The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

5. 2021 - Pig

Pig Nicolas Cage
Neon

Honourable Mentions: The Green Knight, The Power of the Dog, West Side Story

The reemergence of Nicolas Cage as a serious acting force has made for one of the best movie developments of the last decade. Following years spent in the direct-to-video wilderness in the 2010s, Cage garnered critical and cult acclaim with two key turns in 2018 - as the lead of the bizarre horror revenge flick Mandy, directed by Panos Cosmatos, and as Spider-Man Noir in the aforementioned Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, with the actor following that up with highly rated performances in Dream Scenario, Longlegs, and The Surfer.

Cage's talent has long been apparent, albeit widely dismissed as part of his assimilation into meme culture across the 2000s, which is perhaps why the performance of his career in Michael Sarnoski's Pig was so painfully snubbed when it premiered in 2021.

Marketed in part as a quasi-John Wick revenge thriller in which reclusive truffle pig farmer Robin Feld (Cage) must track down those responsible for stealing his beloved farm animal and exact sweet, succulent justice, Sarnoski's film is actually anything but. What it is is something much more contemplative and introspective - an emotionally wrought reckoning with unfulfilled dreams, betrayal, and the slow death of compromise, with Cage giving it both barrels as he returns from the wilderness to confront those who stole his peace.

Cage's career has been one of distinct eras. There was indie darling Cage, action virtuoso Cage, and schlocky misfire Cage. This latest one, however, has cast him in a much more complex and multifaceted light: as an intrepid performer reasserting his talent, and one who is finally being recognised for being so much more than the sum of his internet celebrity.

 
Posted On: 
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.