Adam Driver is sensational in this unorthodox if tonally-uneven musical about the perils of celebrity culture that oscillates between feeling inspired and overdrawn.
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Annette (2021)
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Tag / 2021
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Blackpink: The Movie (2021)
More of a compilation of past concert performances (albeit in stunning audiovisual quality) than a documentary of new insight and depth, this will please and frustrate fans in equal measure.
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Mr. Bachmann and His Class (2021)
This is pedagogy as cinema—an unobtrusive and highly-rewarding documentary centering on a veteran teacher and his ethnically-diverse students in a small town in Germany, earning every compelling bit of its nearly four-hour runtime.
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As I Want (2021)
Women meet politics as they bravely fight against rampant sexual assaults and for a more progressive country in this intimate home video-style, if sometimes unfocused, documentary about the aftermath of the Cairo Revolution.
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Ballad of a White Cow (2021)
It may be at times contrived and slow-moving, but this Iranian drama about the impact of a wrongful state execution on a family accumulates enough power to work.
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Writing with Fire (2021)
The only entirely female-run news outlet in India is the subject of this inspiring documentary about the perseverance and courage of a close-knit team of Dalit women (born to the lowest caste) who are challenging deep-rooted traditions, toxic patriarchy and corruption through their firebrand style of justice-based grassroots journalism.
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Cliff Walkers (2021)
Zhang’s latest, an espionage thriller set in 1930s Manchuria, mostly works as a violent, intricately-plotted genre exercise about spies and traitors.
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Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
It feels like it’s operating one gear too low in terms of pacing, but this take on the trials and tribulations of Black Panther’s Fred Hampton—and a spy within his ranks—features outstanding work by Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield.
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Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021)
A schoolteacher and her circulating sex tape headline Radu Jude’s new sociopolitical experiment—a piercing satire on everything wrong with the world that is as savagely non-PC as it is hilarious.
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Hey There! (2021)
Erdem’s new work may be borne out of filmmaking restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but it finds pure comedy and pathos with an ingenious concept centering on a series of online interactions between naïve and conniving strangers.
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Eternality Tan 