10 Surprisingly Awesome 2021 Movies You Probably Missed
Don't sleep any longer on these unexpectedly great 2021 movies.
It's fair to say that we as consumers have never had so many movies at our disposal so easily.
As cinemas continue their slow recovery, streaming has largely become the new home for mid-budget genre fare outside of horror, and even if these films do get a theatrical release, the exclusivity windows tend to be rather short.
And so, 2021 has been a win for film lovers everywhere, to watch more movies with greater ease than ever before. But despite this uptick in accessibility, there simply isn't time or sheer will to watch everything worthwhile.
In the case of these 10 great films, you might've also been put off for a number of distinct reasons, ranging from poor marketing to the underwhelming previous movie in the franchise, or a simple lack of discoverability amid the many hundreds of films released over the last 12 months.
But these films were all much, much better than expected, from shockingly entertaining franchise spin-offs to unassuming genre films that delivered above and beyond what the assignment required.
If you slept on these films over the past year, you'd do well to give them a try. You just might be pleasantly surprised...
10. Army Of Thieves
Though Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead received broadly positive reviews from critics, the general audience response was decidedly more mixed, because let's be honest, it's a big 'ol mess of a movie.
While fitfully entertaining, it's also a wildly over-indulgent car crash of questionable storytelling and irritating characters, exacerbated by a brutal 148-minute runtime.
When it was revealed that a spin-off film had been shot, many didn't even bother giving it a second look on the basis that it'd simply be more of the same.
But that's not really being fair to Army of Thieves, which shifts away from the undead shenanigans of Snyder's film towards an hilariously self-aware heist yarn centered around Army of the Dead's fan favourite character Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer, who also directed the film).
It's certainly a tad too long, but between its likeable cast, witty dialogue, and madcap action, this is infinitely more charming and consistent than the film that spawned it.