Search Museum of the Moving Image

Curators’ Choice 2021

Dec 19, 2021 — Feb 26, 2022

The Museum’s annual survey of some of our favorite films of the year returns with another rich harvest of cinema—and television—at its best. The first iteration since 2019, following a pandemic-dictated hiatus, Curators’ Choice 2021 evidences a year of stunning ambition, excellence, experimentation, irreverence, liberation, and fury. While 2021 was a challenging year for the movies, with Hollywood and audiences gradually returning to theaters, it’s been a wildly exciting time for international, independent, and festival-oriented films. From idiosyncratic musicals (Annette) to revisionist westerns (The Power of the Dog); from feminist noirs (Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time and Nina Wu) to deluded male melodramas (Red Rocket); and from exuberant family fare (The Mitchells vs. the Machines) to masterful achievements in serial storytelling (The Underground Railroad), this year’s Curators’ Choice offers a wide-eyed, peripheral view of the current state of the cinematic arts.

Organized by Curator of Film Eric Hynes and Assistant Curator of Film Edo Choi.

Please note changes to the Curators Choice lineup, including rescheduled screenings, cancellations, and postponements.

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Past Films in Series

A sun sets on the yellow horizon across an expanse of sea.

Terra Femme
A man stands A man stands in front of a concrete building in front of a sign that says "to take courageous steps for freedom today"

The American Sector
A group of people, one holding a megaphone and others in crutches, walk down a village street in Kinshasa.

Downstream to Kinshasa
A young woman sits in a dark booth in profile

The Viewing Booth
A woman and man sit next to each other in a waiting room; she looks up, his head is buried in his hands.

Test Pattern
A mournful, elderly woman sits on her bed in a room with deep blue walls.

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection
A distressed young woman stands in a field with long windswept blonde hair in her face.

Anne at 13,000 Ft.
Two women, one holding a baby, sit at a kitchen table.

All About My Sisters
A young melancholy boy, his face draped by a hood, looks off-camera.

Notturno
A woman stands in a dark, red-drenched hallway, looking at camera intensely.

Nina Wu
A woman in a face mask raises her hands in exasperation while sitting at a table, bathed in purple light..

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

Faya Dayi
A puts her head near a train window, her eyes closed, wind whipping her hair.

Compartment No. 6
An older man and a younger woman look at each other across the counter at a donut shop, their faces in close profile.

Red Rocket

Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
A factory worker holds the head of a plastic mannequin, which is directly facing the camera.

Ascension
The silhouetted profiles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, their foreheads touching intimately.

The Tragedy of Macbeth
A woman with a serious expression drives a man, who sits in the back seat of the car.

Drive My Car
Two women, one in white and one in blue, talk to each other against an outdoor cityscape

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
A woman (Kirsten Dunst) in a red sweater stands with her arms crossed against a vast Montana mountain landscape.

The Power of the Dog
A man in long hair (Adam Driver) drenched in blue, looks past the camera in medium close-up, a dark silhouette in the background behind him.

Annette

The French Dispatch
A man sits in a room and looks out the window

Days
A woman and a man embrace; the woman's head looking towards the camera, only the top half of her face visible above the man's shoulder.

Undine
Three people in silhouette, one sitting in a director's chair, on a movie set.

The Souvenir Part II
Standing in front of a mural, a young girl in profile turns her gaze on the camera

The Underground Railroad: The Complete Series (Chapters 6–10)
Standing in front of a mural, a young girl in profile turns her gaze on the camera

The Underground Railroad: The Complete Series (Chapters 1–5)
A nun in her habit is surrounded by guardsmen in dark armor.

Benedetta
A woman in blue and a man in sunglasses walk outside away from a house toward the camera.

Bergman Island
A woman with long dark hair looks at the camera standing next to a window looking out onto a city.

Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
A young woman sits on a couch and looks down while a curtain billows behind her.

What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
An animated family and some robots walk towards the camera with fire behind them

The Mitchells vs. the Machines