The Film Stage

The Best Undistributed Films of 2021

After highlighting the most overlooked films of 2021, today we put our spotlight on those that need a home in the first place: movies we loved on the festival ...

The Best Scores & Soundtracks of 2021

As Martin Scorsese once said, "Music and cinema fit together naturally. Because there's a kind of intrinsic musicality to the way moving images work when ...

The Film Stage’s Top 50 Films of 2021

For our most comprehensive year-end feature we’re providing a cumulative look at The Film Stage’s favorite films of 2021. We’ve asked contributors to comp...

The Best Performances of 2021

Our year-end coverage continues with a look at the best performances of 2021. Rather than divide categories into supporting or lead or by gender, we've written...

The Best Cinematography of 2021

"A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist–moving an audience through a movie making them think the way you want them to think, painting pictures in the dark...

The Most Overlooked Films of 2021

In a year marked by a recovering box office and distributors experimenting with a wide variety of types of releases, what does an overlooked film constitute? W...

The Best Documentaries of 2021

The state of surveillance, intimate music celebrations, Helen Keller's socialist ethos, refugee tales, examining the scars of abuse in the Catholic Church, and...

The Best Directorial Debuts of 2021

Though we aim to discuss a wide breadth of films each year, few things give us more pleasure than the arrival of bold, new voices. It's why we venture to festi...