Top 10 First-Watches of 2021

 

While I finalize my Top 14 Films of 2021 (yes, fourteen, thanks Obama), I'd like to reveal a list of my Top 10 films that were released in previous years, but were first-watches for me in the last 12 months. They're all available to stream on various platforms, so I highly recommend you seek them out. 

See too, on my Letterboxd.

10. Marjoe (1972)

Explores the life of one-time child evangelist and faith healer Marjoe Gortner. The son of professional evangelists, Gortner was preaching on the Southern tent-revival circuit by the age of 3. (IMDb)

9. The King of Comedy (1982)

Rupert Pupkin is a passionate yet unsuccessful comic who craves nothing more than to be in the spotlight and to achieve this, he stalks and kidnaps his idol to take the spotlight for himself. (IMDb)

8. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Two down-on-their-luck Americans searching for work in 1920s Mexico convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains. (IMDb)

7. Barry Lyndon (1975)

An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England. (IMDb)

6. Silence (2016)

In the 17th century, two Portuguese Jesuit priests travel to Japan in an attempt to locate their mentor, who is rumored to have committed apostasy, and to propagate Catholicism. (IMDb)

5. Missing (1982)

When an idealistic American writer disappears during the Chilean coup d'état in September 1973, his wife and father try to find him. (IMDb)

4. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

A recently widowed woman is on the road with her precocious young son, determined to make a new life for herself as a singer. (IMDb)

3. Victor/Victoria (1982)

A struggling female soprano finds work playing a male female impersonator, but it complicates her personal life. (IMDb)

2. Cry Freedom (1987)

South African journalist Donald Woods is forced to flee the country, after attempting to investigate the death in custody of his friend, the black activist Steve Biko. (IMDb)

1. Midnight Express (1978)

Billy Hayes, an American college student, is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison. (IMDb)