In the wake of last year, this year felt very different for movie-lovers. For one thing, we were able to (kind of, almost) safely return to theaters. And many projects that had been delayed last year were released this year. It felt like a much more… hopeful? year for the movies. At the same time, streaming really had a strong year. Many of the movies I saw were streaming-exclusive, during a year when the IATSE nearly had to strike due poor work conditions and lower wages for the “disadvantaged” streaming companies, compared to traditional Hollywood studios.
This year, I also successfully used Letterboxd to log every movie I watched, so you can head over there to see every movie I watched this year beyond this year’s releases, and you can look at my 2021 Media Log to see everything I watched, read, and listened to this year.
Here are the 2021 releases I watched this year:
- Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal: The Movie (Part 1)
- To All the Boys: Always and Forever
- Moxie
- Raya and the Last Dragon
- Coming 2 America
- Mortal Kombat
- Bo Burnham: Inside
- Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet
- In the Heights
- Luca
- Black Widow
- Space Jam: A New Legacy
- The Suicide Squad
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf
- Eternals
- Love Hard
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
Fun fact: I ventured out to theaters 4 times this year, and all 4 times were for Marvel movies. 🙃
I keep saying that Avengers: Endgame ended Marvel’s hold on me but evidently there was still reason enough to get me to risk going to theaters. (All 4 outings were with at least one other person, so these movies were actually a large portion of my in-person social interactions this year. Thanks Kevin Feige…?)
Letterboxd also says I watched a grand total of 63 films this year, including some not-feature-length things I logged. Even though I log everything on my Media Log, it is nice to have a dedicated movie log since that is my favorite media I consume, and to see that number in stark contrast with the number of new releases I watched.
I made a good bit of progress watching movies that I’ve just never seen before but find myself in conversations about, like In the Mood for Love, The Nightmare Before Christmas (which I was too scared to watch until this year), Die Hard (a favorite “Christmas movie” for many), When Harry Met Sally (the only “classic” rom-com I hadn’t seen!), and franchises like Underworld and John Wick. So the 18 new releases paints a pretty incomplete picture of what my movie-viewing looked like and I’m glad I stuck with Letterboxd regularly enough to be able to show a more complete one this year.
I also made great progress introducing my partner to movies, like The Mummy 1 and 2 and some of my favorite 90s-00s rom-coms! It was a joy revisiting them with him.
What movies did you love this past year? In 2021, the movies I enjoyed most were Inside (I really love Bo Burnham and this just further confirmed it), Luca, and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
What movies are you excited for in 2022? Let’s see… The 355, maybe The Lost City after its theatrical run, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (part 1 apparently!).
… and sure, Thor 3 and Doctor Strange 2, and Black Panther 2. I’m deep enough in the MCU that at one point someone asked me if I’d start a podcast with my Marvel and Star Wars and Disney ramblings, so I guess I talk about them enough to stop denying the MCU’s hold on me…
Past years: 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013
Sip of Starrshine 