If 2020 was the year of watching movies at home, 2021 was the year of the movie theatre. For me, it meant a return to two cinemas I particularly adore which provided a chance to catch up with favorites old and new. But as the year drew to a close with COVID-19 cases again on the rise in the UK, the bizarre question of whether I should be going to the cinema again weighed on my mind. And so, it was another weird year for movies and moviegoers – but far from a bad one. The difficulty I had in putting this list together is testament to the fantastic quality of films released in the period; any year in which sublimely sweet works from Paul Thomas Anderson and Céline Sciamma didn’t make my top ten is surely a good one.