10 Surprisingly Awesome 2021 Movies You Probably Missed
3. Pig
Pig is another film that prospective audiences just didn't take seriously in the lead up to its release.
Viewers couldn't seem to make sense of whether or not this Nicolas Cage-starring film about a former chef seeking to retrieve his kidnapped truffle pig was a serious piece of cinema or a po-faced joke.
Some assumed it was basically "John Wick but with a pig," and that Cage would spend the bulk of the movie freaking out while cutting his way through a seemingly endless fleet of gangsters.
But Pig is actually something completely different: a dense meditation on existence, joy, grief, and food, that sees Cage give a performance of shocking depth and sincerity.
Between Pig's marketing and the fact that it was directed by first-time filmmaker Michael Sarnoski, many evidently weren't willing to roll the dice, but those who did were rewarded with one of the most deftly crafted and thoughtful films of the past year.