Film of the Week’s top ten films of 2021

We set up Film of the Week to highlight exceptional, noteworthy or entertaining new films released in the UK. We consider the below selection of ten of the very best to meet all three of these criteria, and hope you have enjoyed seeking all of them out — and if not, what are you waiting for? Vive le cinéma!

Love from Catherine and Guy

1. The Lost Daughter Director Maggie Gyllenhaal invites you to join Olivia Colman for an unforgettable summer holiday, in our film of the year: a slippery, sinister, and always riveting Elena Ferrante adaptation showcasing Colman’s considerable g

1. The Lost Daughter
Director Maggie Gyllenhaal invites you to join Olivia Colman for an unforgettable summer holiday, in our film of the year: a slippery, sinister, and always riveting Elena Ferrante adaptation showcasing Colman’s considerable gifts to best advantage.

2. Drive My Car A short story becomes a long, winding, very satisfying kind of road movie — taking in love, grief, Chekhov and the art of driving — in gifted director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s emotionally acute, richly literate Haruki Murakami adaptati

2. Drive My Car
A short story becomes a long, winding, very satisfying kind of road movie — taking in love, grief, Chekhov and the art of driving — in gifted director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s emotionally acute, richly literate Haruki Murakami adaptation.

3. The Power of the Dog Jane Campion flexes a Western gothic vibe in this nicely nasty slice of post-frontier Americana, which dissects tensions between civilisation and brutality, between brains and brawn, and from the audience’s point of view,

3. The Power of the Dog
Jane Campion flexes a Western gothic vibe in this nicely nasty slice of post-frontier Americana, which dissects tensions between civilisation and brutality, between brains and brawn, and from the audience’s point of view, between expectation and reality.

4. Spencer Kristen Stewart teams up with Pablo Larrain to serve us the Princess Diana movie we never knew we needed: part 80’s inspired pop music promo, part art-house jazz riff, part haunted house horror, and - from first to last shot - a work o

4. Spencer
Kristen Stewart teams up with Pablo Larrain to serve us the Princess Diana movie we never knew we needed: part 80’s inspired pop music promo, part art-house jazz riff, part haunted house horror, and - from first to last shot - a work of pure cinema.

5. Titane Glittering with blood and neon, Julia Ducournau’s filthy-gorgeous Palme d’Or winner made noise over its hyperviolent body horror and forward-thinking genderqueer exploration, but it’s the unexpected tenderness of its second half that ma

5. Titane
Glittering with blood and neon, Julia Ducournau’s filthy-gorgeous Palme d’Or winner made noise over its hyperviolent body horror and forward-thinking genderqueer exploration, but it’s the unexpected tenderness of its second half that makes it stick.

6. Summer of Soul The year’s most vibrant nonfiction film is this archival immersion into the hitherto little-documented 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival — lending vital political context to fiery performance footage from Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone

6. Summer of Soul
The year’s most vibrant nonfiction film is this archival immersion into the hitherto little-documented 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival — lending vital political context to fiery performance footage from Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone and more.

7. The Nest Is it a horror? Is it a drama? Technically, this sly 1980s-set exercise in familial tension and consumer excess is probably a drama, but it _feels_ more like a horror, as Jude Law’s man-on-the-make overplays his hand, to heart-palpit

7. The Nest
Is it a horror? Is it a drama? Technically, this sly 1980s-set exercise in familial tension and consumer excess is probably a drama, but it _feels_ more like a horror, as Jude Law’s man-on-the-make overplays his hand, to heart-palpitating effect.

8. Dune As post-lockdown cinemas gradually lured back audiences accustomed to home comforts, Denis Villeneuve’s visually and sonically staggering take on Frank Herbert’s sci-fi tome made the year’s most seductive case for the big-screen experienc

8. Dune
As post-lockdown cinemas gradually lured back audiences accustomed to home comforts, Denis Villeneuve’s visually and sonically staggering take on Frank Herbert’s sci-fi tome made the year’s most seductive case for the big-screen experience.

9. I'm Your Man Dan Stevens has come a long way since Downton Abbey. As the leading man - or leading robot, rather - in Maria Schrader’s wry and unconventional German comedy, he locates both heart and the humour in the paradox of artificial intell

9. I'm Your Man
 Dan Stevens has come a long way since Downton Abbey. As the leading man - or leading robot, rather - in Maria Schrader’s wry and unconventional German comedy, he locates both heart and the humour in the paradox of artificial intelligence.

10. First Cow Kelly Reichardt’s gentle, humane brand of Americana hits one of its most poetic peaks in this quietly wrenching, subtly queer reflection on pioneer legacy, male relationships and the transcendent pleasures of freshly fried doughnut.

10. First Cow
 Kelly Reichardt’s gentle, humane brand of Americana hits one of its most poetic peaks in this quietly wrenching, subtly queer reflection on pioneer legacy, male relationships and the transcendent pleasures of freshly fried doughnut.