Two notes before we get started. First off, there should always be a distinction between “favorite” and “best” movie. There are admittedly better-made, more “important” movies I’ve left off this list that just did not perfectly connect with or entertain me. I tried to strike a balance between technical achievement and my experience taking in the story for the first time. Secondly, everyone will always have blind spots every year. Mine for 2022 are Decision to Leave, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, and The Whale. Maybe they would’ve made it on this list! Who knows! Otherwise, I did my damnedest to watch as many bangers and duds from a decent year of movies. Onto the list!
Honorable Mentions: Till (Cinonye Chukwu); The Batman (Matt Reeves); Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron); Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (Richard Linklater); The Fabelmans (Steve Spielberg); Dual (Riley Stearns)
10. Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund): Writer/director Ruben Östlund’s previous movies have leaned heavily into discomfort and unnerving confrontation (Force Majeure; The Square), but his most recent outing struck the perfect balance of that intense discomfort and black, satirical comedy, especially as the story takes wildly unexpected turns. Triangle of Sadness features a wonderful international cast making a meal out of the precise skewering of social class and the simple, stupid, human ways we all crave attention.
9. Babylon (Damien Chazelle): I’m still trying to decide if Babylon‘s head-scratching ending is brilliant or a total mess, but even at an unnecessary three hours run-time, I’m in awe of such a wild—almost irresponsible—big swing from writer/director Damien Chazelle. As in his previous films like La La Land or Whiplash, Chazelle’s music background lends itself to his precise editing and timing of sequences, and his infusion of music into the narrative itself. The movie isn’t subtle; it really lays on the Old Hollywood romance and fully embraces Tinseltown’s gaudy, overbearing excess and extravagance in ways that will turn off a lot of viewers. But what connected with me were beautifully-executed sequences, Chazelle’s deft, confident direction, and a trio of captivating performances from Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Diego Calva. The film follows the rise and fall of several characters against the backdrop of Hollywood’s transition from silent to sound pictures, and Pitt in particular delivers a powerfully-understated performance as a man whose displacement in the world is slowly dawning on him. The overblown, overwhelming ride culminates in a bonkers finale: outside of this summer’s Barbarian, it’s the most joyfully-confounded I’ve felt all year at the movies.
8. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson): This is a zanier sequel to writer/director Rain Johnson’s 2019 whodunnit hit, Knives Out, and it’s no sophomore slump for Johnson or star Daniel Craig’s congenial gentleman sleuth, Benoit Blanc. Johnson and Craig smartly change up everything about this film to differentiate from Blanc’s first caper: swapping dead fall leaves for an exotic, sunny island, featuring a fresh cast of characters, and even embracing a wildly different story structure. It’s louder and more obtuse than Knives Out, but delivers on the same mixture of biting social commentary and a clever sendup of the many cliches that riddle the mystery genre—to satisfying, unexpected, and entertaining conclusions. A standing order for a new Benoit Blanc mystery every other year, please!
7. Armageddon Time (James Gray): A somewhat-autobiographical drama from James Gray (Ad Astra; The Lost City of Z), Armageddon Time‘s story of a young Jewish-American boy in early 1980s Queens hits many of the conventional coming-of-age story beats. What elevates the film is how honestly it captures flawed people and offers a clear-eyed look at privilege, prejudice, and the way the world can sharply reorient itself in your early teen years. Anchoring the film is newcomer Banks Repeta and strong performances by Jeremy Strong, Anne Hathaway, and a mesmerizing Anthony Hopkins.
6. RRR (S. S. Rajamouli): One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made all year was missing this in the theaters. An Indiana Teluga-language action epic about two real-life Indian revolutionaries in the 1920s, RRR is undeniable; the kind of bonkers epics where, after every sequence (action or dance), you think, “Surely the movie’s topped out with nowhere to go?” It’s bold, confident, beautiful, and stupefyingly over-the-top. Elements that may otherwise be audience impediments—a three-hour run time and predominantly subtitled—mean absolutely nothing as this brazen and defiantly-sincere story about friendship and loyalty runs you over. It’s incredible.
5. Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski): I wrote about how Top Gun: Maverick is the gold standard for blockbuster filmmaking. The elements are so simple on paper, but the execution is what makes this a thrilling spectacle. A legacy sequel to the 1986 cultural hit, Maverick features stunning action sequences with an emphasis and priority on the kind of in-cockpit, practical filmmaking that unnerves and excites you to your bones. In retrospect, every story set-up and pay-off should have seemed obvious, but the execution is so clean that it never becomes distracting or predictable, just an impressive economy of storytelling. While I was ready for outstanding set pieces, I was caught off-guard by how well the emotional through-line worked. We’re still dealing with broadly-drawn caricatures, but they’re played by performers with such charisma and talent. Everyone is so effortlessly-compelling to watch, especially Miles Teller and Glen Powell, but it’s still Tom Cruise’s show. For someone synonymous with anti-aging, the film capitalizes on Cruise’s year and the time passed between movies. These elements are central to his storyline and imbue actual weight and gravitas into the emotional scenes. Cruise and his co-stars play everything with such straight-faced earnestness, resulting in surprising amounts of dramatics and gut-punch, ‘Dad Movie’ catharsis.
4. After Yang (Kogonada): This is South Korean writer/director Kogonada’s second film following his 2017 debut Columbus—a similarly low-key and striking character drama—and clearly this is an artist to keep tabs on. After Yang continues Kogonada’s melancholic, rhythmic style, while expanding his storytelling scope. Even the premise of a futuristic family (led by Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith) attempting to repair their unresponsive robot child sounds mildly ridiculous on paper; but on screen is a rich, thoughtfully-paced meditation on life, love, reality, connection, and humanity that moved and stayed me with me all year.
3. Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniels): I wrote about how this science-fiction romp offers more than just another take on the film industry’s latest obsession (the multiverse!); it uses its high concept to explore deeply humanistic fears and presents a beautiful marriage between creative, bombastic sequences and earnest sentimentality. The storytelling is ambitious in scope, and maybe even teeters near the edge of becoming a convoluted mess, but what always keeps the film grounded in relatable emotion is the gravitas and charisma of its three leads (Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu). They are a joy to watch, and allow the film to deliver its simple thesis with such refreshing originality and singular voice that the reminder of obvious truths about kindness and connection land with profound significance. In our current, IP-driven, cinematic landscape, Everything Everywhere All At Once is a special, singular film that you owe to yourself to experience.
2. All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger): Based on the epic anti-war novel from 1929 (previously adapted into a 1930 Academy Award-winner), this is a bleak, necessary, and depressingly-relevant update nearly a century later. We follow a group of young, idealistic German soldiers in World War I, as their earnest enthusiasm to enlist is quickly overcome by the horrific reality of the trench and front lines, and they do their best to simply survive the chaos. It’s a brutal, grim, and unflinching experience from start to finish, an unrelenting reminder of the senseless brutalities and futility of war.
1. The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh): Writer/director Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; In Bruges) has become one of my favorite and most exciting filmmakers of the last 20 years. McDonagh’s lastest film is focused and smaller in scale, but the humanity and emotional stakes couldn’t be higher. One Tweet perfectly sums up the film: the banshees of inisherin asks the terrifying question of what if someone was mad at you. At times outrageous and darkly funny, the film is largely a two hander with incredible performances by Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell as the quarreling friends in question, but the dramatic heft is rounded out by Kerry Condon as Farrell’s exasperated sister and a nuanced and deeply effecting performance by the never-missing Barry Keoghan. On its surface, this is a farce about stubborn, neurotic, once-friends—and it doesn’t even need to be more than just that! But in the following weeks, McDonagh’s little tale has burrowed a little hole in my brain and refused to scoot, leaving me noodling on nuggets like legacy, kindness, fellowship, and what actually adds meaning to our lives. It’s the best kind of movie, where the absurdity of the characters is so amusing at first blush, that the deeper, poignant truths about humanity—and our silly little worlds and rules and codes—pack a wallop when they do land; at least they did for me. It’s brilliant and understated and I loved it.
