1. Annette
Leos Carax
France
Annette isn’t at the top of this list by accident. It’s our favorite movie of the year. Film of love and dazzling, Big Bang and great turbulence, just like what the poster announces. Annette tells the love story between Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) and Ann Desfranoux (Marion Cotillard), star couple, him at stand-up, she at the opera. As Henry’s career falters, Ann’s explodes. When their child, Annette, arrives, everything will change. Opening film and director’s award last summer in Cannes, Annette opens with a memorable stage where the musical, the love of art and cinema on the big screen are celebrated all at the same time.
Available on Amazon Prime Video
2. No trace
Simon lavoie
Quebec
It is rare for a Quebec film to open a festival abroad. This is what Simon Lavoie achieved with No trace, opening film of Slamdance, a festival of independent films and emerging creators. And for good reason ! No trace deals with a very serious subject in a stripped down staging and with an extraordinary photographic proposal. In the near future where humanity has been decimated by a war, a lonely woman lives on petty trafficking. One day, his path crosses that of a very pious young woman trying to protect her newborn baby. Despite all that separates them, they will unite to survive. The inner light of the two actresses, Monique Gosselin and Nathalie Doummar, illuminates the whole. Great art.
Free on Illico
3. Once upon a time in the east
Larissa Sadilova
Russia
Even today, several films from Russia bear reminiscences of the Soviet era. This translates into singular works with unique textures, where the old and the modern intermingle in a stunning aesthetic osmosis. This is exactly the case with Larissa Sadilova’s seventh film, presented at Cannes (Un certain regard) in 2019 and in Quebec this year. In the delightfully old-fashioned setting of the Russian countryside, Egor, a truck driver, and Anna, a knitter, are lovers. The discovery of their adultery causes a stir, but with a certain restraint. The story is crossed by melancholy, gentleness, languor. The character of Anna (Kristina Schneider) is absolutely bright. This film is a gem.
Available on Vimeo (K-Films America page)
4. Judas and the Black Messiah
Shaka king
United States
Movements in favor of diversity have had a definite impact on the 7e art. Winner of two Oscars, Judas and the Black Messiah is a good example. Black American artists are reclaiming their history. And they approach it head-on, without compromise and without cliché. Camped in Chicago in the late 1960s, the story is that of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), leader of the Black Panther party in Illinois. Betrayed by one of its members, Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), Hampton will be assassinated by the FBI. He was 21 years old. The impact of this story is remembered for months after seeing the film.
Available on Illico, iTunes Store, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV +, Crave and others
5. The Velvet Underground
Todd haynes
United States
Of all the many documentaries seen in 2021, The Velvet Underground, by Todd Haynes, climbs, quite easily, on the highest step of the podium. Presented out of competition at Cannes, this film tells chronologically, but in a brilliant staging, the journey of this rock group whose influence on several other trends is still a consensus today. Not only do we hear the main actors (John Cale, Lou Reed, Nico) in interviews or in archive images for those who died, but also the word is given to many people who have lived in the orbit of the training. The whole is all at the same time trash, mind-blowing, sometimes shocking, always bewitching.
Available on Apple TV +
6. Dune
Denis Villeneuve
United States
Do we need to present the latest opus from filmmaker Denis Villeneuve? Its adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel was a landmark when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September. Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson lead the way in this story of the Atreides family, whose son of the Duke, Paul (Chalamet), goes to the planet Arrakis (Dune) to regain control of the Spice, a natural resource of precious powers coveted by all factions in the universe. This large-scale film stands out with a sumptuous staging, spectacular fights, but without ever going overboard, and magnificent shots in deserts of a thousand dangers. We are impatiently awaiting the rest.
Available on Illico, Amazon Prime Video, iTunes Stores and YouTube
7. Dear friends !
Andrei konchalovsky
Russia
Russian filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky made the right choice to shoot in black and white to relate the events of this true story that took place in 1962 in the city of Novocherkassk, in southern Russia. Exhausted by their – pitiful – living conditions, workers went on strike against the state. The crackdown kills 26 and injures dozens. Very close to the Soviet regime, Lyudmila Danilovna (Yuliya Vysotskaya) suddenly tries to circumvent the rules to protect her daughter, who is one of the protesters. The many exterior shots are incredibly powerful in narrative. And the film demonstrates, if it is still necessary, that the interior of a car is a very cinematographic place!
Available on iTunes Store
8. Contemplation of the mystery
Alberic Aurtenèche
Quebec
For a first feature film, Albéric Aurtenèche hits the nail on the head with this singular proposal and a story that comes in an environment rarely explored and exhibited in Quebec cinema: hunting. Following the death of his father, Éloi Cournoyer (Emmanuel Schwartz), an urban indecipherable, is invited to join the ranks of a mystical order dedicated to defending hunting activities. Mysteries, hallucinations, fantasies and strange rituals come together in this mythological tale set in a disturbing forest. With Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse and Gilles Renaud.
Offered on the Cinéma Moderne website
9. The Dig
Simon stone
UK
At this time of year, The Dig is a movie to watch buried under a woolen blanket while drinking hot chocolate. Inspired by a true story and set in the English countryside on the eve of WWII, The Dig is the tale of Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes), invited to excavate the grounds of Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan), a wealthy landowner with an incurable disease. As several parallel stories develop around him, Basil makes a major archaeological discovery, that of Sutton Hoo’s boat. The photography direction of this film is exceptional. A moving story without ever pouring into the marshmallow.
Available on Netflix
10. The big slaps
Annie st-pierre
Quebec
As every year, the curriculum for short films in Quebec is of high quality. From January at Sundance, Annie St-Pierre set the tone with The big slaps, a powerful Christmas story in which Julie (Lilou Roy-Lanouette), a 7-year-old girl, reaches out to her father Denis (Steve Laplante), on the verge of the interior shipwreck. The film, now shortlisted for the Oscars, has toured the world, garnering numerous awards. Other Quebec short films were noticed in 2021: Crossing, of Eve Saint-Louis, There is no time for women, by Sarra El Abed, The danger in front, by Alexis Chartrand, Frost, by Marianne Farley (also on the shortlist), Faraway, Aziz Zoromba …
You can watch the film (and other Quebec short films) on the website of the New Yorker (with English subtitles). The New Yorker article on Annie St-Pierre’s film is titled The First Christmas Following a Divorce. In English, Les grandes claques is called Like the Ones I Used to Know.