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.

18 of 25 photo by Dekanalog

91 This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection

(#6) The third feature from Berlin-based, Lesotho-born filmmaker Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese stars the late Mary Twala Mhlongo (you may have seen her in Beyoncé's Black Is King) in her final film role as an 80-year-old woman in a small Lesotho village who, while preparing for her own death, must deal with her only son's death in an accident and the pending relocation of her lifelong home due to the construction of a dam that will flood her family's burial ground. It may not be the most cheerful film of 2021, but critics praised Mosese's mastery of composition.

Watch it on The Criterion Channel or rent or buy it from Amazon

“Yes, This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection is constitutionally sad. It’s also angry, restrained, abandoned, exuberant when cracks open between its downward facing emotions, and, above all else, impeccably constructed.” —Andrew Crump, Paste

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