10 of the best and 10 of the worst movies of the year

Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%

Summary: With the odds against him, Jacob (Steven Yeun) relocates his wife (Han Ye-ri) and children to Arkansas so that they can start a family farm.

Although the movie first premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January 2020, it wasn't widely released in theaters until February 2021.

Gentle, charming, and beautifully filmed, "Minari" left critics with well-earned tears.

Carlos Aguilar praised the film for its "endearing cheekiness and affecting virtues" in his review for The Wrap.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%

Summary: Before Katie Mitchell's (voiced by Abbi Jacobson) first day of college, her parents pile everyone in the car for one last road trip, but their family vacation hits a snag when it coincides with a global robot apocalypse.

Funny, fresh, and filled with inventive animation, "The Mitchells vs. The Machines" got a rush of praise from a variety of critics.

"'The Mitchells vs. The Machines' is a movie I'll keep returning to when I need its welcome, warm-hearted, acerbic-but-never-bitter comedy," Matt Goldberg wrote for Collider.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 97%

Summary: After a break-in, isolated truffle hunter Robin (Nicolas Cage) leaves his cabin in the Oregon wilderness to find his kidnapped pig.

Film critics said that "Pig" is more than meets the eye and turns a simple narrative into a profound meditation on grief and love.

"Quiet, unforced and delicate, 'Pig' provides a forum for Nicolas Cage, one of our most dazzling showmen, to get serious and burrow more deeply into his talent than he has in years," Joshua Rothkopf wrote for Empire.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%

Summary: Set in the late 1960s, "Judas and the Black Messiah" follows William O'Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) after he becomes an FBI informant and turns on Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya)

The historical drama received high praise for its electric script and mesmerizing acting performances from Stanfield and Kaluuya, in particular.

"Stanfield and Kaluuya are outstanding in their respective roles, with Kaluuya doing an especially adroit job of capturing Hampton's innate charisma and soaring speeches," Ann Hornaday wrote for The Washington Post.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%

Summary: Ruby (Emilia Jones) receives pushback from her deaf parents and brother when she turns away from the family's fishing business and discovers a newfound passion for singing.

The film earned overwhelmingly positive reception as a heart-warming family drama.

"'CODA' is an honest crowd-pleaser — one that gently charms, rather than claws or cloys, its way under your skin," Jon Frosch wrote for The Hollywood Reporter. "It deserves every happy-tear it wrings."

Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%

Summary: Alma (Maren Eggert) is tasked with testing a new technology in which humans date robot partners but surprises herself when she starts to genuinely fall for her humanoid companion (Dan Stevens).

Critics admired "I'm Your Man" for crafting a beautiful and delicate story from a well-trod genre.

"While 'I'm Your Man' is very romantic in its own way, the movie is elevated by pondering not just love but life and our impending relationship to advanced artificial intelligence," Katie Walsh wrote for the Los Angeles Times.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%

Summary: After a drunken night, sheltered teen Sunny (Kuhoo Verma) and her best friend Lupe (Victoria Moroles) go on a search for the Plan B pill as their time window closes in.

Critics said "Plan B" deftly handles the thorny topic of teenage pregnancy and birth control with humor, heart, and boundless energy.

In a review for Variety, Owen Gleiberman wrote that director Natalie Morales gave the film "an eager, flowing vibrance that's there from the opening sequence."

Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%

Summary: Adapted from the Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, "In the Heights" follows bodega owner Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) as he dreams of a bigger life, dancing and singing his way through a searing hot summer in Washington Heights.

Critics called "In the Heights" a rousing summer crowd-pleaser with plenty of heart.

"... this vibrant screen adaptation of the Miranda stage musical captures something we've largely gone without over the past year: a joyous sense of togetherness," Justin Chang reviewed for NPR's "Fresh Air" podcast.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%

Summary: Stuck indoors during the pandemic, comedian Bo Burnham crafts a movie that is a mixture of stand-up, musical numbers, and retrospectives on his life so far.

Reviews remarked that Burnham did more with a single setting and limited equipment than most creators accomplish with unlimited budgets.

In his review for IndieWire, Eric Kohn called it a "profound feature-length immersion into the anxieties of a year when the very idea of a 'comedy special' sounded like a lost cause."

Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%

Summary: After leaving his past behind, martial arts master Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) is drawn back to a familiar path when he is approached by the secretive Ten Rings organization.

With a growing collection of films under its belt, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is hard-pressed to wow critics, but "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" earned a flurry of admirers.

Wendy Ide described it in a Guardian review as "one of the freshest Marvel pictures in a long time."

Rotten Tomatoes score: 30%

Summary: In this adaptation of the Broadway musical, shy high schooler Evan Hansen (Ben Platt) reluctantly steps into the spotlight after a white lie spirals out of control.

Although the original Tony Award-winning musical mesmerized viewers, most critics felt like the film version was unnecessary and awkwardly disjointed.

"'Dear Evan Hansen' is a terrible, misbegotten musical with too little self-awareness to care how out of tune it sounds," Robert Daniels wrote for Roger Ebert.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 26%

Summary: After being disillusioned by the legal system, defense attorney Casi (John Boyega) decides to pull off a multimillionaire robbery.

Infused with sci-fi elements, "Naked Singularity" has originality in spades but lost points with critics when the story devolved into nonsense.

"Maybe [Casi's] universe is breaking apart; if so, my patience was right behind," Jeannette Catsoulis wrote for The New York Times.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 26%

Summary: Anna Fox (Amy Adams), a former child psychologist with acute agoraphobia, starts to spiral after she witnesses a deadly crime in the brownstone across the street.

Critics had praise for Adams' central performance but largely felt like the thriller was a plodding and poor adaptation of the A.J. Finn novel.

Critic Wenlei Ma described it as a "middling, predictable movie that feels like it left most of its personality on the cutting room floor."

Rotten Tomatoes score: 21%

Summary: Based on the namesake trilogy by Patrick Ness, this dystopian thriller follows Todd (Tom Holland) and Viola (Daisy Ridley) as they navigate a near future where all the women have vanished and every man's thoughts are on full display.

Critics felt "Chaos Walking" squandered Holland and Ridley's potential on an unremarkable book adaptation.

"The film might lure in fans with its star-studded cast, but pacing issues and a lack of conviction make it fall flat," Therese Lacson wrote for the Beat.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 17%

Summary: In an updated retelling of William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," Ben (Diego Boneta) and Mary (Alexandra Daddario) fall in love despite descending from two families that have a centuries-long feud.

Critics largely agreed that once the initial fun wore off, "Die in a Gunfight" didn't have much to offer viewers below the surface.

"The film tries so hard to be slick, but its efforts are both unoriginal and painfully amateurish," Beatrice Loayza reviewed for The New York Times.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 16%

Summary: Evan McCauley (Mark Wahlberg) has struggled with memory issues his whole life, but he soon realizes his condition might point to something deeper when he's approached by a secret society that believes in reincarnation.

Despite having an interesting premise, "Infinite" failed to live up to its potential.

Critic Dominic Griffin called it "woefully miscast, too derivative, and not nearly exciting enough to overcome its fundamental blandness."

Rotten Tomatoes score: 11%

Summary: Chaos erupts in a small Kentucky town when mild-mannered Sue (Allison Janney) claims her husband (Matthew Modine) was kidnapped.

Although the film set out to be a witty dark comedy, critics said that the humor missed the mark.

"Not even a cast including heavyweights like Allison Janney, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall can save 'Breaking News in Yuba County,' a sloppy, mean-spirited attempt at dark satire," Jade Budowski reviewed for Decider.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 6%

Summary: Los Angeles party girl Mads (Bella Thorne) is forced to disguise herself as a nun when the drug lord (Gavin Rossdale) she works for is killed in cold blood.

Critics gave the subversive thriller bad marks across the board, saying that the cringe humor fell flat without a viable plot.

In a review for Pajiba, Roxana Hadadi wrote that the film "feels like an array of 'bad taste' choices made simply because they are 'in bad taste'" which ultimately "falls flat when the movie has so little to say about any of it."

Rotten Tomatoes score: 5%

Summary: Although Victoria (Ruby Rose) has long since retired from the Russian drug game, she is dragged back in when a former cop (Morgan Freeman) holds her daughter hostage and forces her to use her talents to his advantage.

According to critics, "Vanquish" earned poor reviews for its lazy storytelling, cardboard characters, and lacking action sequences.

Critic Kevin Ibbotson-Wight described the thriller as a "deathly dull, visually repulsive, and stylistically bereft stinker that lacks even the good grace to be unintentionally hilarious."

Rotten Tomatoes score: 3%

Summary: In the year 2524, retired military officer James Ford (Bruce Willis) teams up with general Ryle (Frank Grillo) to help defend human soldiers on a colonized planet.

Between an underwhelming acting performance from Willis and an overly complicated narrative, "Cosmic Sin" was little more than a dud.

"'Cosmic Sin' is 88 minutes of convoluted nonsense that can't decide if it is a straightforward sci-fi action flick or a serious treatise on the complex and murky ethics of warfare," wrote critic Sara Michelle Fetters.