2021. Another year down, COVID is still raging, and things are looking pretty grim for movie theaters out there. The pandemic has transformed the cinematic landscape into a tempest of uncertainty, with only the most gargantuan of tentpoles being sure things at the box office. But just because profitability is scarce doesn’t mean movies are dead. Just to name a few gems, this year saw lush Arthurian legend come to life, a new freewheeling Paul Thomas Anderson flick, Ridley Scott in his element, fresh bloodcurdling horrors, and another jaunt into the Matrix. Movies have still got it. Here’s my list of the best movies of 2021.

My coverage of SXSW continues. Ambitious, exhaustive, and utterly entrancing, Kier-La Janisse’s three-hour-plus treatise on folk horror is an education in a bottle. A deep, dark rabbit hole that examines the power of storytelling and tales inherited, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is more than a mere documentary, it’s an essential text.