By Jon Kissel
In 2022, the last remaining shreds of pandemic-delayed movies trickled into theaters, otherwise known as places that might be destined for the bulldozer. Major chain Regal/Cinemark is in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings and AMC's stock price has returned to its pre-wallstreetbets lows. In my neck of the woods, Atlanta's beloved Regal Tara theater has closed, though the continued thriving of the independent Plaza theater is a bright spot thanks to a combination of expanded screens, repertory shows, and local partnerships. Compounding the concern for film is the looming collapse of streaming services thanks to increased borrowing costs and oversaturation. The days of a streamer throwing nine figures at an esteemed director seem to be ending as surely as they did for traditional studios.
All those bad omens haven't reached the movies themselves. The key takeaway from the biggest films of 2022 was the value of earnestness, as demonstrated onscreen and by box office returns. Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water both eschewed the tongue-in-cheek irony of the year's subpar-to-terrible MCU offerings, perhaps signaling the end of meaningless that-just-happened script punch-up that increasingly robs superhero pap of any emotional weight. Everything Everywhere All at Once spends its last act begging audiences for kindness, receiving ecstatic praise and breeding the kind of strident fandom that's allergic to kindness. While my favorites of a given year are always going to trend towards the dark and the cynical and the anti-earnest, it's notable how the year's biggest successes aimed less for messages and more for happiness, and not the kind that evaporates like a sugar high as soon as the lights go up. This year wasn't a great one in my estimation, but it does give me hope that stagnant creative trends might be reversing even as financial ones look more and more dire. As long as the French keep funding their genius auteur's pet projects, we should be ok.
In 2022, the last remaining shreds of pandemic-delayed movies trickled into theaters, otherwise known as places that might be destined for the bulldozer. Major chain Regal/Cinemark is in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings and AMC's stock price has returned to its pre-wallstreetbets lows. In my neck of the woods, Atlanta's beloved Regal Tara theater has closed, though the continued thriving of the independent Plaza theater is a bright spot thanks to a combination of expanded screens, repertory shows, and local partnerships. Compounding the concern for film is the looming collapse of streaming services thanks to increased borrowing costs and oversaturation. The days of a streamer throwing nine figures at an esteemed director seem to be ending as surely as they did for traditional studios.
All those bad omens haven't reached the movies themselves. The key takeaway from the biggest films of 2022 was the value of earnestness, as demonstrated onscreen and by box office returns. Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water both eschewed the tongue-in-cheek irony of the year's subpar-to-terrible MCU offerings, perhaps signaling the end of meaningless that-just-happened script punch-up that increasingly robs superhero pap of any emotional weight. Everything Everywhere All at Once spends its last act begging audiences for kindness, receiving ecstatic praise and breeding the kind of strident fandom that's allergic to kindness. While my favorites of a given year are always going to trend towards the dark and the cynical and the anti-earnest, it's notable how the year's biggest successes aimed less for messages and more for happiness, and not the kind that evaporates like a sugar high as soon as the lights go up. This year wasn't a great one in my estimation, but it does give me hope that stagnant creative trends might be reversing even as financial ones look more and more dire. As long as the French keep funding their genius auteur's pet projects, we should be ok.
20 |  You Won't Be Alone What Is It: A Macedonian folk horror film by way of Terrence Malick, You Won't Be Alone tracks a shape-shifter as she makes her way through half a dozen bodies in a rural community. Why's It Here: Goran Stolevski's debut film balances a level of childlike enchantment as the shape-shifter experiences life in a new body with the body horror of how the shape-shifter makes this process happen. It's incredible that he can pull it off at all, much less to the affecting degree that You Won't Be Alone succeeds at. MVP: Matthew Chuang's cinematography does a lot of the work of establishing the beauty of rural Macedonian life, though this isn't a film that shies away from its ugliness and brutality, supernatural or otherwise. Magic hour wheat threshing is a must when a director's got Malick on the brain. |
 Apollo 10 and 1/2: A Space Age Childhood What Is It: A Houston preteen gets drafted into the space program, but his daily existence is just as interesting as flying to the moon. Why's It Here: Richard Linklater is the king of finding meaning in the mediocre and the regular, and his semi-autobiographical Rotoscoped nostalgia trip is transporting as a jaunty kid film and as a historical document, loaded with lived-in detail from the dangerous yet comforting Texas suburbs. MVP: Linklater, finally returning to high quality output after a six year period that featured two prominent misfires. | 19 |
18 |  The Batman What Is It: The best live action representation of the Batman is brought to life by Matt Reeves, a director who brings a distinct visual style and something to say about the character and his world. Why's It Here: 2022 was Marvel's worst year yet, leaving an opening for rival DC to cement its place atop the superhero hierarchy. After 2021's excellent The Suicide Squad, The Batman reinforces that if superhero movies are going to have any value, they have to consider what their presence would mean in a world that resembles the real one. Reeves and his cast do exactly that, justifying their film's existence and putting it in a Fincher-esque package. MVP: Michael Giacchino's score sets the tone from the film's opening, pounding and building and battling between sad violins and angry horns that mirror the interior of the film's iconic central character. |
 Pearl What Is It: The prequel to Ti West's other 2022 horror film X, Pearl traces the origins of X's villain back to the WWII homefront, where the titular character longs to leave her farm and become a star. Why's It Here: More of a character study than X's traditional splatter-fest, Pearl gives Mia Goth a showcase that she makes a meal out of. She and West craft a total psychological profile of a woman desperate to break out of her constrictive life, and Goth claws at the scenery with a can't-look-away devolution into madness. MVP: Goth, leaving the viewer in stunned appreciation of her gonzo talents as she holds a deranged rictus grin behind the end credits. | 17 |
16 |  The Menu What Is It: An eat-the-rich satire that evolves into something more like a cult film, The Menu is last year's Pig with heaping portions of acid and salt. Why's It Here: Locating bad behavior in the patrons of a haute cuisine restaurant is easy. The Menu complicates things by extending the poison of the wealthy and the exclusive to those that cater to them. When everything can be bought, nothing is valuable. MVP: Nicholas Hoult turns in a sublimely slimy performance as a patron dedicated to Ralph Fiennes' master chef. The layers of his motivation unfold with delicious surprise, to say nothing of the chef's kiss that is his final destination. |
 Everything Everywhere All at Once What Is It: A delirious fantasia from the directors of Farty Boner Corpse (Swiss Army Man) brings life to the multiverse, far away from the machinations of a turgid comic book franchise begrudgingly mentioned earlier. Why's It Here: Everything Everywhere All at Once has been acclaimed by its most fervent fans as the frontrunner for the best film of the decade thus far, and if its big earnest emotional swings work on the viewer, that's an understandable argument. I found them too blunt by half, but there's so much else to chew on in an ambitious film that jumps between universes as smoothly as ketchup on hot dog fingers. MVP: Michelle Yeoh as the multiverse-traveling protagonist has been on a roll in recent years, and EEAAO provides her with a starring vehicle that stretches her considerable powers as far as they can go, which it turns out is a long way. | 15 |
14 |  Puss in Boots: The Last Wish What Is It: A sequel to a spinoff series, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish finds its titular character on the last of his nine lives and in pursuit of a magic star that could grant him more. Why's It Here: I'm as surprised as you are. The animated action style of Spiderverse and the dramatic style of Sergio Leone make the sixth film in the Shrek universe into a pure delight. This was watched with young nieces and nephews out of resignation that there was nothing better for them in theaters, and I left as the film's biggest fan in a group ranging from 5 to 12. MVP: A movie is working when even the naive unwanted sidekick character is compelling. Harvey Guillen's performance as a mangy pocket dog who follows around Puss is adorable instead of grating, as this kind of character almost always is. Crucially, the film knows when to make Guillen's motor-mouthed Perrito stop talking, a relief when the trend in movie comedy is to undercut every moment with a joke. |
 Official Competition What Is It: An eccentric director hires a strutting movie star and a cerebral celebrated actor for her latest film. Why's It Here: This is smart meta satire that doesn't necessarily say anything new about the pretensions of artists and actors but has a great deal of fun with itself. Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martinez play opposite Penelope Cruz in a delicious triumvirate of antagonism and one-upmanship. MVP: Banderas gives a fiery and almost sympathetic performance as a handsome lunk who doesn't have to try very hard to succeed, but is then prompted to out of a sense of competition with his costar. What results is very funny, and another showcase for an actor who's having one of the best stretches in his long career. | 13 |
12 |  Moonage Daydream What Is It: Despite being omnipresent on cameras and in interviews, David Bowie remains a mysterious figure in Brett Morgen's documentary of the British glam icon. Why's It Here: Overpowering in its use of imagery and Bowie's music, Moonage Daydream resists a linear retelling of its subject's life in exchange for a psychedelic dissection of Bowie's public persona and if a person who made himself so available was knowable at all. MVP: Morgen, pulling triple duty as writer, director, and editor, crafts the definitive cinematic volume of one of the 20th century's great artists, and one that seems like something that Bowie himself might've liked. |
 Barbarian What Is It: A twisty horror movie grows out of a simple misunderstanding when a young woman arrives at a double-booked AirBnB. Why's It Here: In a year celebrated for its expensive efforts to make theater-going vital again, it was the tiny-budgeted Barbarian that provided me with the most memorable experience. All the stereotypes of the bad movie patron were present in my screening, but director Zach Cregger played us all like fiddles. Cregger's expert audience manipulation even extends to the misty-eyed, a rare feat in this genre. MVP: Justin Long, showing up halfway through the film in its first of two major digressions and completely resetting what's come before with the year's best comedic performance. He embodies and embraces the 'don't go in there' obliviousness of horror characters like few others. | 11 |
10 |  Three Minutes: A Lengthening What Is It: Pre-WWII footage of a Polish village was captured by a visiting American, and the reels sat in storage for decades. The village would experience the death of 97% of its residents in the coming years, but the footage survives. Why's It Here: Bianca Stigter's first effort as a director is a landmark work of memory and history, merging the two into a profound piece of art. This is a completely different way to memorialize the victims of the Holocaust, made all the more painful by the way it leaves their humanity and dignity intact. MVP: Editor Katharina Wartena finds inventive ways to make a feature-length documentary that only consists of the titular three minutes avoid repetition. Some of that is the hypnotic power of the footage, and Wartena's spare but effective choices make the most of what she has. |
 Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery What Is It: Benoit Blanc returns for another whodunit, this time focused on the antics of a tech billionaire and his cadre of unlikely friends. Why's It Here: Rian Johnson's detective franchise can run in perpetuity if he keeps assembling casts of this caliber and finding new surprises in a genre that's been done to death. The year featured two other chamber mysteries and the brilliance of Glass Onion blasted them out of people's memories. MVP: Janelle Monae provides the heart of a film that's more affecting than its predecessor. Her performance as the outcast of the central group has to encompass a wide range and she succeeds anew as each distinct facet reveals itself. | 9 |
8 |  Crimes of the Future What Is It: In a heavily polluted future, humans have lost their ability to feel pain, and the cutting edge of culture has become performative surgeries. Why's It Here: David Cronenberg gloriously returns after a 7-year hiatus with another of his unique explorations of the body and human taboos. As bleak as his filmography is, and Crimes of the Future is no exception, they've rarely ended as transcendently as this one. MVP: The old master Cronenberg still has it. Borrowing pieces from earlier, venom-tipped films like eXistenZ and Videodrome, Cronenberg revisits past themes and somehow envisions them as redemptive and optimistic, two words that are antithetical to him but nevertheless apply to his best film since Eastern Promises. |
 Hit the Road What Is It: An Iranian family of four takes a long drive to a destination they're purposefully keeping hidden from their irrepressible youngest son. Why's It Here: Director Panah Panahi stakes his claim to the family filmmaking legacy with this achingly humanist film, firmly in the Iranian tradition of his father Jafar and greats like Asghar Farhadi and Abbas Kiarostami. MVP: Cinematographer Amin Jafari captures one of my favorite shots of the year, a faraway single take whose distance does nothing to soften the emotional wrecking ball happening onscreen. | 7 |
6 |  Tar What Is It: Annoyingly shorthanded as the cancel culture movie, Tar tracks a renowned conductor's triggering of all the land mines she's planted within her own life. Why's It Here: Todd Field has been out of directing since 2006 and he bursts back with what will probably be remembered as the objectively best film of the year. Technically immaculate, Tar becomes even more impressive when considering the total absence of boredom from its 158 minute runtime. MVP: It can only be Cate Blanchett, giving the performance of a career filled with greatness. Her Lydia Tar is focused and flinty and controlled at first glance, and Blanchett peels back her layers to the appetites and insecurities and fears within. |
 Marcel the Shell With Shoes On What Is It: A feature-length expansion of a series of adorable youtube shorts, Jenny Slate squeaks out the voice of a little shell in search of his family. Why's It Here: Marcel is this year's Paddington 2, an irresistible feat of nicecore filmmaking alongside a technical stop-motion achievement and a contemplative piece on occupying one tiny corner of a big world. MVP: Isabella Rossellini as Marcel's grandmother, weary and loving and poignant in a beautiful voice performance. | 5 |
4 |  Bones and All What Is It: A road trip adventure between two cannibals deeply in love with each other. Why's It Here: Luca Guadagnino is rapidly becoming one of my favorite directors with his fervently sensual horror movies. His follow-up to his Suspiria remake is grimy and gruesome, yet somehow features the year's best romance between stars Taylor Russell and Timothee Chalamet. MVP: As white-hot as the chemistry is between the two leads, Mark Rylance steals the film with his turn as one of cinema's great weirdos, a fellow cannibal who stalks the couple around the Midwest with a reedy voice and a long braid of hair in his satchel. |
 The Banshees of Inisherin What Is It: In this gloomy and wry Irish battle of wills between two old friends, different approaches to the second half of a life become irreconcilable. Why's It Here: Martin McDonagh makes his masterpiece with a film that embodies sadness and disappointment while never getting anywhere close to being the gray slog worthy of that kind of description. MVP: Colin Farrell is at his very best as a man who wants nothing more than pints at the pub and cuddles with his donkey, and cannot understand why other people don't feel the same way. | 3 |
2 |  The Northman What Is It: A brutal retelling of the Hamlet story in its Norse origins, The Northman stomps across Scandanavia in an animalistic frenzy. Why's It Here: It's the year's most bone-rattling cinematic experience, and will always be remembered as one of the last films I saw at the aforementioned dearly departed Tara Theater. The Regal app screwed up my ticket and the helpful clerks got me seated before the first rattling notes of the film's militaristic score. MVP: Robert Eggers, master of the immersive historical film, gets a bigger budget than he'll ever see again and puts every single dollar onto the screen. |
 Petite Maman What Is It: A young girl who just lost her grandmother translates her mother's grief into magical realism, zapping herself back in time to a period when her mother was the same age. Why's It Here: Petite Maman packs an incredible level of detail and emotion in its brief runtime, asking the viewer to consider the unknowability of their parents in the present and in the past while also being as flawless a depiction of kid behavior since another titan of French cinema, Francois Truffaut, was making 400 Blows. MVP: Writer/director Celine Sciamma cements her status as one of the world's premier filmmakers with this quiet follow-up to Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Second-prize goes to editor Julien Lacheray for a match cut worthy of Laurence of Arabia. | 1 |
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