Best of 2021 Poll!

[flip]

if anyone wants to 'edit' their ballot, please just post a new (final) one below -- i'll tally from the end of the thread upwards, and i'll keep track of whose ballots i've factored in, so i won't double-count. i need to post a new ballot too!

[flip]

and i'll assume ballots are ranked unless people tell me they're not, so if anyone means to submit an unranked ballot, and didn't say that in their post, please let me know here!

[flip]

my updated ballot -- never got a chance to watch much non-american film

1. Drive My Car (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
2. Judas and the Black Messiah (Shaka King)
3. Cruella (Craig Gillespie)
4. Being the Ricardos (Aaron Sorkin)
5. Nobody (Ilya Naishuller)
6. Belfast (Kenneth Branagh)
7. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier)
8. The Vault (Jaume Balaguero)
9. Moxie (Amy Poehler)
10. The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)

[flip]

i was hoping to get a ballot from oOgiandujaOo before tabulating -- there's still time! i will tally this poll tomorrow, probably 16-18 hours from now, so if anyone wanted to post a ballot, edit a ballot, or let me know their ballot is meant to be unranked, please post here very soon.

[flip]

i've tallied everything posted so far, though i could easily accommodate any edited ballots if anyone wants to edit. so far 95 different films have gotten a vote, and in the hopes a new ballot might come in that will let me make a top 100, i think i'll wait a day to post the results

[Rabie]

-Karnan ( Mari Selvaraj )
-Drive My Car ( Ryusuke Hamaguchi )
- In Front of Your Face ( Hong Sang-soo )
-Memoria ( Apichatpong Weerasethakul )
- Wheel Of Fortune and Fantasy ( Ryusuke Hamaguchi )
- Introduction ( Hong Sang-soo )
- Hold Me Back ( Akiko Ohku )
- Limbo ( Soi Cheang )
- Souad ( Ayten Amin )
- Sardar Udham ( Shoojit Sircar )
- Rk/Rkay ( Rajat Kapoor )
- Old ( M. Night. Shyamalan )

[flip]

great! with this ballot we're up to 101 films -- i've tabulated but i still need to do the tiebreaking. so i'll close this poll now or else i'll create a lot of extra work for myself

[flip]

okay, the results are in! it turns out exactly 100 films got a vote, which is serendipitous (i thought it was 101, but then realized i had the same film listed twice). so if i post a top 100 to letterboxd, everything anyone voted for will be on the list, and the list will be eclectic, which is fun. the results are a bit remarkable -- how long would we have to go back to find another year where one director made the top two films? the buster keaton era? and if someone had told me this was going to happen one year in an scfz poll, i would have guessed the director would be hong sang-soo i think -- it would need to be a director i'd be confident would make two films in a year, for one thing, and a director scfz might like. interesting year.

also perhaps interesting:

- this year's palme d'or winner was, per scfz, the 79th best film of the year
- this year's golden lion winner was, per scfz, the 70th best film of the year
- this year's golden bear winner was, per scfz, the 3rd best film of the year
- this year's golden globe for best drama winner was, per scfz, the 19th best film of the year (their best comedy/musical, west side story, got no support)
- this year's academy award best picture winner did not get even one vote in our poll

ties were broken by letterboxd views (fewer views = higher ranking).

_______________________________________________________

SCFZ's Top 100 Films of 2021
1. Drive My Car (Ryusuke Hamaguchi) — 69 pts
2. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Ryusuke Hamaguchi) — 36 pts
3. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude) — 33 pts
4. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) — 30 pts
5. Petite Maman (Celine Sciamma) — 30 pts
6. Annette (Leos Carax) — 25 pts
7. France (Bruno Dumont) — 21 pts
8. Karnan (Mari Selvaraj) — 20 pts
9. Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Love) — 17 pts
10. Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven) — 17 pts
11. The Card Counter (Paul Schrader) — 17 pts
12. Licorice Pizza (PT Anderson) — 17 pts
13. No Sudden Move (Steven Soderbergh) — 16 pts
14. The Last Duel (Ridley Scott) — 15 pts
15. Gritt (Itonje Soimer Guttormsen) — 12 pts
16. Pig (Michael Sarnoski) — 12 pts
17. Judas and the Black Messiah (Shaka King) — 12 pts
18. Spencer (Pablo Larrain) — 12 pts
19. The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion) — 12 pts
20. Il Buco (Michelangelo Frammartino) — 11 pts
21. In Front of Your Face (Hong Sang-soo) — 11 pts
22. Belfast (Kenneth Branagh) — 11 pts
23. Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright) — 11 pts
24. Zack Snyder’s Justice League (Zack Snyder) — 11 pts
25. Brother’s Keeper (Ferit Karahan) — 10 pts
26. Taming the Garden (Salome Jashi) — 10 pts
27. Atrangi Re (Aanand L Rai) — 10 pts
28. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (Alexandre Koberidze) — 10 pts
29. French Exit (Azazel Jacobs) — 10 pts
30. Leave No Trace (Jan Pawel Matsuzynski) — 9 pts
31. Nenjam Marappathillai (Selvaraghavan) — 9 pts
32. Untold: Malice at the Palace (Floyd Russ) — 9 pts
33. La Traverse (Florence Miailhe) — 8 pts
34. Mr Bachmann and His Class (Maria Speth) — 8 pts
35. Introduction (Hong Sang-soo) — 8 pts
36. Azor (Andreas Fontana) — 8 pts
37. Boiling Point (Philip Barantini) — 8 pts
38. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier) — 8 pts
39. House of Gucci (Ridley Scott) — 8 pts
40. Cruella (Craig Gillespie) — 8 pts
41. HIM (Guro Bruusgaard) — 7 pts
42. Playground (Laura Wandel) — 7 pts
43. All Light, Everywhere (Theo Anthony) — 7 pts
44. Being the Ricardos (Aaron Sorkin) — 7 pts
45. Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodovar) — 7 pts
46. In the Heights (Jon Chu) — 7 pts
47. The Green Knight (David Lowery) — 7 pts
48. Dune (Denis Villeneuve) — 7 pts
49. Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege (Abdallah Al-Khatib) — 6 pts
50. Hold Me Back (Akiko Ohku) — 6 pts
51. Krack (Gopichand Malineni) — 6 pts
52. Joji (Dileesh Pothan) — 6 pts
53. The Innocents (Eskil Vogt) — 6 pts
54. The Tragedy of Macbeth (Joel Coen) — 6 pts
55. Nobody (Ilya Naishuller) — 6 pts
56. Be Still (Elizabeth Lazebnik) — 5 pts
57. From Bakersfield to Mojave (James Benning) — 5 pts
58. Limbo (Soi Cheang) — 5 pts
59. Love Affair(s) (Emmanuel Mouret) — 5 pts
60. Sarpatta Parambarai (Pa. Ranjith) — 5 pts
61. Some Kind of Heaven (Lance Oppenheim) — 5 pts
62. Mass (Fran Kranz) — 5 pts
63. The Night House (David Bruckner) — 5 pts
64. The Hand of God (Paolo Sorrentino) — 5 pts
65. Shiva Baby (Emma Seligman) — 5 pts
66. The Boathouse (Hannah Cheesman) — 4 pts
67. Souad (Ayten Amin) — 4 pts
68. Murina (Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic) — 4 pts
69. The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet (Ana Katz) — 4 pts
70. Happening (Audrey Diwan) — 4 pts
71. The Velvet Underground (Todd Haynes) — 4 pts
72. A Hero (Asghar Farhadi) — 4 pts
73. Bootlegger (Caroline Monnet) — 3 pts
74. Evolution (Kornel Mundruczo) — 3 pts
75. Black Medusa (Youssef Chebbi/Ismael) — 3 pts
76. Sardar Udham (Shoojit Sircar) — 3 pts
77. The Vault (Jaume Balaguero) — 3 pts
78. Red Rocket (Sean Baker) — 3 pts
79. Titane (Julia Ducournau) — 3 pts
80. The Stonebreakers (Azul Aizenberg) — 2 pts
81. Rk/Rkay (Rajat Kapoor) — 2 pts
82. Triforium (Jayne Parker) — 2 pts
83. For Lucio (Pietro Marcello) — 2 pts
84. Benediction (Terence Davies) — 2 pts
85. Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar (Dibakar Banerjee) — 2 pts
86. The Girl and the Spider (Ramon Zurcher/Silvan Zurcher) — 2 pts
87. Zeros and Ones (Abel Ferrara) — 2 pts
88. Compartment no 6 (Juho Kuosmanen) — 2 pts
89. Stillwater (Tom McCarthy) — 2 pts
90. Summer of Soul (Questlove) — 2 pts
91. Moxie (Amy Poehler) — 2 pts
92. Uppena (Buchi Babu Sana) — 1 pt
93. Piccolo Corpo (Laura Samani) — 1 pt
94. Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (Jia Zhangke) — 1 pt
95. Unclenching the Fists (Kira Kovalenko) — 1 pt
96. The Bones (Cristobal Leon/Joaquin Cocina) — 1 pt
97. The Killing of Two Lovers (Robert Machoian) — 1 pt
98. Framing Britney Spears (Samantha Stark) — 1 pt
99. Bad Trip (Kitao Sakurai) — 1 pt
100. Old (M Night Shyamalan) — 1 pt

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[oOgiandujaOo]

I'm sorry for missing this one, safe to say I would not have had an effect on the top polling positions, as none of the top 10 were on my list.

The French Dispatch I note does not even make the 100, I wonder if, as with Godard that people are tired of seeing the same record on the player from Mr Anderson?

It will be interesting to see Macbeth's place in posterity. The effort of Joel Coen, his players and production team, cracked that play open like a nut for me, it felt like a revelatory watch. Since and including 2013's Inside Llewyn Davis I've adored his movies, and I wish Mr Coen great health and prosperity, I'd love to see him conjure up a few more tapestries of thought and image.

The Green Knight I felt was an absolute miracle, I had been prepared to turn up to the cinema and witness an atrocity, but somehow in 2022 someone made an adaptation of a poem that was beloved by me, that not only did it justice in terms of fidelity to all its best characteristics, but also it felt additive, this was not just a translation to the screen, but a jubilant, ecstatic rendition by a fellow artist. Whispered prayers and clasping of iron for Mr Lowery.

One of the important things from these polls is to try and spot films you miss, so I will mention Ali & Ava (2021 - Clio Barnard) as I do not see it mentioned on the thread. This was a fine love story that seemed to have a great authenticity, and captured the vibe of contemporary Britain and finding love in middle age.

[flip]

i posted this list to letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... scfz-poll/

[Silga]

Thank you, Flip!

I've only seen 26/100.

I think Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is way too high, but, maybe, it's just me.

But I'm pleasantly surprised to see France and No Sudden Move rank so high.

[oOgiandujaOo]

Btw did anyone notice how strikingly similar this list is to Cahiers' list? Ignoring the picks Cahiers chose from previous years, they're very very similar, except of course the diss to The French Dispatch from SCFZ. Anette, Memoria, Drive My Car, France, The Card Counter, Benedetta all made their list (which had two films not eligible here).