With anno domini 2022 dead and buried, it’s time to take a look at some of the best that the (frankly very solid) year had to offer at the multiplex. Obviously this list isn’t comprehensive, but it is correct. Deal with it.
A few I haven’t gotten around to at the time of this writing: RRR, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Eternal Daughter, Turning Red, Women Talking, Decision to Leave, Triangle of Sadness, She Said, Bones and All
A few honorable mentions: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Blonde, Kimi, Memoria, Emily the Criminal
10. Barbarian
Zach Cregger, best known as a comedian formerly of The Whitest Kids U’ Know, came out swinging with his directorial debut, the wildly ambitious and unpredictable Barbarian. Lean and mean, heavy on both scares and laughs, Cregger’s film consistently zigs when you expect it to zag, from the meta casting of Pennywise himself, It‘s Bill Skarsgard, as a good guy (who even insists “I’m not a monster”) to the counterintuitive casting of Justin Long as a creep who get his just desserts. Far stranger and more nuanced than the creepy house movie the trailers promised, Barbarian jumps in both time and place, taking the danger of being a woman to grotesque extremes. Skarsgard and Long shine, but the show belongs to Georgina Campbell (and a marvelously creepy Richard Brake). She – along with Cregger – is a massive talent, one to watch out for.
It’s here I should note that 2022 was a remarkable year for horror on its own. (I almost put “Horror” itself on this list, but it felt like a cop-out, so I went with the film that most surprised and impressd me.) Beyond Barbarian, original horror dominated the conversation, namely films like Smile, Fall, Men, Crimes of the Future, X, Pearl, Deadstream, Watcher, Bodies Bodies Bodies, The Black Phone, Fresh, and Resurrection, to say nothing of solid legacy horror installments like Scream, Prey, and Netflix’s surprisingly not awful Texas Chainsaw Massacre (sue me, I didn’t hate it). And that’s not even getting to the movies I haven’t gotten to yet, like A Wounded Fawn and Terrifier 2. If 2022 is any kind of a blueprint for this year, us horror lovers are in for a goddamn buffet.
9. Everything Everywhere All At Once
This poor movie is about to become a victim of The Discourse, and if it wins Best Picture – and make no mistake, there’s a nonzero chance that it will – it will be resigned at best to the ranks of CODA (a perfectly fine film with no business winning the big trophy) or at worst to the ranks of Crash and Green Book, two risible movies that might be looked better upon were it not for their Oscar triumph. It’s a shame, because the latest by, sigh, the Daniels is something close to miraculous. Visually stunning and conceptually bold, featuring bravura performances from Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All At Once was 2022’s best multiverse movie in that it actually bothered to explore the multiverse. Sure, there were some parts where the film was impressed by its own randomness, but if two googly-eyed rocks can have a silent conversation that moves me to tears, that makes for a pretty special movie.
8. Top Gun: Maverick
Has there ever been a better movie star than Tom Cruise? I don’t mean actor (although the man is severely underrated). I mean someone who’s so dedicated to the big-screen experience that he will continually risk life and limb just to put asses in seats and smiles on faces (remember, you can see this lunatic’s ankle break in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation). There’s no earthly reason for Top Gun: Maverick to be as good as it is, but it was maybe the best time I had at the theater in 2022. Joseph Kosinski’s legacy sequel far surpasses Tony Scott’s original, giving Cruise’s Maverick a swan song (and an age-appropriate love interest!) while showcasing some of Hollywood’s brightest rising stars like Miles Teller and Glen Powell. If Top Gun: Maverick came out shortly after the first installment, we’d be saying, “They don’t make ’em like that anymore.” Here’s proof that they do.
7. The Northman
Robert Eggers might be one of cinema’s greatest living sorcerers, in the way he is able to bind you to whatever story he tells, in whatever setting he chooses. The Northman, his Viking take on Hamlet, is simultaneously his most accessible and most ambitious film to date. Taking Norse mythology and treating it with the solemnity of those who practice it, Eggers has created a fable about building a legacy, a tragedy about the lies inherent in every family, and an absolute banger of an action movie. Alexander Skarsgard is downright feral as the exiled prince Amleth – you can’t take your eyes off of him, for fear that he’ll leap off the screen and get you. Add in the brutal battle and beautiful cinematography, topped with a hall-of-fame villain monologue from Nicole Kidman, and Eggers has made another contemporary classic.
6. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Rian Johnson’s burgeoning series of whodunits are remarkable in that they manage to be crowd-pleasing, endlessly quotable comfort movies, while doing little to disguise the beating heart and pulsing brain at their center. Daniel Craig shines among a murderer’s row of actors (Norton! Hudon! Bautista! Hahn! Monae!), and his joyful performance is a wonder to behold after watching him force himself through subsequent James Bond installments. The mystery at Glass Onion‘s core is hardly the most important part of Johnson’s film, as the whole thing sings and shines around it. Johnson could make a hundred of these and I wouldn’t get tired of them.
5. The Banshess of Inisherin
Martin McDonagh returns to fine form after the uneven Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri with The Banshees of Inisherin, his pitch-black, heartbreaking look at the Irish Civil War, told through the lens of two friends having a falling out. To give away too much would spoil the film, but suffice it to say that Banshees boasts McDonagh’s funniest dialogue since In Bruges, and features fantastic, lived-in performances not only by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, but by its supporting actors like Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan. Farrell in particular is at the top of his game here. If there were any doubt that he is a massive, generational talent, let Banshees cast it aside. The man is a wonder.
4. The Fabelmans
Steven Spielberg’s shockingly intimate look at his own life flies in the face of what you’d expect from America’s preeminent storyteller. The Fabelmans is not at all about “the magic of cinema”; rather, it’s about the loneliness of being an artist, of being so wrapped up in telling visual stories that the only way you can process trauma or grief is by imagining it as a film. Sammy Fabelman’s existence is a profoundly lonely one, and because of that The Fabelmans is less a portrait of a young Spielberg than it is a cautionary tale for all aspiring artists: you can do this, the film says, if you do nothing else. Gabby LaValle excels as Sammy, to say nothing of Seth Rogen’s terrific turn as a family friend, or the showstopping, one-scene performances from Judd Hirsch and David Lynch. One year after making West Side Story, one of his greatest crowd pleasers, Spielberg pulls back the curtain to show the emotional toll it takes. The last scene of The Fabelmans is one of the best of his career – it’s that good.
3. Aftersun
Scottish short-filmmaker Charlotte Wells exploded out of the gate with her achingly melancholy debut, Aftersun. Elliptical and fragmentary, the film follows a father and daughter on a holiday in Turkey, and asks profound questions in a seemingly casual way: how well can we possibly know each other? How close is family, really? Normal People‘s Paul Mescal stuns as Calum, the father, and newcomer Frankie Corio delivers a star-making performance as Sophie, the daughter. Their chemistry is effortless and lived-in, and through them Aftersun takes on the disproportionate weight of dreams and memories. It’s a film you won’t soon forget, from a bold, promising new voice. Beyond that, it has one of the best Queen needle drops in any movie, period.
2. Tar
Todd Field, director of In the Bedroom and Little Children, returned to theaters for the first time in 16 years with Tar, a blistering portrait of the ever-changing politics of power, told more like a ghost story than like a polemic about cancel culture. Cate Blanchett delivers the most powerful, nuanced performance of her career, which is saying a lot considering she’s arguably our best living actress. Tar earns everyone of its 158 minutes, and through Field’s stately direction and Blanchett’s commanding yet vanity-free performance, the film doesn’t feel as long as it is. Like a symphony conducted by the title character, Field’s film reveals itself slowly, showing unseen layers and inviting deep introspection and consideration.
1. Nope
This is it – more than Get Out, more than Us, Nope is the film that cements Jordan Peele as one of the best living American directors. Peele edges into Spielberg blockbuster territory with his biggest (and best) film, which doubles as high spectacle and a withering critique on the American need to turn every tragedy into the same. Daniel Kaluuya is predictably terrific as the taciturn OJ, but the film belongs to Keke Palmer, rocketing into stardom after a youth spent as a child actress (to say nothing of scene-stealing performances from Steven Yuen, Brandon Perea, and Michael Wincott). Nope features not only the most unique creature design in years, but also the scariest scene Peele has ever directed. If this is any indication of what we can expect from Peele in the future, he has the potential to become one of the all-time greats.
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