ACCELERATED REALITY (MOVIES IN 2021)
Movies have never felt more needed than they do now.
As COVID continued to wreak havoc with the Delta and Omicron variants during 2021, the ability to escape from the grim reality of a pandemic to watch a movie with family, friends and complete strangers has never felt more precious.
2021 was, however, another year of significant disruption for the film industry as cinemas closed for part of the year and the Coronavirus continued to frustrate our efforts to get back to the society we once had.
Lockdowns during the winter months of early 2021 meant audiences in the first half of the year still had to consume major movie releases on streaming platforms.
The Academy Awards went ahead but not as we have known it, with some nominees attending an event in New York and London as well as the main ceremony taking place in a train station in LA.
Film festivals, including Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto also went ahead - although many had a mix of in person and virtual screenings and discussions.
Even when the COVID vaccination program rolled out and cinemas opened for business in the Spring and Summer, the release patterns changed with the big tentpole movies finding their way to streaming services a lot quicker.
John Krasinski's horror sequel 'A Quiet Place, Part II' with Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy led the summer charge back to the multiplexes and it didn't disappoint with a remarkably tense tale.
However its $297 million box office performance, while impressive during a pandemic, fell short of the £350 million generated by the original movie and was an early indication of the battle studios and independent productions would face coaxing nervous audiences back into multiplexes and arthouse venues.
As society tentatively returned to normality, some moviegoers cautiously returned - although not with the same box office buoyancy as before.
Following a long period of exercising COVID caution and social distancing, some people were always going to be slow getting back to old habits - wanting some reassurance that it was safe to do so.
And after a period of getting used to video on demand, the tendency to wait for a video streaming release on their smart TVs, smartpads and smartphones was hardwired into the behaviour of some.
As a result, some films underperformed spectacularly at the box office, with Ridley Scott blaming millennials for the failure of 'The Last Duel' to woo them into multiplexes.
2021 was a year of catch-up for the studios as major releases delayed during 2020 competed for a smaller moviegoing audience.
After several false dawns, Cary Joy Fukunaga's 007 adventure 'No Time To Die' with Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux and Remi Malek emerged not only as a fitting final outing for Craig's James Bond but as one of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters of the year.
However its $774 million takings still fell $200 million short of the kind of $1 billion box office gross that Marvel Avengers, 'Fast and Furious,' Disney animated movies regularly attracted prior to COVID.
'No Time To Die' wasn't even the top grossing movie of 2021 around the world - it was the fourth highest.
In the latter half of 2021, it looked like that honour would fall to Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam's war film 'The Battle at Lake Changjin' - the most expensive movie in the history of Chinese cinema and a film commissioned by the country's Communist Party to mark its 100 year anniversary.
At a cost of $200 million, it netted around $902 million in box office earnings mostly in China, securing a release in North America, the UK and Ireland in November.
A sequel is already in the works.
The third highest grossing film internationally was also propelled by the Chinese market - Jia Ling's comedy 'Hi Mom' generating around $822 million.
Much to the relief of Hollywood and Disney and Marvel Studios, in particular, the December release of Jon Watts' 'Spiderman: No Way Home' catapulted it to the top of the box office, earning $1 billion and still counting.
That was no mean feat, given the concerns that sprung up about the Omicron variant of COVID just prior to its release and the insistence on vaccine certification in many countries to attend all cinema screenings.
It had been a disappointing year for the studios' accountants up to that point.
'F9,' the ninth film in the 'Fast and Furious' franchise, drew audiences but earned around $726 million and even at the lower end of the top 12, Denis Villeneuve's handsome sci-fi remake of 'Dune' and Marvel's 'Black Widow' sat with takings of around $379 million and $379 million respectively.
The equivalent films in 2019 were the 'Aladdin' remake with Will Smith and 'Jumanji: The Next Level' which earned $1 billion and £800,000 around the world.
With audiences confined to their homes at the start of the year, digital releases were still important - especially for indie films.
2021's Oscar contenders mostly reached audiences through streaming, with the eventual Best Picture winner Chloe Zhao's poetic 'Nomadland' getting a release on the Star channel of the Disney+ streaming service.
Other Oscar winners like Lee Isaac Chung's delightful Korean American family drama 'Minari', Shaka King's stirring Black Panther tale 'Judas and the Black Messiah,' Emerald Fennell's #MeToo thriller 'Promising Young Woman' and Darius Marder's impressive 'Sound of Metal' all found audiences with digital releases.
Only Florian Zeller's heartbreaking dementia drama 'The Father,' which earned Anthony Hopkins a surprise second Best Actor Oscar, held out for a cinema release first - although on a budget of $6 million, the stakes were probably not as high for an arthouse film which could rely on its Academy Award win to draw audiences in.
Hopkins did not expect to win the award, opting to stay in Wales instead of attending the London bash for a bizarre Oscars ceremony produced by Steven Soderbergh but there was no doubt it was a performance of sublime skill, worthy of an Academy Award.
The late Chadwick Boseman had hoovered up almost every major Best Actor award going for his terrific performance in the 2020 Netflix release 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' - apart from the BAFTA which also went to Hopkins.
Indeed Soderbergh's entire Oscar ceremony in April seemed to be geared around the emotional high of a Boseman win, with the Best Actor award being announced last for the first time ever after the Best Picture gong was handed out to 'Nomadland:.
So when Joaquin Phoenix announced Hopkins had won, a subdued ceremony ended on an extremely flat note - especially as Hopkins wasn't even present to receive the award via satellite.
'Nomadland' deservedly captured some of the biggest prizes on the night with Oscar wins for Best Picture, Best Director and a third Best Actress triumph for Frances McDormand.
Daniel Kaluuya became the first black British actor to win an Oscar, earning Best Supporting Actor for his terrific performance as the Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in 'Judas and the Black Messiah' and embarrassing his mum with an acceptance speech thanking his parents for having sex.
One of the most amusing speeches of the night came from the 73 year-old South Korean actress Yuh-Jung Youn, who won Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the grandmother in 'Minari' and gushed about meeting Brad Pitt.
'Promising Young Woman,' which featured a cracking performance from Carey Mulligan as a woman avenging toxic male behaviour, saw its writer-director Emerald Fennell emerge victorious in the battle for Best Original Screenplay.
'Sound of Metal,' which featured a blistering performance from Riz Ahmed as a heavy metal drummer who loses his hearing, picked up technical awards for Best Sound and Film Editing.
Danish director Thomas Vinterberg's intelligent study of his country's drinking culture 'Druk (Another Round') with Mads Mikkelsen won Best Foreign Language Feature, while Pete Docter's charming Disney story 'Soul' edged out the much admired Irish animated feature 'Wolfwalkers,' with Kilkenny's Cartoon Saloon once again the Academy Awards' bridesmaid and never the bride.
The Academy appeared to come close to a 'Late Late Show' style approach to the awards, with most of the major contenders walking away with a gong including Best Cinematography for David Fincher's 'Mank' and Visual Effects for Christopher Nolan's cinematic puzzle 'Tenet'.
Aaron Sorkin's 'The Trial of the Chicago Seven' was probably the big loser on the night, failing to capture an award.
Komel Mundruczo's tough but compelling drama 'Pieces of a Woman,' which like Sorkin's and Fincher's movies was also distributed on Netflix, went away empty handed too despite an Oscar worthy performance by Best Actress nominee Vanessa Kirby as a woman whose home birth goes badly wrong.
Glenn Close racked up another Oscar defeat in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance as the Grandma in Ron Howard's underrated 'Hillbilly Elegy'.
Buoyed by a Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy win at the Golden Globes, Andra Day emerged as a strong contender for Best Actress for her performance as Billie Holiday in the otherwise underwhelming 'The United States versus Billie Holiday'.
As ever, there were some surprising and some glaring omissions from the Oscar nominations.
Jodie Foster and Tahar Rahim were expected to be in the running for the Guantanamo Bay drama 'The Mauritanian' - the former even winning Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes but she was conspicuous for her absence from the Oscars shortlist.
Tom Hanks and Paul Greengrass must have had high hopes too for their handsome, sturdy Western 'News of the World'.
While it was always a longshot, Ramin Bahraini's excellent contemporary India morality tale 'White Tiger' deserved a lot more love than it got during awards season, with just a Best Adapted screenplay nod to show for its efforts.
Adarsh Gourav's charismatic lead performance felt like it should be a breakthrough moment for the Indian actor and hopefully he will get the recognition he deserves.
If 2021 had one distinct trend, it was the rise of the musical.
The success of 'La La Land' and 'The Greatest Showman' undoubtedly led to the release of Jon M Chu's 'In the Heights,' Stephen Chbosky's 'Dear Evan Hansen', Lin Manuel Miranda's 'tick, tick, BOOM!' and Steven Spielberg's remake of 'West Side Story'.
As the world mourned the passing of Stephen Sondheim, Spielberg's retelling of the story was a huge hit with critics but didn't attract audiences as hoped.
Craig Gillespie's '101 Dalmatians' origins story 'Cruella' with Emmas Stone and Thompson was an absolute hoot but also felt like a Disney version of the 'Batman' villain origin tale 'Joker'.
Back in the world of blockbusters, Gerard Butler appeared in a surprisingly entertaining disaster movie, 'Greenland'.
Sylvester Stallone was a talking shark in James Gunn's violent DC Comics superhero sequel 'The Suicide Squad' with Margot Robbie, John Cena and Idris Elba which just about made its budget back.
Shawn Levy's video game inspired 'Free Guy' was a bright spot, extracting a good performance out of Ryan Reynolds alongside Jodie Comer, Joe Keery and Taikia Waititi.
The same could not be said for Reynolds' other movies 'The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard' and the unbearably smug straight to Netflix adventure 'Red Notice' with Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot.
Johnson laboured to get laughs with the old fashioned Disney adventure 'Jungle Cruise' - a so-so 'Romancing the Stone' tale with Emily Blunt, Jack Whitehall and Jesse Plemons.
Jason Reitman stepped into his father Ivan's shoes to deliver 'Ghostbusters Afterlife' with Paul Rudd and featuring an appearance by Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson in an entertaining paranormal adventure that became an affectionate tribute to the late Harold Ramis.
Marvel's 'Shang Chi and the Ten Rings' fared decently at the box office, despite being frozen out of the Chinese market because of comments made by its star Simu Liu to the Canadian broadcaster CBC five years ago.
Oscar winner Chloe Zhao's foray into the world of Marvel 'Eternals' met a similar fate in China but did okay with audiences despite mixed reviews.
The year had other disappointments.
John Lee Hancock's serial killer film 'The Little Things' was a mess, despite having Denzel Washington and Rami Malek in its cast and was punctured by Jared Leto's overacting.
Joe Wright's cod Hitchcockian Netflix thriller 'The Woman In The Window' was a crashing bore despite having a cast led by Amy Adams, Gary Oldman and Julianne Moore.
It took 33 years for Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall to deliver the sequel 'Coming 2 America' but despite adding Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan, the Amazon Prime film struggled to adapt to changing humour in the #MeToo age.
Andy Samberg, Cristin Miliotti and JK Simmons fared much better in another Amazon Prime vehicle, the 'Groundhog Day' style comedy 'Palm Springs' which proved there was still life in the time loop movie concept.
After the brief flicker of hope that he might be back to something approaching his best in 2019 with Martin Scorsese's 'The Irishman,' Robert de Niro jumped straight back into lame comedy with 'The War On Grandpa' and a slightly better vehicle 'The Comeback Trail' with Zach Braff, Tommy Lee Jones and Morgan Freeman.
If you thought de Niro's attempts at comedy were bad, you hadn't counted on his 'War with Grandpa' costar Christopher Walken whose stab at an Irish accent in 'Wild Mountain Thyme' was more of a butchering.
Emily Blunt also struggled with the brogue in John Patrick Shanley's odd stage Oirish romcom which was notable for Jamie Dornan's bizarre rant about being a buzzy bee.
The year's worst movie was not, however, Shanley's limp Oirish comedy.
That honour went to Doug Liman's COVID lockdown "comedy" heist movie 'Locked Down'.
Working from a feeble Steven Knight script, Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor played a separated couple in London thrown back together because of the need to bubble during the first wave of the pandemic.
Rather improbably, they come together again while planning a diamond heist in Harrods.
Packed full of annoying cameos from Bens Stiller and Kingsley, Mindy Kalling, Stephen Merchant, Lucy Boynton and Mark Gatiss, its characters were extremely irritating and about as amusing as athlete's foot.
Sometimes in the rush to be first, it's better for filmmakers to question themselves.
The script of 'Locked Down' was so undercooked, it was dispiriting.
Liam Neeson's obsession with thumping people continued unabated with the ridiculously dull truck drivers extravaganza 'The Ice Road'
Although there was a misguided foray into comedy drama as well alongside his son Micheal Richardson in the feeble James d'Arcy Tuscan tale 'Made in Italy'.
If Liam wants to retire his 21st Century Charles Bronson act - and there's no sign that he really does - then there are plenty of others who might be willing to stand up to the plate.
No-one, however, could have forseen 'Better Call Saul' star Bob Odenkirk becoming that actor.
However he turned in the year's most amusing and surprising action hero performance in Russian director Ilya Naishuller's 'Nobody' which also boasted a delightful Christopher Lloyd supporting role.
Odenkirk would, however, after its release suffer a heart attack while filming the final season of 'Better Call Saul' and while he thankfully survived, it may well limit any future forays into action comedy roles.
In a shocking incident in October on the set of the indie Western 'Rust,' cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died on a film set when a prop gun fired by Alec Baldwin malfunctioned.
The film's director Joel Souza was also seriously wounded in a tragic incident which served as a grim reminder of just how dangerous stunt work can be.
Cinema lost a range of talent over the course of 2021.
Hammer Horror actress Barbara Shelley, former Bond girl Tanya Roberts, 'Police Academy' star Marion Ramsey, the actress Jessica Campbell who appeared in 'Election,' documentary and feature film director Michael Apted of 'The Coalminers Daughter' and 'Nell' fame passed away at the start of the year.
Peter Mark Richman who appeared in 'The Black Orchid' and 'Friday the 13th, Part 8,' Oscar winning 'The Last Picture Show' actress Cloris Leachman and 'Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Café' actress Cicely Tyson also passed away in January. '
'The Sound of Music' and 'Beginners' Oscar winner Christopher Plummer, 'All The President's Men' and 'Wall Street' star Hal Holbrook, Irish actress Rynagh O'Grady who appeared in 'The Commitments' and 'The Snapper', 'In a Lonely Place' actress Martha Stewart, Ronald Pickup who starred in 'The Mission' and 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,' 'Anne of a Thousand Days' and 'An Awfully Big Adventure' star Nicola Pagett were among those who died over the course of the year.
The industry also said farewell to 'Alien' and 'Midnight Run' star Yaphet Kotto, 'Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' and 'Fun With Dick and Jane' star George Segal, 'A Sunday In The Country' and 'Round Midnight' director Bertrand Tavernier, 'Brokeback Mountain' writer Larry McMurty, 'Inferno' and 'Their Finest' actor Paul Ritter and 'Carlitos Way' actor Joseph Siravo,
'Hugo' and 'Harry Potter' star Helen McCrory, Bollywood actor Padmashri Vivek, Irish actor Tom Hickey, Oscar winning 'Moonstruck' star Olympia Dukakis, 'Bachelor Party' star Tawny Kitaen, 'Saboteur' and 'Dead Poets Society' cast member Norman Lloyd, 'The Heartbreak Kid' and 'Midnight Run' star Charles Grodin and 'Network,' 'Nashville' and 'Hear My Song' character actor Ned Beatty also left us.
BJ Thomas, whose version of Burt Bacharach's 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head' was memorably used on 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,' stuntman Wayne 'Buddy' van Horn who worked with Clint Eastwood, Oscar winning 'Midnight Cowboy' producer Jerome Hellman, 'School of Rock' star and drummer Kevin Clark and 'Superman,' 'Lethal Weapon' and 'The Goonies' Richard Donner died.
As the year wore on, we lost Bollywood actor Dilip Kumar, director Robert Downey Sr, 'Any Which Way You Can' and 'Rumble Fish' cast member William Smith, Bollywood actress Surekha Sikri, stand up comic Jackie Mason who appeared in 'The Jerk,' 'Summer Holiday' star Una Stubbs, 'Kill Bill' actor Sonny Chiba and 'Up' and 'JFK' star Ed Asner.
The industry also witnessed the departure of Bollywood actor Sidharth Shukla, French cinema icon Jean Paul Belmondo, Twelve Years A Slave' and 'Inherent Vice' star Michael K Williams, 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' star Jane Powell, Art Metrano who appeared in the second and third 'Police Academy' movies and 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' star Michael Constantine.
Willie Garson who played Stanford Blatch in the "Sex and the City' movies, 'Watermelon Man' director Melvin van Peebles, 'Notting Hill' and 'Le Weekend' director Roger Michell, Oscar winning songwriter Leslie Bricusse and 'Anchors Aweigh', 'Paris, Texas' and 'Blue Velvet' star Dean Stockwell, 'Monster's Ball' actor Coronji Calhoun Sr, 'The Scouts Guide to the Apocalypse' cast member Joey Morgan, 'West Side Story' and 'Sweeney Todd' composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim also died.
'Shakespeare in Love' star Sir Anthony Sher, Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmuller, the first woman director to be nominated for an Oscar, 'Chitty Bang Bang's' Miss Truly Scrumptious Sally Ann Howes, 'A Star Is Born' screenwriter and novelist Joan Didion, 'Dallas Buyers Club' director Jean Marc Vallee.
2021 was a decent year for Irish film on both sides of the border.
In Northern Ireland, Chris Baugh's follow-up to 'A Bad Day For The Cut' was the wonderful Co Tyrone vampire comedy 'Boys from the County Hell' with Jack Rowan, Louisa Harland, John Lynch and Nigel O'Neill which delivered laughs amid the gore.
Italian director Uberto Pasolini delivered a heartbreaking Belfast story 'Nowhere Special' with a terrific lead performance from James Norton as a window cleaner trying to find the right adoption for his son before he dies.
Cathy Brady turned in a gripping drama about grieving sisters in the IFTA winning border town drama 'Wildfire' which boasted wonderfully feral lead performances from Nora Jane Noone and Nika McGuigan.
South of the border, Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy's 'Rose Plays Julie' was a taut thriller with Ann Skelly, Orla Brady and Aidan Gillen about the consequences and trauma of sexual assault.
Phyllida Lloyd's 'Herself' with Claire Dunne, Conleth Hill and Harriet Walter tackled the aftermath of an abusive relationship and one woman's effort to overcome Ireland's housing crisis.
Heading towards 2022, Northern Ireland's film industry was further buoyed by the Oscar buzz surrounding Kenneth Branagh's autobiographical tale 'Belfast' with Jamie Dornan, Catriona Balfe, Ciaran Hinds and Dame Judi Dench after rave reviews on the festival circuit.
Its rivals appear to be Jane Campion's acclaimed Netflix Western 'The Power of the Dog' with Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dundst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee, Reinaldo Marcus Green's tennis tale 'King Richard' with Will Smith as the father of Venus and Serena Williams, Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Licorice Pizza,' Joel Coen's Apple+ feature 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' with Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand and Brendan Gleeson and Spielberg's 'West Side Story'.
In the world of British independent film, Aleem Khan's 'After Love' scooped awards with Joanna Scanlan wowing audiences and critics as an English Muslim convert who discovers her dead husband had another family in France.
Welsh filmmaker Prano Bailey Bond extracted a powerful central performance from Niamh Algar in the 1980s video nasty era horror tale 'Censor' with Michael Smiley - a debut feature that really announced her as a major talent.
Edinburgh writer director Ben Sharrock turned in a delightful comedy drama 'Limbo' with Amir El-Masry and Sidse Babett Knudsen about immigrants on a Scottish island waiting to see if they will become British citizens.
By way of contrast, Michael Caton Jones' Scottish Catholic schoolgirl comedy 'Our Ladies' was a bit too full on, with the filthy dialogue and sexualised content from male writers and a male director veering into the creepy.
Billie Piper impressively leapt from the small screen to the big screen to write, direct and star in the anti-romcom 'Rare Beasts'.
If James Norton delivered one of the performances of the year in 'Nowhere Special', the same could be said of Ben Whishaw who turned in a riveting portrayal of an airport security employee whose mental health was disintegrating in Aneil Karia's compelling indie drama 'Surge'.
Nick Moran's 'Creation Stories' was an enjoyably vibrant account of the life of record industry legend Alan McGee's life, with Euan Bremner playing the man who propelled the careers of The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream and Oasis.
Bremner had a supporting role too in Kelly Reichert's unusual US indie Western 'First Cow' with John Magaro and Toby Jones which proved a real delight.
Lawrence Michael Levine's 'Black Bear' with Aubrey Plaza was also an intriguing US indie tale, playing with its audience with two narratives.
Steven Soderbergh was in excellent form with the twisty film noir 'No Sudden Move' with Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Julia Fox, Matt Damon, Ray Liotta, David Harbour and Brendan Fraser.
Nora Fingscheidt also pulled off a great thriller 'The Unforgivable' with Sandra Bullock, Rob Morgan, Jon Bernthal, Vincent D'Onofrio, Viola Davis and Aisling Franciosi.
However the Netflix film was let down by a ridiculous plot twist in the final straight.
Halle Berry directed and starred in the Netflix cage fighting drama 'Bruised' which barely won on points, despite a committed performance from her.
John David Washington struggled to breathe life in Netflix's tiresome American tourist in peril thriller, 'Beckett' with Alicia Vikander and Boyd Holbrook and also appeared for Netflix in Sam Levinson's underwhelming 'Malcolm and Marie'.
Zack Snyder delivered an outrageous Las Vegas zombie flick 'Army of the Dead' with Dave Bautista, Omari Hardwick and Tig Notaro which quickly became irritating.
That didn't deter one of its stars Matthias Schweighofer from directing a safe cracking spin-off movie also on the platform 'Army of Thieves'.
Netflix also enabled Leigh Janiak to have her own trilogy with the rather derivative 'Fear Street' trilogy which ripped off 'Friday the 13th,' 'Scream' and 'The Shining' without coming up with anything truly memorable.
Idris Elba donned a Stetson twice in Netflix films, Ricky Staub's watchable North Philadelphia contemporary relationship drama 'Concrete Cowboy' and Jeymes Samuel's stylish Western 'The Harder They Fall'.
Amazon Prime flexed its muscle too with straight to streaming action adventure films which included Michael B Jordan in the Tom Clancy story 'Without Remorse,' Chris Pratt in the action sci-fi 'The Tomorrow War', Frank Grilo and Mel Gibson in Joe Carnahan's 'Boss Level,' Riz Ahmed in the alien drama 'Encounter' and Guy Ritchie's ridiculous Jason Statham gun fest 'Wrath of Man'.
David Lowery's 'The Green Knight' which was released on the streaming service while in cinemas saw Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie and Barry Keoghan star in a beautifully shot Medieval tale which looked fantastic on the big screen but was painstakingly slow and at times boring.
Aaron Sorkin slipped back into the director's chair for Amazon Prime's 'Being the Ricardos' with Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
George Clooney directed Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan and Christopher Lloyd in 'The Tender Bar' - a well received coming of age drama which will land on the streaming platform in early January.
On Apple+, Mahershala Ali earned decent reviews for Benjamin Cleary's cloning thriller 'Swan Song'.
Tom Hanks also turned up in Miguel Sapochnik's post Apocalyptic adventure 'Finch' with Caleb Landry Jones which proved popular with subscribers.
Rebecca Hall's racial drama 'Passing' on Netflix, filmed in black and white with Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga was, however, one of the finest directorial debuts of 2021 and featured fantastic performances from its two leads that deserve awards season recognition.
In the world of factual cinema, Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed captured a Best Documentary Feature Oscar for their cute story 'My Octopus Teacher'.
Druk 'Another Round' (Thomas Vinterberg)
White Tiger (Ramin Bahrani)
Nomadland (Chloe Zhao)
Quo Vadis Aida (Jasmila Zbanic)
The Power of The Dog (Jane Campion)
A Quiet Place, Part II (John Krasinski)
Dune (Denis Villeneuve)
Limbo (Ben Sharrock)
The Hand of God (Paolo Sorrentino)
First Cow (Kelly Reichert)
Honourable Mentions: Summer of Soul (Quest Love), Nowhere Special (Uberto Pasolini) & Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)
Best Film: Druk (Another Round)
Worst Film: Locked Down (Doug Liman)
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