2021 TV Shows

2021 was the recovery year. Dune (Denis Villeneuve's Part One adaptation) kicked off a new era of theatrical-first prestige tentpoles after the 2020 pandemic-driven catalog freeze. Spider-Man: No Way Home reset Marvel's box office trajectory — the multiverse / three-Spider-Men crossover film grossed $1.9B and became the highest-grossing pandemic-era film. The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion's Best Director 2022 winner — the Kirsten Dunst / Benedict Cumberbatch Montana ranch psychological drama, originally Netflix-distributed) and Drive My Car (Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Best International Feature 2022 winner — the three-hour Murakami-adapted Hiroshima-set actor-grief drama) defined the awards conversation. CODA (Sian Heder's Apple TV+ Deaf-family-fishing-drama remake) became the first streaming-service film to win Best Picture in March 2022. Streaming continued to absorb mid-budget cinema; Netflix released The Lost Daughter, Don't Look Up, The Hand of God, The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier's Best Original Screenplay nominee — the Renate Reinsve-led Oslo Trilogy capper); HBO Max brought Dune to streaming day-and-date with theatrical (the Warner-Discovery 2021 experiment that reverted in 2022). The Beatles: Get Back (Peter Jackson's eight-hour Disney+ Beatles documentary edited from Lindsay-Hogg's 1969 archive) was the year's documentary event. Squid Game launched on Netflix in September and became the most-watched non-English series in streaming history.