The best movies of 2021 — and where to find them

Sometime in July, as the first Cannes Film Festival of the pandemic era was playing out half a world away, I sat down in an empty screening room in Los Angeles and watched “Memoria,” the latest movie (and Cannes selection) from the Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. “Sat down” doesn’t fully cover it. Because I was the only person there, and because Weerasethakul’s work calls for a particular kind of surrender, I did something I don’t think I’ve ever done in a theater before: I knelt before the screen. I abandoned my front-row seat and sank to my knees, supplicating myself before the cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s gorgeous, otherworldly images.

Call it a gesture of gratitude. After months away from theaters, it felt appropriate; I didn’t make it to Cannes this year, and I was thankful beyond measure that one of the best films in the festival had come to me. But it was also a way