The Twelve Best Movies of 2022
In 2022, I decided to keep a running count of all the new releases I saw throughout the year. The grand total of feature films on that list was 182 movies long, which sounds like a lot, but I was curious about the precise math. After careful elementary school-level calculations, it turned out that I only watched one movie every 2.005494505494505 days. This figure, at first, seemed low, until I realized there was a simple factor I hadn’t worked into the equation: all the movies I watched that weren’t new releases. I guess my findings will have to remain forever suspect. Oh well.
Anyway, on to 2023. But before we do that, here are a dozen movies I loved from the year that was 2022.
12. Triangle of Sadness
Östlund escalates his plot and themes so slowly and methodically that, even though you know something extraordinary is bound to eventually happen, what that may be and how it’s executed will still hit like a disgusting ton of bricks, despite all the clues left in plain sight. And even if you’re clever enough to see exactly what’s coming, you still won’t be prepared for the extent of it, I promise. READ THE FULL REVIEW
11. The Banshees of Inisherin
Drawing reference back to the civil war raging across the water, both men would rather destroy what’s best about themselves and the place they call home than come to any sort of compromise that might benefit themselves or their community. READ THE FULL REVIEW
10. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
Harari immerses us so deeply in this unique situation that it becomes easy to understand the extremely unsound, yet often darkly comedic, rationale that keeps these men hidden. Are they insane? By sensible measurements taken from a place of comfort and privilege, perhaps. But once inside Onoda and Kinshichi’s heads, that assertion becomes increasingly suspect. READ THE FULL REVIEW
9. The Innocents
The Innocents may appear tiny when placed against the budgets and returns of its franchised peers, but I assure you, it is a towering giant when it comes to anything and everything that actually matters in artistic and emotional expression. READ THE FULL REVIEW
8. Until the Wheels Fall Off
Until the Wheels Fall Off is as much about the philosophy of skateboarding – the “why” of it – as it is a remembrance of days past. Hearing legends like Rodney Mullen, Christian Hosoi, Steve Caballero, Stacy Peralta, Duane Peters, and especially Lance Mountain emotionally describe what skateboarding means to them, and why they can never stop, regardless of their age and broken bodies (they’re all pushing sixty), is unbelievably inspiring. READ THE FULL REVIEW
7. Broker
Legality and morality are not mutually exclusive, and Broker blurs the line between the two with the kind of heart and soul that very few directors can successfully pull off. READ THE FULL REVIEW
6. No Bears
This circulating feedback loop of “art imitating life imitating art,” and so on, cannot sustain itself forever, and when it finally comes to an abrupt halt, its brief aftermath is one of the most ethically and emotionally pensive cinematic moments I’ve seen in some time. READ THE FULL REVIEW
5. The Fabelmans
The Fabelmans is yet another example of the veteran director’s mastery as a storyteller and filmmaker, and proves beyond doubt that when he’s at his most intimate and impassioned, he simply cannot be stopped. READ THE FULL REVIEW
4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
It’s very easy for sci-fi films to bog themselves down with overworked exposition, but Daniels don’t insult us with the science — they just use it to advance what’s essentially a very well-developed family drama and midlife crisis story, which only happens to take place amidst a bonkers multiverse. READ THE FULL REVIEW
3. Men
Men goes through a number of changes during its runtime — from the grounded story of a woman’s grief and guilt, to an increasingly terrorized siege drama a la Straw Dogs, and finally into the shocking realm of E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten and Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man. READ THE FULL REVIEW
2. Mad God
Somehow, Tippet has tapped into the collective unconscious of everyone who’s ever felt the world spiraling out of control, and visually depicted what that might look like if the human brain could project an image onto a screen. READ THE FULL REVIEW
1. All Quiet on the Western Front
With crushing acuity, All Quiet on the Western Front rejects the adulation of success seen in American war pictures in favor of the type of depressing verisimilitude only found in the collective memory of a conquered continent. READ THE FULL REVIEW
