The 50 Best Movies of 2021

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – January 5, 2022

Here is Metacritic's final list of the 50 best-reviewed movies of 2021, ranked by Metascore. This list only includes films receiving at least 7 reviews from professional critics.

All films released between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021 in at least one U.S. theater or directly to streaming or VOD/digital services were eligible for inclusion. Short films and reissues are excluded, and so are any eight-hour Beatles movies that were screened as a TV miniseries. Titles are ranked by Metascore (a weighted average of scores from top professional critics) prior to rounding based on scores as of January 3, 2022.

Additional content by Keith Kimbell.

13 of 25 photo by MGM Studios / UA Releasing

89 Licorice Pizza

(#11) It may not be Paul Thomas Anderson's best or most focused film, but the director's first release since 2017's Phantom Thread is one of his loosest and most enjoyable features in recent memory, according to critics who have been heaping praise on the film since its Thanksgiving release. (It's only now heading to a wider release, so if it hasn't come to your town yet it should soon.) Starring a pair of newcomers in Alana Haim (also a member of the band Haim) and Cooper Hoffman (the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman), Licorice Pizza is a coming-of-age dramedy set in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley (a frequent Anderson location) in 1973. Supporting the two leads is an ensemble that includes Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, and Benny Safdie. A potential Oscar contender, Pizza has already picked up film-of-the-year honors from the National Board of Review and other critic groups.

“I don't want to get too hyperbolic here, but watching 'Licorice Pizza' reminded me why I love movies so much; particularly the way they can drop us into another place and another time, and embed us completely into the lives of total strangers. If Licorice Pizza had stretched on for another hour, I would've been perfectly content to go along.” —Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm

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