TomOpus

It's a Wonderful Life. This year was the first time I saw it in it's entirety.

Ash Ketchum

I have THE HUMAN CONDITION trilogy on Criterion on DVD but I still haven't watched it. Three three-hour films demand a lot of energy and time and I'd have to parcel out three-hour blocks of time on three separate days, starting early when my energy peaks, to do this trilogy justice.

And I re-watch those Godzilla films frequently. I love them. You should also see the non-Godzilla kaiju and sci-fi films of that era, especially those also directed by Ishiro Honda, e.g. RODAN, THE MYSTERIANS, BATTLE OF THE PLANETS, MOTHRA, GORATH and WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS.

Crocker Jarmen

I DVR'd THC from TCM and watched them at the rate of one each month. Each one plays like a self-contained movie, so there's no problem spacing them out.

Thanks for the other kaiju recommendations, I definitely plan to watch further into this genre.

Autotelik

I think Kore-eda has been the most exciting "discovery" for me in 2021:
Shoplifters (2018)
Still Walking (2008)

I'm sure I'll be seeking out more of his films in 2022.

Then the rest of my favorite first watches in 2021:

Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Variety Lights, The White Sheik, I Vitelloni, La Strada, Nights of Cabiria (went on a Fellini binge and still need to continue with the rest)
Eyes Without a Face (1960)
Blow-Up (1966)
Hard Eight (1996)
Funny Games (1997)
Memories of Murder (2003)
Like Someone In Love (2012)
Suspiria (2018)
Knives Out (2019)

asianxcore

Absolutely loved this film. So good!

Autotelik



Cellar Door

North by Northwest
To Catch a Thief
Casablanca
Topkapi
Ponyo
When Marnie Was There
The Secret World of Arrietty

Hazel Motes

First film to crack my Top 10 All-Time in 18 years.

rocket1312

I would say most of my viewing this year was new-to-me old movies. I tried to limit myself to 20 (or 21 as the case may be). There are others that I loved as well, but I think these were my favorite. In chronological order.


Nightmare Alley (1947)
Pitch black noir about a carnival conman that made me really, really excited for the Del Toro remake. Unfortunately the new one didn't live up to the original, which despite its greatness, definitely left some room for improvement.

The Tall Target (1951)
A great Anthony Mann film that often gets labeled as film noir, but is really more of a historical spy thriller about Dick Powell trying to stop an assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln. The climactic action takes place on a train and for some reason I seem to love movies set on trains.

The Narrow Margin (1952)
Like The Tall Target, another so called noir that I don't really think of as noir. It also takes place on a train, so it's an easy sell. Charles McGraw is a police detective tasked with escorting a mob witness cross country in order that she may testify in court. Along the way he must protect her from a group of hitmen who would obviously prefer she didn't.

Men In War (1957)
Back to Anthony Mann. Here Robert Ryan is a Korean War platoon sergeant whose wounded and exhausted men are cut-off from the rest of the American forces. His orders are to lead them through enemy infested territory in order to reach a hill where they'll rendezvous with their comrades. Super tense, almost real time thriller. I love Anthony Mann.

No Down Payment (1957)
Complete tear-down of the 1950's suburban American dream. The movie focuses on a handful of neighbors in a middle class California neighborhood and explores the pressures and anxiety of keeping up with the Jones's. Even 60+ years later, I find a lot of parallels here in my own little slice of suburban paradise.

War and Peace (1965)
The Russian epic that has to be seen to be believed. It's over 7 hours long (broken up into 4 parts), but absolutely worth the time commitment. I've never seen scale like this in a movie before. We're talking Lord of the Rings scale but with no cgi.

The Chinese Boxer (1970)
The template on which all modern kung-fu films were built. Jimmy Wang Yu may not have always been the most competent onscreen fighter, and this takes a little while to get going, but once it hits, it hits hard.

Escape From the Planet of the Apes/Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1971/972)
I thought I had seen these on tv long ago, but watching them made me realize I had only seen (or remembered) bits and pieces. Two completely different takes on the "Apes" series (Escape being the fish out of water comedy and Conquest being the distopian action film) that are both overwhelmingly successful despite what seems like ever declining budgets. In true "Apes" fashion, both have total gut punch endings. Make sure to watch the uncut version of Conquest.

The Last Detail (1973)
When I think of great movies from the 70's this is the sort of thing I picture in my head. Just a great character drama that reminds you how good Jack Nicholson was before he became a cartoon character.

Night Moves (1975)
Peak Gene Hackman as a PI caught up in a Chinatown-esque neo-noir mystery. Nothing more to be said.

The Silent Partner (1978)
Great heist movie with Elliot Gould as a sad-sack bank employee drifting through life who finds himself mixed up with a would be bank robber played by a downright scary Christopher Plummer. Takes some twists and turns that I never would have expected, but be aware that this is a Canadian movie so that you're not confused when you see all this fuss over a bunch of Monopoly play money. That's actual money from Canada! It's really kind of adorable.

Duel to the Death (1983)
One of the very best fantasy sworplay movies I've ever seen. 90 minutes of pure Hong Kong joy.

After Hours (1985)
Underrated Scorsese classic. It's dark. It's funny. It's weird. Griffin Dunne stumbles his way through a waking dream that's kind of like a kookier Eyes Wide Shut but with way less orgies.

Manhunter (1986)
The original Hannibal Lecter ditty with style coming out of its ears. Who cares if the plotting gets a bit ropey as it moves along? It's so stinking cool.

Bellman and True (1987)
Another great heist film (this time British) starring a wonderful Bernard Hill as a computer expert who is blackmailed into helping a gang rob a bank. The heist itself is actually one of the more clever ones I can remember seeing in a film. I saw the version available on blu-ray, but apparently this was originally a tv miniseries with about 30 minutes of additional material that I'd love to check out.

The Package (1989)
Andrew Davis is one of the more underrated action directors of the late 80's/early 90's. Here Gene Hackman plays an Army sergeant tasked with escorting Tommy Lee Jones back to the US from Germany to be court-martialed. There is much skullduggery afoot related to cold war nuclear treaties and whatnot. Like Night Moves, I don't need anything more. I'm in.

Shattered (1991)
The sort of psychological mystery thriller that filled up the shelves of Blockbuster and the programming schedules on premium cable in the early 90's. This one about Tom Berenger trying to piece together his life after a near fatal car accident leaves him an amnesiac is one of the more preposterous that I can recall. However, director Wolfgang Peterson gives the film a hazy, dreamlike quality that makes it feel less like the real world and more like a half remembered nightmare. I think it totally works.

Deep Cover (1992)
The neo-noir hits just keep on coming. Lawrence Fishburne plays a cop who goes undercover as a drug dealer and maybe goes in a little too deep. I somehow never knew this movie existed until Criterion put it out earlier this year. I don't know how I ever missed it. My loss. It's awesome.

Ghost in the Shell (1995)
I'm not a huge anime guy, but this is a classic for a reason. Totally holds up as one of the great action movies of the 90's.

Double Team (1997)
Objectively the worst movie on this list. I think I wrote about it somewhere here earlier this year. From the inexplicable faux-Prisoner setup to Dennis Rodman's bizarro screen presence all topped off with an end fight pitting Van Damme against Mickey Rorke and a tiger(!) in the Roman Coliseum. This movie is bonkers. I loved it.

Mondo Kane

This also made one of my "First-Time" favorites some years back

birdseye

I made a concerted effort to watch more movies in 2021 after really slacking the previous five years focusing on tv shows. I ended up watching 125 movies, some of my favorites include:

Knives Out (2019)
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Empire Records (1995)
The Quiet Man (1952)
The Irishman (2019)
The Great Outdoors (1988)
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Diner (1982)
The Truth (2019)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
The Last Days of Disco (1998)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Thief (1981)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Boogie Nights (1997)
Blazing Saddles (1974)

Ash Ketchum

An assassination team of riflemen hired by a group of shadowy military/industrial figures. Sound familiar? And the character name of the investigating detective (Powell) who gets wind of the plot? John Kennedy!

rocket1312

Holy crap, I totally forgot about that! My jaw just about hit the floor.