2022 was a year of big beautiful change in my word, namely in the form of the arrival of my daughter Minnie. Needless to say, the year brought more baby watching and less movie watching. So there is a lot that I missed and hope to catch soon. Of what I did check out: I liked a lot of the movies I saw, but didn’t find my world thoroughly rocked by all that many of them. In a year of filmmakers taking big swings, here’s what connected for me.
(Letterboxd version of this list here)
My favorite film of 2022:
TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, Ruben Östlund
Here’s the rest of the Top 25, in alphabetical order:
ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED, Laura Poitras
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER, James Cameron
THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN, Martin McDonagh
THE BATMAN, Matt Reeves
BLONDE, Andrew Dominik
BONES AND ALL, Luca Guadagnino
CONFESS, FLETCH, Greg Mottola
DINNER IN AMERICA, Adam Rehmeier
EMILY THE CRIMINAL, John Patton Ford
THE FABELMANS, Steven Spielberg
FIRE OF LOVE, Sara Dosa
HOLY SPIDER, Ali Abbasi
JACKASS FOREVER, Jeff Tremaine
MAD GOD, Phil Tippett
MEMORIA, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
MURINA, Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović
THE NORTHMAN, Robert Eggers
RESURRECTION, Andrew Semans
RETURN TO SEOUL, Davy Chou
SHE SAID, Maria Schrader
SPEAK NO EVIL, Christian Tafdrup
TÁR, Todd Field
THIRTEEN LIVES, Ron Howard
THE VIEWING, Panos Cosmatos
I also enjoyed:
After Yang, Aftersun, Amsterdam, Athena, Corsage, Crimes of the Future, Decision to Leave, EO, Elvis, The Eternal Daughter, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Fire Island, Flux Gourmet, Fresh, Funny Pages, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Girl Picture, Kimi, A Love Song, The Menu, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Nope, Petite Maman, Sundown, Three Thousand Years of Longing, To Leslie, Top Gun: Maverick, Vortex, Watcher, You Won’t Be Alone
And these documentaries:
The Janes, Moonage Daydream, Navalny, The Princess, Sr., This Much I Know to be True, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
Memorable performances worth noting:
MVP: Colin Farrell (After Yang, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Batman, Thirteen Lives)
Duo: Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth as Margaret and David in Resurrection
Ensembles: The Northman, She Said, Speak No Evil, Thirteen Lives
Individual performances:
Zlatko Burić as Dimitry in Triangle of Sadness
Hong Chau as Elsa in The Menu
Don Cheadle as Murray in White Noise
Gwendoline Christie as Jan Stevens in Flux Gourmet
Frankie Corio as Sophie in Aftersun
Paul Dano as Edward Nashton/The Riddler in The Batman
Ana de Armas as Norma Jeane in Blonde
Dolly de Leon as Abigail in Triangle of Sadness
Zar Amir Ebrahimi as Rahimi in Holy Spider
Marcia Gay Harden as Countess Sylvia de Grassi in Confess, Fletch
Judd Hirsch as Uncle Boris in The Fabelmans
Stephanie Hsu as Joy Wang/Jobu Topeka in Everything Everywhere All at Once
Barry Keoghan as Dominic Kearney in The Banshees of Inisherin
Vicky Krieps as Empress Elisabeth in Corsage
François’s Lebrun as Elle in Vortex
David Lynch as John Ford in The Fabelmans
Matthew Maher as Wallace in Funny Pages
Terry Notary as Gordy in Nope
Park Ji-Min as Freddie in Return to Seoul
Andrea Riseborough as Leslie in To Leslie
Matt Rogers as Luke in Fire Island
Theo Rossi as Youcef in Emily the Criminal
Taylor Russell as Maren Yearly in Bones and All
Mark Rylance as Sully in Bones and All
Tilda Swinton as Julie Hart and Rosalind Hart in The Eternal Daughter
Peter Weller as Lionel Lassiter in The Viewing
That’s all folks!
