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.

22 of 25 photo by Searchlight Pictures

96 Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Metacritic's Best Documentary of 2021.
Metacritic's Best Directorial Debut of 2021.

(#2) The best from a banner year for music documentaries, Summer of Soul compiles previously unseen footage from the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969—footage that has been sitting in a basement for decades until now in spite of a packed lineup that includes Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, B.B. King, and Sly and the Family Stone, just to name a few. The directorial debut from Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson wowed (virtual) attendees at Sundance early this year, where the film swept the top documentary awards from the festival jury and audience members, and it has been shortlisted for a documentary feature Oscar.

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“It’s not just a blast to watch — and it truly is a blast. It’s another tiny step in reclaiming the full history of America, expanding the context of our present not just for people who remember the past, but people who never knew about it in the first place. We’re fools if we don’t think burying the era-changing import of events like these is as much a part of American history as the events themselves — and movies like Summer of Soul fight back bringing the past vibrantly to life.” —Alissa Wilkinson, Vox

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