to Die
8. Pig
9. No Sudden Move
10. Ninja Baby

Christopher Campbell ℹ️

1. Flee
2. Spencer
3. Licorice Pizza
4. The Green Knight
5. Summer of Soul
6. The Mitchells vs. The Machines
7. All Light, Everywhere
8. The Rescue
9. The Lost Daughter
10. The Last Duel

Farah Cheded ℹ️

1. The Power of the Dog
2. Dune
3. Limbo
4. The Worst Person in the World
5. West Side Story
6. Quo Vadis, Aida?
7. The Last Duel
8. Petite Maman
9. Luca
10.  Bergman Island

Jacob Trussell ℹ️

1. Malignant
2. The Night House
3. The Humans
4. Candyman
5. Dune
6. The Queen of Black Magic
7. Titane
8. Bo Burnham: Inside
9. tick, tick… BOOM!
10. The Mitchells vs. The Machines

Meg Shields ℹ️

1. The Last Duel
2. Dune
3. Red Rocket
4. Benedetta
5. The Power of the Dog
6. Parallel Mothers
7. The Worst Person in the World
8. The Card Counter
9. Pig
10. The Green Knight

Neil Miller ℹ️

1. The Power of the Dog
2. The Worst Person in the World
3. Titane
4. The Matrix Resurrections
5. Licorice Pizza
6. The Novice
7. Benedetta
8. Dune
9. Drive My Car
10. The Last Duel

Shea Vassar ℹ️

1. tick, tick… BOOM!
2. Superior
3. The Night House
4. Night Raiders
5. Wild Indian
6. Passing
7. Wildhood
8. Zola
9. The Matrix Resurrections
10. The Woman in the Window

Valerie Ettenhofer ℹ️

1. Pig
2. Passing
3. Titane
4. C’mon C’mon
5. Introducing, Selma Blair
6. Derek Delgaudio’s In & Of Itself
7. Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry
8. Together, Together
9. Licorice Pizza
10. The Mitchells vs. The Machines

Will DiGravio ℹ️

1. Lamb
2. West Side Story
3. The Lost Daughter
4. Zola
5. Pig
6. Procession
7. The Power of the Dog
8. Nightmare Alley
9. Days
10. Memoria