2021 film guide: with cinemas re-opening on Monday, here are the new movies to get excited about

Best films of 2021: No Time To Die and Pieces of a Woman

Credit: Netflix, Universal

Film


2021 film guide: with cinemas re-opening on Monday, here are the new movies to get excited about

By Helen Bownass

4 years ago

After a long long wait, we’re thrilled that cinemas will finally be able to throw open their doors on 17 May. Here’s our guide to the new releases to get excited about. 

We love TV, always have, always will. And it has done a lot of the heavy-lifting of our social lives over the 14 months. But if you’re anything like us you’ll be desperate to get lost in some excellent filmmaking in a dark cinema, surrounded (safely) by other people with a gigantic bucket of popcorn to swim around in.

And the moment is nigh as cinemas in England, Scotland and Wales will finally be able to fling open their doors on 17 May, with Northern Ireland following suit on 24 May. Happily when they do open there will also be something for every taste including poignant biopics, uplifting musicals, tense thrillers, contemporary horror films and smart reflections on modern life. 

Even better, there’s a wide range of fully-rounded female characters and a cheering amount of projects from the minds of excellent female directors to indulge in. 

Which makes us very excited…

Best films of 2021: Rare Beasts

Rare Beasts

Billie Piper makes her directorial debut in this film, described as an anti-romcom, which ought to keep I Hate Suzie fans satiated until the arrival of series two of the brilliant drama. 

She plays Mandy, who lives with anxiety and is juggling her dysfunctional family, career and being a single mother as she navigates a relationship with a malevolent man. Pursuit of Love actor Lily James also appears as a “post, post, post-feminist”

Release date: 21 May 2021 in cinemas and digital download  


Best films of 2021: Cruella

Cruella

One of Disney’s most famous villains gets a live-action origin story, and we are very excited.

Emma Stone plays the puppy stealing fashion designer, and this prequel will follow her life in 70s London as she develops her obsession with all things dalmatian, becoming the ruthless miscreant that haunted us all. 

Release date: 28 May 2021 in cinemas and on Disney+ premier access


Best films of 2021: A Quiet Place 2

A Quiet Place II

Though John Krasinski himself won’t be starring in this sequel to his smash-hit horror movie – spoiler alert: he dies in the first film – the rest of the cast will be returning. That includes his real-life wife Emily Blunt as well as Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe, who played the couple’s on-screen children in the film. 

The plot of the movie is being kept tightly under wraps, but we know that the alien creatures who prey on sound are still roaming the world, and that Blunt’s character Evelyn is hell-bent on avenging the death of her husband. Sign us up.

Release date: 3 June 2021 in cinemas 


Best films of 2021: The Father

The Father

A stellar British cast has been assembled in Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman, for this devastating film which saw Hopkins take home the Best Actor award at the Oscars in April

Hopkins plays Anthony, a man whose mind is being lost to dementia, but refuses the help of a carer to the frustration of his daughter Anne (Colman). As the film progresses it becomes a vivid and visual representation of the disorienting effects of living with dementia, with confusion over who people are, where you are and what it’s like to lose yourself.

Release date: 11 June 2021 in cinemas 


In The Heights

Before Lin Manuel Miranda created Hamilton, he was the man from Washington Heights. The creative genius’s first musical was based on his own early life in New York City and centred on the lives of the Dominican community who lived there. 

Miranda will be starring in this film adaptation of the Broadway musical, directed by Crazy Rich Asians’ Jon M Chu, but the main role will be played by Anthony Ramos – John Laurens and Phillip Hamilton in the original Broadway cast of Hamilton alongside Melissa Barrera and Leslie Grace.

Release date: 18  June 2021 in cinemas


Best films of 2021: Black Widow

Black Widow

Last year, we bid goodbye to Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow in Avengers: Endgame. But it was a bit of an emotional anti-climax, really, overshadowed by the greater concern of Thanos’ world domination. 

In this, Johansson’s first standalone movie in the Marvel cinematic universe and a prequel to the existing Avengers movies, we get to say a true goodbye to one of the trailblazing female superheroes. The movie will focus on Black Widow’s life as Natasha, a Russian sleeper agent in the US, before she switched sides and joined the good guys. Directed by a female director and with an impeccable supporting cast including Rachel Weisz and Florence Pugh, this female superhero movie is worth celebrating.

Release date:9 July 2021 in cinemas and on Disney+ premier access


Best films of 2021: Free Guy

Free Guy

Jodie Comer is swapping Villanelle for video games in Free Guy. Set inside a video game in which an avatar played by Ryan Reynolds suddenly becomes conscious that he’s a character in the game, the movie is a funny action romp that meditates on ideas of identity and sentience. 

It also features Comer in two roles: first, a chic video game assassin and, secondly, a nerdy gamer in the real world. She has the range to pull them both off.

Release date: 13 August 2021 in cinemas


Best films of 2021: Last Letter From Your Lover

Last Letter From Your Lover

Jojo Moyes’$2 2008 novel will be brought to life by a starry cast in this film set between 1960 and the present day.

Felicity Jones plays Ellie, a journalist, who uncovers a series of historic love letters between Jennifer and Anthony – played by Shailene Woodley and Callum Turner (The Capture)– which ultimately entangles the two women’s lives.

Release date: 6 August 2021 in cinemas  


Candyman

It’s the 1992 horror film that terrorised many of our teenage dreams, and it’s been reimagined for these troubled times. Nia DaCosta directs this version, written by Get Out’s Jordan Peele, about the villain who appears when you say his name five times in the mirror and is set in a gentrified housing project. 

The film promises to take in police brutality, lynching and Black exploitation, and da Costa has said the film is able to: “pull back the curtain on what makes a villain. Who calls a monster a monster? Who decides that? That’s a lot of what our story is about.”

Release date: 27 August 2021 in cinemas 


Best films of 2021: Cinderella

Cinderella

The beloved fairytale gets the live-action musical treatment with singer Camilla Cabello in the titular role. She stars as the young woman who meets Prince Charming, while Frozen star Idina Menzel plays her evil stepmother and the magnificent Billie Porter is her genderqueer fairy godparent.

Pitch Perfect creator Kay Cannon directs this new version which is produced and written by Gavin And Stacey co-creator James Corden. 

Release date: September 2021 on Amazon Prime 


Best films of 2021: Respect

Respect

Jennifer Hudson. Aretha Franklin. Biopic. What more do you need to know? 

The Oscar-winning singer is starring as the celebrated soul superstar in a forthcoming biopic of her life alongside Mary J Blige, Audra Mcdonald and Forest Whitaker. According to People, Franklin handpicked Hudson to play her before her death in 2018. “I’ve talked to the person that is going to play me,” Franklin said at the time. “I’m not going to say who I chose, but I’ve talked to her and she’s ready and I’m happy with her.” We all are.

Release date: 10 September 2021 in cinemas 


Dune

Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel is a dystopian sci-fi classic, and now Denis Villeneuve is releasing a big-budget adaption of the book – a year from its original slated release.

Timothée Chalamet plays Paul Atr eidesa young hero, in charge of protecting a valuable spice called melange, native to planet Arrakis, that can make interstellar travel possible and increase people’s mental capacity. Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson and Oscar Issac are also in a cast positively dripping with stars.

Release date: 17 September 2021 in cinemas 


Jessica Chastain

The Eyes Of Tammy Faye

Jessica Chastain stars as TV evangelist Tammy Faye in this story about her rise and fall in the 1970s and 80s.

The beloved TV personality rose from a humble upbringing to build an empire and a Christian theme park with her then-husband Jim (Andrew Garfield). He was later imprisoned for fraud and conspiracy while Tammy went on to remarry, before her death of colon cancer in 2007. 

Release date: 24 September 2021 in cinemas


Best films of 2021: No Time To Die

No Time To Die

OK, yes. A new James Bond movie is hardly a cause for feminist celebration. However, THIS new James Bond movie – reportedly Daniel Craig’s last – was written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and features Lashana Lynch stepping into his shoes as the new 007. Now that we can get behind. And after moving throughout the schedules in 2020, and again in 2021 our expectations are particularly high.

Release date: 30 September 2021 in cinemas


Best films of 2021: The Last Duel

The Last Duel

Bursting with Hollywood heavyweights, this historical drama, directed by Ridley Scott, is written by no less than Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. 

Jodie Comer stars as Marguerite de Carrouges, whose husband, Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), fights a duel to death with his squire, Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), after Le Gris is accused of raping Marguerite.

Release date: 15 October 2021 in cinemas  


Best films of 2021: Dear Evan Hansen

Dear Evan Hansen

Another musical ripe for the cinema treatment is this story of an anxious and isolated high school student. It stars The Politician’s Ben Platt – who won a Tony award when the show appeared on Broadway – as Evan who, after the suicide of a classmate, gets stuck in a lie as Connor’s parents mistake a letter he wrote for their son’s suicide note. 

Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Amy Adams and Julianne Moore round out the cast of this much-anticipated film.

Release date: 22 October 2021 in cinemas  


Best films of 2021: Anya Taylor-Joy

Last Night In Soho

Edgar Wright, the director behind Shaun of the Dead, is making a return to horror with this new London-based film. 

Starring Queen’s Gambit star Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith and New Zealand newcomer Thomasin McKenzie, the film will straddle two plotlines – one in the 60s and one in the present day. “Taylor-Joy will play the lead in the 60s, while McKenzie will play a fashion student in modern day scenes,” Collider reports. “Smith will be playing Taylor-Joy’s manager of sorts.”

Release date: 29 October 2021 in cinemas 


Best films of 2021: The Eternals

The Eternals

Now that the Avengers franchise is complete, audiences are looking for a new ensemble superhero flick. The Eternals could be that movie. 

Starring Richard Madden, Gemma Chan, Kit Harington, Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek and Kumail Nanjiani, it tells the story of a group of celestial beings whose lives become entangled with humans. Oscar-winning filmmaker Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) is directing and the first glimpses of actors in costume on the set look suitably fantastical. 

Release date: 5 November 2021 in cinemas 


Best films of 2021: Belfast

Belfast

Set in Belfast in the late 1960s, this semi-autobiographical drama is written and directed by Kenneth Branagh and follows a boy’s childhood amidst the tumult of the decade. 

It stars Outlander’s Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan as the boy’s parents and Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds as his grandparents. That’s a Sunday lunch we’d like to be invited to…

Release date: 12 November 2021 in cinemas  


The best films of 2021: King Richard

King Richard

The legend of how Serena and Venus Williams came to, unexpectedly, dominate the world of tennis is the centre of this film. 

Will Smith stars as Richard, the girls’ father, who had no background in tennis, but coached Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and as Serena (Demi Singleton) to dominate the game on a global scale.

Release date: 19 November 2021 in cinemas 


House Of Gucci

House Of Gucci

After her Oscar-nominated turn in A Star Is Born, Lady Gaga is ready for more on-screen adventures, this time in a dramatic biopic directed by Ridley Scott. 

She stars as Patrizia Reggiani, an extravagant Italian socialite, who in 1972 married Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), the grandson of the founder of Gucci. The pair had an incredibly tempestuous marriage until his murder in 1996 – and Reggiani, often referred to as the Black Widow, received a 26-year prison sentence for her perceived role in his death.

Release date: 26 November 2021 in cinemas  


Best films of 2021: West Side Story

West Side Story

Steven Spielberg’s latest trick is remaking West Side Story, one of the most beloved musicals by another famous Stephen (Sondheim), for a modern audience. 

Rita Moreno, the Oscar-winning star of the original 1961 film will be back as Valentina, a reworked version of the advisory adult character Doc, who in turn was based on Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. (Moreno originally played Anita, the best friend of West Side Story’s main character Maria.) The stars of the film, though, taking on the roles of the two celestially-crossed lovers from warring New York street gangs, are Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler, a Colombian American singer-songwriter who beat 30,000 other women for the role of Maria. Get your jazz hands ready, this one is going to be an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza.

Release date: 10 December 2021 in cinemas 


Best films of 2021: Downton Abbey 2

DOWNTON ABBEY 2

As soothing as a warm vat of custard, Downton is back to guide us through the festive period.  While the plot of the film is being kept secret, we do know that Hugh Dancy, Laura Haddock, Nathalie Baye and Dominic West will be joining the Crawley family and the residents of the big house.

Release date:  December 22 2021 in cinemas


Best films of 2021: Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

In the mood for joyful showtunes and a journey to being whatever you want to be? Everybody’s Talking About Jamie will hit you in all the right places. 

Based on the West End musical, which in turn is based on the real story of Jamie New (Max Harwood), a 16-year-old schoolboy in Sheffield who has big dreams of being a drag performer, to his dad’s chagrin. Sarah Lancashire stars as Jamie’s mother, Sharon Horgan plays his teacher while acting legend Richard E Grant is Jamie’s drag mentor.

Release date: TBC 


Best films for 2021: Pieces of a Woman

Pieces Of A Woman

When this film showed at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year it was to great critical acclaim. Directed by Hungarian filmmaker Kornel Mundroczo it stars Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf (who has recently been accused of sexual and emotional abuse by ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs) as Boston couple Martha and Sean Carson eagerly awaiting the arrival of their first child. 

Devastatingly, their home birth goes wrong and the baby dies shortly after being born. The film is set over the course of one winter and follows as the pair mourn a life not even begun; their relationship bows under the weight of such grief and they bring a claim of criminal negligence against their midwife.

Release date: out now on Netflix 


Best films for 2021: One Night In Miami

One Night In Miami

Regina King’s directorial debut focuses on a fictional meeting between icons Malcolm X, Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali), Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke in February 1964,

The four men, legends in sport, music and activism, come together in a hotel room in Miami after Clay’s most recent boxing victory. It’s here they celebrate and challenge each other’s views of what it is to be a Black man at a pivotal moment in American history.

Release date: out now on Amazon Prime 


Best films for 2021: The Dig

The Dig

If you’re a long-time fan of Time Team, this new British drama based on a true story and starring Lily James and Carey Mulligan will appeal. 

Mulligan plays Edith, a widow, who hires archaeologist Basil (Ralph Fiennes) to dig up some land on her plentiful estate. But they make a historic discovery, as it turns out to be an Anglo-Saxon burial site. Alongside the artefacts there’s also love stories, and the beginning of World War II to contend with.

Release date: out now on Netflix


Best films for 2021: Malcolm and Marie

Malcolm & Marie

The first film to be made in lockdown, this promises to be a special and unique take on 2020 directed by Euphoria creator Sam Levinson. Zendaya and John David Washington star as a couple on their way home from Malcolm’s (Washington) film premiere. Where they embark on an intense discussion about past relationships.

If you think it sounds similar to a certain 2019 film starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, you’re not wrong. According to Deadline it “has some echoes of Netflix’s Marriage Story, while resonating a number of social themes that the world is experiencing right now.”

Release date: out now on Netflix.


Best Films of 2021: Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar

Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar

It’s been a while since Kristen Wiig has been in our lives, and to make up for it she has teamed back up with Annie Mumolo, her Bridesmaids co-writer – and also signed up Jamie Dornan. 

The pair play Barb and Star who go on holiday to Vista Del Mar– after leaving their small town for the first time. But while there they get embroiled in adventures, romantic liaisons and an encounter with an evil villain.

Release date: out now to download


Best films of 2021: To Olivia

To Olivia

Set in 1962 this is the true story of Roald Dahl and his wife Patricia Neal. Keeley Hawes plays Neal, a glamorous American, who lives with the author (Hugh Bonneville) in the countryside, but they facing tragedy after the death of their daughter Olivia. 

The film follows through their grief and the strength they are ultimately able to take from the heartbreaking loss.

Release date: out now on Sky Cinema 


Best films of 2021: The United States Vs. Billie Holiday

The United States Vs Billie Holiday

The early career of iconic jazz and swing singer Billie Holiday is the focus of this new film by Lee Daniels (Precious). 

Grammy and Golden Globe nominated artist Andra Day plays the singer as the Federal Bureau of Narcotics attempts to imprison her for singing political songs such as Strange Fruit. Moonlight star Trevante Rhodes plays Jimmy Fletcher, the undercover agent who fell for Holiday and subsequently shifted his allegiances.

Release date: out now on Sky Cinema and Now TV 


Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman

Promising Young Woman

One of 2020’s many film casualties, we’re pleased to see this fiery and stylistic revenge thriller, based in conversations about #MeToo and consent, has moved into 2021. 

Directed by The Crown actress and Oscar-nominated director Emerald Fennel it centres on Cassie, played by Carey Mulligan, also nominated for Best Actress at this year’s awards. Cassie is a medical school dropout who works in a coffee shop and lives with her parents after a tragic event derails her plans. But at the weekends she follows her vocation: pretending to be drunk to the point of passing out, where she is found by some man who wants to help her, then tries to take advantage of the situation. Whereupon she delivers a message of fierce retribution.

Release date: out now on Sky Cinema 


Ammonite

This sweeping and absorbing period film brings to life pioneering paleontologist Mary Anning in 1840.

Set in Lyme Regis, Dorset, Kate Winslet plays Mary who lives a quiet life with her mother (Gemma Jones) but embarks on a relationship with Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan) when her husband asks Mary to watch over her in the hope it will get her over the melancholia she is enduring. 

Release date: 26 March 2021 for rental at home on all digital platforms


Minari

The quest for the much prized ‘American dream’ is the root of this gently sweeping film that won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and Best Picture nominee at this year’s Academy Awards.

It follows a Korean-American family – father Jacob (Steven Yeun), mother Monica (Yeri Han) and their two children - who move to a small and isolated town in Arkansas from California in the 1980s. Together they set up a 50-acre farm and navigate the ups and downs their new life brings.

Release date: out now 


Nomadland

Nomadland

After she loses everything in the 2008 recession Fern, a widow and former substitute teacher, travels across the American West trying to get seasonal employment and meeting groups of nomads on the way. 

Based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Jessica Bruder, the film directed by history-making Oscar nominee Chloe Zhao stars Frances McDormand – superlative and Oscar-winning in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri – as Fern. It’s a role that’s set to prove her, yet again, as one of our greatest acting talents.

Release date: out now on Disney+ 



Best Films of 2021: Raya and the Last Dragon

Raya And The Last Dragon

What is it about Disney animated movies that pull our heartstrings? Even just reading the plot description for this movie has us feeling emotional: “In a land called Kumandra, a warrior named Raya searches for the last dragon in the world.” 

The film, which was written by Crazy Rich Asians screenwriter Adele Lim, is set to be a celebration of Asian culture and history. Awkwafina will voice Sisu, a water dragon who is the last of her kind, while Star Wars actor Kelly Marie Tran will be the brave young warrior Raya.

Release date: out now on Disney+


Images courtesy of film studios, Getty, Instagram

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