The Best Movies of August & September 2021 Ranked

Hey Movie Fans, I'm here again, and Happy New Month to you all. The Month of October is looking to be a fantastic month for Movies, but before getting into it, why not take a moment to appreciate all the biggest cinematic hits the past two months gave us.

We've already discussed just how stacked the month of July was in my previous monthly movie review article ( Ranking and Reviewing The Best Movies of July ),  and one would think the coming months might be a little less impressive in the realm of movies, but that wasn't the case at all.

The past two months have been amazing cinematically, from massive action hype-machines like Shang Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings and The Suicide Squad (All previously reviewed in the articles of these links), as well as Free Guy, to trailblazing horrific thrillers like Malignant and Candyman, the months of August and September gave a lot worth remembering, and even if we didn't get the amount of relevant movies we got in July, the notable ones were really memorable, so I'm here to rank and review the best movies of both months side by side.

But before we begin, I did promise to let you know how the remnants from the July line-up, Old and Escape Room: Tournaments of Champions were when they finally got digitally released. Well, Old was the beautifully twisted trailblazer anyone would expect from M. Night Shyamalan sprinkled with a lot of well executed thrills and death scenes, and The Escape Room 2 was every bit a mediocre thriller as the first movie. 

While taking note of all that, let's dive into this list, As usual I'll be keeping the review of each entry short and sweet as I now, for the first time ever, rank the movies of the two months side by side in one glorious countdown, whilst indicating which month each entry represents.

THE TOP 15 MOVIES OF AUGUST & SEPTEMBER

15) THE PROTEGE (August) & KATE 

(September)

Don't mean to start out this list with a double entry, but the movies Kate and The Protege were just so uncomfortably similar in both writing and execution.

Both movies from both months added to the list of Female Empowerment in Action movies that's been going on a lot this year in movies like Gunpowder Milkshake, Black Widow , Jolt and of course Harley Quinn in The Suicide Squad.

The two movies were both revenge-themed, action packed, high staked and fairly executed movies, only really basic and superficial in writing and progression. Though Kate does have a little edge over The Protege due to Mary Elizabeth's amazing performance that pretty much got me through it.

14) THE CRY MACHO 

(September)

Bearing in mind that this is a Clint Eastwood movie, I expected great things, but expectations don't always exactly come to full fruition.

The Cry Macho is a western drama that had its greatest strengths in the acting and smooth scenery flow, but the plot in its progression while aimed at being impactful, only cut it halfway with a number of narrative holes and unnecessary scenes.

The movie was good but honestly could've been a lot more with everything it had, probably having the potential to become one of the best this year but just limited by its little flaws.

13) THE WITCHER: NIGHTMARE AND WOLF 

(August)

After the massive success of the popular video game franchise adapted into TV in 2019, The Witcher, Netflix decided to further dive into the franchise by creating this side story as an animated movie, this time focused on Geralt's master, Vesemir.

The Witcher: Nightmare and Wolf while having an ambitiously impressive plot and being beautifully animated and voiced by the staff at Studio MIR, I just felt the story could've been handled more delicately and not as rushed as it was. A movie of an hour and 30 minutes doesn't do a solid story like this justice, I felt if it were drawn into a short miniseries, the full glory of the plot could've been displayed and the many interesting characters could've been developed more sufficiently.

12) PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND 

(September)

To fans of Nicolas Cage, this movie may seem like a step down from the phenomenal drama that was his last movie, Pig, and could accurately be described that way, but how low did it fall?.

First of all, I will admit this movie won't be everyone's cup of tea, but the factors that make it that way also serve as it's greatest charms. It may not be on the running for the awards like Pig, but Prisoners of The Ghostland's intriguingly quirky setting and unapologetic approach towards its scenery make it one hell of a fun movie.

It's pretty unique in its sequence of events and well not exactly spectacular, but I particularly enjoyed the bits of madness and extremeties of this movie.

11) RESPECT

(August)

The biographical drama centered on Aretha Franklin's rise to stardom starring Jennifer Hudson comes next on this list.

For a movie named 'Respect', it sure didn't get enough of it in the month of August. Jennifer Hudson was particularly gorgeous in this movie as she played the ambitious main character Aretha Franklin, the church choir girl yet to come out of her closet of domestic problems and into international popularity.

I personally loved the story of this biography and it not only made this origin story interesting and captivating, but also captured hints of the comedy and struggles associated with black romance and family relationships when there's a dream worth chasing.

10) INFINITUM: SUBJECT UNKNOWN 

(August)

I still don't get how this movie slipped passed the radar of most movie fans, including lovers of sci-fi and thriller.

Infinitum is a beautifully twisted sci-fi thriller that'll leave you intrigued alongside the main character with its mysteries, and delivers the thriller aspects of the story in a rather unorthodox but impressive manner.

From when Jane wakes up in a strange attic in a parallel world only to discover she's trapped in a time loop, the plot builds up spendidly and takes viewers on a thrilling journey of discovery and a bit of confusion along side her until the story reaches full realization.

If you haven't seen this movie I implore you to see it with an open mind and try not get bored out by the fact that the progression is a bit slow.

9) MY SON 

(September)

Talking about mystery stories, My Son manages not only to absorb you into the mystery of a missing child, but also captures the drama associated with such a crisis in a captivating way.

James McAvoy and Claire Foy were at the helm of this story as they played the boys parents, both delivering fantastic portrayals of worried parents about to jump off the edge and do anything to find their missing beloved son. 

The plot progression was really amazing, the scenes were either captivating, intriguing or surprising and I particularly loved the added family drama of a broken couple being brought together by a single unfortunate event they have to avert together.

8) CANDYMAN 

(August)

Now let's talk about Candyman, the newly adapted horrific thriller starring one of the leading black actors, Yahya-Abdul Mateen II.

Candyman (2021), while not being as scary as the older Candyman movies, delivered top quality plot progression, focusing more on developing a twisted and psychotically horrific environment, deepening it's myths and paving way for future story outlets or sequels that'll deliver those scares we desire gratifyingly. 

This was basically an origin story of a new candyman and the unnerving connection of past and present events in the story just added to how compactfully written this movie is.

7) MALIGNANT 

(September)

Speaking of horrific thrillers, James Wan, creator of legendary hits in the genre like The Conjuring and Insidious , blessed us this year with another top quality psychological thriller, Malignant.

This movie managed to not only deliver a profoundly twisted yet compelling story, but to integrate it with amazingly executed brutality and gorey death scenes.

The movie doesn't just go into its thrills and scares, it first faces the drama of a grieving woman, then the psychological elements in the entire confusion and investigation of what actually happened, before delivering scenes which could only be described as horrific massacres that'll definitely not disappoint fans of bloody murderous horrors.

6) SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS 

(September)

I've already given my full review of it so I won't talk much about it, but I could only put it above the masterfully written movies listed before it due to one single important aspect, The Experience. Anyone who's seen this movie in cinemas can attest to how much of a Visual Feast it was, with many fantastic fights stylistically blended with colourful magical displays and well choreographed chinese martial arts displays.

Although I did state to have few issues with the characterization and the simplistic writing, they weren't exactly stones to throw at this movie. Being a PG-13 comic book movie, it took a basic story and brought it out to full beauty with its stellar production values, giving a satisfying origin story to Marvel's newest Avenger.

5) FREE GUY 

(August)

Introducing a movie I personally feel is the most enjoyable and fun movie this entire year.

The beloved Ryan Reynolds once again taking the mantle of a heroic main character in a movie who's setting, while being eccentric isn't a new one but creatively reinvigorated into something special.

Cinematic titles like Wreck it Ralph and Ready Player One are modern hits that have already explored the game world concept really well, along side the numerous fantasy Anime titles that's turned it into an entire division of fiction. Free Guy not only tells a fulfilling story exploring the fantasy of a game world, but blends it with compelling stories of the real world characters and delivers great comedy while interwining all the emotional and romantic content between the real/outside world and the game world.

Such a fun story was brought to full fruition with the help of its extraordinarily amazing visual quality and fantastic production values, and it's a visually stunning fun treat I'd honestly recommend to anyone.

4) THE POWER OF THE DOG

(September)

This Netflix production while being completely amazing and top quality in writing, is one I'd admit isn't for everyone. It has the sort of artistic story encoded with a lot of meaningful subtexts only cinematic elites would appreciate.

Telling a sort of unorthodox family drama story, The Power of The Dog fully embodies the themes of Isolation and Toxic masculinity as it carefully dissects it's characters in a deeply rooted narrative.

Benedict Cumberbatch brings an award worthy performance in playing a character forced to show different shades of emotion and affixes the character transitions masterfully. The plot development is a subtle one that absorbs you slowly with its seemingly innocuous and unimportant events that end up being very substantial, and the entire effort put into making the mood of every scene eccentric was fully realized and just amazing.

3) THE SUICIDE SQUAD

(August)

I've already previously reviewed this movie and highlighted all the reasons why I absolutely loved this movie and see it as not only a DC cinematic success, but pretty much the absolute best Action-Comedy movie this year.

A character-driven, explosively action packed narrative backed up by the tantalizing production quality, brought to full realization with its masterfully executed scenery in both it's gorgeous 18+ gorey violent displays and heartfelt character moments.

It still retains its position as the best comic book movie of the year, even with the recently released Shang Chi, at least until we get to see the Marvel blockbusters coming later this year.

It's certainly an extreme rollercoaster I'd recommend to anyone.

2) THE CARD COUNTER

(September)

Now to talk about the masterclass American crime drama written and produced by two legendary directors, Paul Schrader and Martin Scorcese respectively.

Just from knowing who these directors are, one could only expect perfection, especially in the realm of Crime-Drama, and that's exactly what was delivered.

A masterfully written stern narrative about William Tell, played by the Oscar winning Oscar Isaac, a former military interrogator turned proffesional gambler who got approached by a young man named Cirk to take down a certain military general. The story narration and progression in this movie were just phenomenal, depicting the underlying themes of Redemption and Moral Responsibility. Oscar Isaac's performance in this movie was definitely something to behold, playing a character who only tries to move forward but is still haunted by his past, perfectly capturing the mannerisms and emotions of a man struggling to break his own boundaries. Tiffany Haddish and the rest of the cast also did an amazing job, and I particularly loved the fact that as the story progresses in the present, glimpses of William's past were shown, hinting character development and building up to a fantastic climax that'll have anyone stunned. All these plausible elements all add up to make this movie unforgettable and undoubtedly one of the absolute best movies this year.

1) CODA

(August)

Talking about movies that completely blew me away, I would say the biggest surprise of recent in the world of cinema that completely swept me off my feet would be nothing else but the newest Apple TV+ Family Drama, Coda.

Apple TV+ after dominating the Tech world decided to venture into the world of cinema and since then has made their mark in the industry with TV hits like Emmy winning- Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, Dickinson, Servant as well as the newly released Foundation. Producing these TV shows are great feats, but they haven't done anything truly spectacular in the Movie industry, or at least that's what I thought until I encountered this movie.

All through the year I've never seen any movie that even comes close to being as thoughtful, emotionally resonant and captivating as this movie. Coda tells the coming of age story of a Ruby Rossi who faces the trials and tribulations of being born by deaf parents, having to support them in their business while venturing into her own ambitions in life. This movie perfectly establishes a dilemma that burdens our main character, trying to chase her dreams in becoming a singer and serve her parents at home in their family business, and watching her fail at both while desperately trying to succeed made this a particularly deep movie. Life was particularly hard for Ruby, and I not only got to see how hard it was for her but actually feel it in her dilemma. Family is the most important thing in the world. Many believe this, but imagine representing this idea when it's literally in the way of your future. Imagine having the talent of singing, a talent which requires you expressing yourself through your voice, but not being able to be heard and appreciated by your parents who mean the world to you due to their impaired hearing.This made this film immensely thematic and quite tragic.

But that wasn't all this movie delivered. What I found most spectacular about Coda was how it took a simple story and managed to showcase it in the highest possible quality through its captivating dialogues and conflicts, heartfelt moments of character reflections and wholesome moments of family love, all enhanced by the groundbreaking acting performances of the main cast.

Watching characters express themselves emotionally without voiced speeches and still getting immersed in it, one solid reason why I see Coda as the authentic, emotional, wholesome and phenomenal movie that it is. 

I absolutely see this as a contender for best movie of the year, at least before cinematic storm coming the 3 months left this year

And there you have it, these are my picks for the best movies of the past two months ranked and reviewed.

Among the notable movies of both months that didn't quite make the list, there's Don't Breathe 2 which was a huge step down from the first movie, Vivo which was a pretty unimpressive animated movie, and The Eyes of Tammy Faye which hasn't been digitally released yet. 

There's also Annette and Dear Evan Hansen , two musical dramas from both months respectfully which I couldn't get into due to the fact that I'm pretty much not a fan of musicals that aren't cinematically nuanced like The Greatest Showman.The rest of the movies from both months that weren't mentioned here were pretty much all useless.

Well that's a wrap guys, the month of October is here with its many upcoming hits and I'm honestly feeling hyped.

Pray for me not to experience writer's block so I can be back next month with a countdown for October movies.

Expect even more amazing cinematic reviews, recommendations and countdowns from me in the coming weeks.

I'll see you all soon!.