The 22 Best Movies of 2022 -Part 2

We’ve discussed #22 to 11 of the Best Movies of 2022. Now onto the Top Ten Movies of Year!
 
10. Top Gun: Maverick -written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie, directed by Joseph Kosinski

It’s almost like this year was a referendum on the current state of blockbuster cinema -where conventional superhero movies failed to leave an imprint after their opening weekend, yet the broader, more artistically inventive, or refreshingly earnest hits stuck around week after week with little in diminishing returns. And the first movie that made these waves was Top Gun: Maverick -perhaps the most surprisingly astounding mainstream hit of the year. Maverick is a throwback for sure to a very 80s and 90s sensibility of four-quadrant blockbuster -designed more around traditional entertainment values than particularly complex story or character beats -many characters are archetypes, the plot is fairly plain, and it works hard to be politically as neutral as its’ context makes possible. And yet it does have depth, it does have compelling arcs that can miraculously coexist with its’ straight-laced values. Tom Cruise for the first time gives a performance that reflects his age, as years of grief, regret, and guilt, even a slight uncertainty are palpable in his role as a dejected surrogate father figure. The movie is also exciting as all hell, the aerial stunt-work as thrilling as promised, and especially in a third act bristling with that fun tension Cruise and co-writer McQuarrie bring to the Mission: Impossible series. It properly introduced Glen Powell as a movie star and gave Jennifer Connelly an impeccable showcase of her still amazing screen charisma. It may be an old-fashioned kind of movie magic Top Gun: Maverick articulates, but it is not dead yet.

Top Gun: Maverick is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
 
9. The Fabelmans -written by Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner, directed by Steven Spielberg

I’m really loving this late stage renaissance Steven Spielberg is having. West Side Story was an instant classic, and now The Fabelmans, the semi-autobiographical story of his adolescence, proudly brings his career full circle. Unsurprisingly it is his most personal work, a movie in which he recollects the birth of his love of movies, his directorial ambitions, amidst a difficult family situation that culminated in his parents’ divorce. The power cinema had over him is profoundly expressed, but critically not without serious consideration at how it was his only means through which to filter the world -Spielberg is conscious of how it overtook his life and not entirely in a positive way. The Fabelmans stands as an enormous tribute to his parents as much if not more than to his relationship with the movies. His portrayal of them is so nuanced and thoughtful, illustrating the exercise in reconciliation that the movie is -he learns to understand them as much as we do. The movie is beautifully made, with some of Spielberg’s most interesting, artful choices in more than a decade. The headlight ballet is a new iconic moment of his filmography, and on that note Michelle Williams delivers exceptionally. But that’s not to discredit Paul Dano, Judd Hirsch, a thrilling David Lynch, and of course Gabriel LaBelle. A remarkable insight into one legendary filmmakers’ passions, that speaks to our own in revelatory ways.

The Fabelmans is currently in limited release, available to rent from iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and YouTube.
 
8. The Banshees of Inisherin -written and directed by Martin McDonagh

In a weird way, the sadness of this movie really grows on you. I liked The Banshees of Inisherin a lot out of TIFF, but thinking back on it over the months and seeing it again when it released more broadly is what inched it further up this list for me. Martin McDonagh has demonstrated before a knack for blending sardonic humour with thematic bleakness, but Banshees really stretches both to the utmost. It’s funnier than any of his other movies, and it just might also be his dourest. There’s just such a powerful dread that creeps through the movie alongside its’ light moments for the death of the friendship that begets the plot. Such a petty, arbitrary thing is extrapolated to a place of real guttural psychological isolation and existential despair. The whole situation is transcendentally solemn, every character carrying with them an unspoken misery. McDonagh’s script relates these extreme feelings with aplomb, but its’ the cast who give them their aching efficacy. Colin Farrell delivers his most empathetic performance with astounding force, Brendan Gleeson is phenomenal as always as his rival, and Kerry Condon makes for the perfect foil between the two. The conflict loosely analogues the Irish Civil War, but it has a universal dimension too. And as it compensates its’ melancholy with sharp comic beats and the gorgeous topography of the Aran Islands, The Banshees of Inisherin permits a broad unyielding reach of its’ searing humanity.

The Banshees of Inisherin is available to stream on Disney+.
 
7. Three Thousand Years of Longing -written by George Miller and Augusta Gore, directed by George Miller

I may never understand why more people didn’t consider George Miller’s astonishing and ambitious fantasy romantic epic among the great and exceptional movies of 2022. It blew me away in a way not even Top Gun, RRR, or Avatar managed; a breathtakingly vivid, structurally intrepid, openly sentimental story about an eon-spanning Djinn and the timid, intelligent woman who accidentally releases him. Drawn like a fairy tale playing out a series of cautionary tales involving wishes and love, though coming to its’ own not so cut and dry conclusion, the movie is a cornucopia of colourful imagery and fantastic stylish techniques. The cinematography is as sharp and elaborate as Mad Max: Fury Road, tangible and with a gentle sensuality pervasive throughout whole chapters, an enigmatic grace overhanging the movie like that of an ancient story book. Miller has loads of fun with the treasure trove such a premise would unleash, and he delves into some pretty bizarre corners, but never does it take away from the sincerity of the story and its’ driving attitude towards love and desire. The last part of the movie, which sets itself in the current timeline, fully accentuates those themes and the provocative conversation that had been taking place all through the Djinn’s other stories.  It is well intellectually earned, and both Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton commit wholeheartedly to these parts that so easily could have been killed by irony. Three Thousand Years of Longing is an incredible movie, destined to be remembered more than it was received.

Three Thousand Years of Longing is available to rent from iTunes and Amazon.
 
6. Crimes of the Future -written and directed by David Cronenberg

The ideas being grappled with at the core of Crimes of the Future, David Cronenberg’s long-awaited return to the body horror genre, continue to fascinate me immensely. The body in concert with the artificial, with technology, is a theme that he has explored several times before, but it seems to reach its’ apex here, in a movie that in both scope and style feels like a classic work of science-fiction speculation -in the vein of William Gibson or Philip K. Dick. It speaks with a certain unnerving objectivity to the future of micro-plastics and the evolution of the human body around artificial components, whether they be the conscious consumption of plastics or the technologically-assisted creation of new organs. The film is clearly born out of deliberations on the state of bioscience that fascinate Cronenberg deeply, and in conjuring a world around them he relates their provocative nature superbly. The film is foreboding but extraordinarily compelling. It’s also an exercise in how much can be done with so little, as even in just tiny glimpses with limited characters, the world feels present in a way much higher budget sci-fi movies often don’t. Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux are fantastic as the performance artists who make surgery a spectacle (and also “the new sex”) while Kristen Stewart gives one of her most eccentric turns. The conclusions it draws are tensely intriguing, I still think about the meaning of that final shot; and the creative direction and technology effects hearken back refreshingly to the likes of Videodrome and Naked Lunch. It may be Cronenberg’s best film.

Crimes of the Future is available to stream on Crave.
 
5. Aftersun -written and directed by Charlotte Wells

I can’t stop hearing “Under Pressure” and thinking of this movie. Aftersun might be the kind of film to overtake a popular song’s definition in one’s mind -though that’s just one of its’ many powers. Charlotte Wells’ magnificent debut  was the last movie of the year to truly floor me, with its’ quiet emotional power and stunning natural craft. The way it illustrates the finer points of memory and perception are perhaps unlike any other movie I’ve seen, as Wells  reaches into her own history to express a girl’s complex relationship to her father and how it has manifested through time. It’s subtle, this latter aspect, conveyed typically through half-intelligible strobe-lit montages that act as an erratic window into her mind. These are punctuations to a movie that more readily focuses on the Turkish vacation taken by father and daughter during a fraught period for them both, albeit for different reasons. She at eleven is experiencing the usual impulses of puberty and greater cognizance, while he at thirty deals with indefinable mental health issues. Wells compassionately fluctuates between the episodes as the young Sophie experiences them and how she understands them in maturity -not explaining those scenes where Calum is on his own lost in a kind of apathetic despair. Paul Mescal solidifies with this film his place among the great actor talents of his generation, emanating so much psychological, emotional profundity that by the films’ nature can’t be exorbitantly expressed. And Wells’ brilliant, sharp choices speak to a thrilling new filmmaking talent of a class all her own.

Aftersun is available to rent from iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and YouTube.
 
4. Tár -written and directed by Todd Field

So rarely these days do we get such a perfect marriage of actor and character as Cate Blanchett and Lydia Tár. Todd Field wrote the part specifically for her and wouldn’t have made the movie at all without her -and one can easily see why: Lydia Tár is so singular, so epic a character study that she can only be played by someone who could seriously be considered the greatest living film actress. Tár is a masterstroke of character drama, an intensely immersive fall from grace narrative that combines astute modern social commentary with gripping psychological complexity. Field manages to both place us in the mind of this acclaimed and accomplished virtuoso composer gradually experiencing the repercussions of sexual abuse revelations, and keep her at a distance. We see her through both a subjective and objective lens, her toxicity nigh undeniable by either. A hypnotic slow burn, beginning with a long interview scene in which a sense of her personality is first defined, the movie plays out with a kind of graceful dread as bit by bit Lydia’s world unravels, and her mask slips. No movie has better captured the trajectory of the public figure caught up in scandal, and no movie has more accurately encapsulated the look and feel of accountability culture as it plays out in the mainstream. Through it all, Blanchett delivers fervently on all cylinders, creating a portrait so intimate and real it’s exhilarating. Undoubtedly one of her career-best performances, in a movie that is boldly affronting and more than artistically engaging enough to sustain it.

Tár is available to rent from iTunes, Google Play, and YouTube.
 
3. After Yang -written and directed by Kogonada

A relic from early this year that most have forgotten about if they even saw at all is maybe the most inauspiciously entrancing science-fiction film in years. After Yang is only the second film from Kogonada, but like Charlotte Wells he already demonstrates an impeccable grasp of not only cinematic technique but his own interpretation of it. The film is lilting and atmospheric in spite of its’ weighty subject matter dealing with death and loneliness and the greater nuances of being human. It explores these things soberly through the memories of Yang, the posthumous android at the centre of the film, whose relationship with humanity and with his human family is far more layered than initially presumed. His preoccupations of course border on philosophy and existentialism, always captivating lenses for these stories on the virtues of sentience, but there are other things more ambiguous beyond the pale that Yang experiences. This film is a great mystery, as Colin Farrell (in another tremendous turn) and Jodie Turner-Smith seek to uncover the reason behind the vastness to the mind and memory of their robot “son”. Through Yang, Kogonada ushers forth new questions about the human experience and critiques the barriers that have been put up against its’ fullest potential. His world is vaguely dystopian, his characters, but for the little girl, seemingly detached from feeling -and there’s the fact of Yang’s Chinese design, the conversation of cultural appropriation, or fetishization, tied up in capitalistic product. All things birthed out of issues within our world, our connections to humanity. And After Yang more than any other film this year inspires a rediscovery of our own.

After Yang is available to stream on Crave.
 
2. Decision to Leave -written by Park Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-kyeong, directed by Park Chan-wook

No movie from 2022 is anywhere near as haunting as Decision to Leave by Park Chan-wook, a mystery-thriller-romance-psychological drama that is so intricate in substance and mesmerizing in imagery that it lingers with a power reserved for only the most exceptional of movies. Initially about a murdered immigrant man whose widow enigmatically bewitches the chief detective on the case, it evolves well beyond that into being one of the most intense and challenging films about obsession since Hitchcock’s masterpiece on the subject, Vertigo. But Decision to Leave is much more dense, and with each subversion, each revelation, frankly each  convolution, it only becomes more riveting. This is a movie to which the plot is less important than just about everything around it -Park even cuts it at the halfway point to present a new one. The characters and their motivations are so much more thrilling, Park Hae-il and Tang Wei playing with remarkable versatility these extremely complex and thoroughly unique protagonists, drawn to each other through an emotional, sexual thrill in spite of the danger and deceptiveness that colours their every interaction. They are each magnetic on screen and Park knows how to capture their distinct charisma perfectly in a modern yet classically evocative context. He directs the film with breathtaking confidence, his editing choices especially with regards to transitions so original and fluid, the way he illustrates technology so inventive. And his ending, a breathlessly driven sequence, is rendered with gorgeous compositions that accentuate its’ power and lasting emotional heft. Decision to Leave is the kind of the movie that yearns to be analyzed, Park himself encourages debate -and it’s made with such skill, consideration, and artfulness on every level that it fully earns the discourse.

Decision to Leave is available to stream on MUBI, to rent from iTunes.
 
1. Everything Everywhere All at Once -written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

It seems the easy pick this year. Weirdly, the populist pick. But I just couldn’t find it in myself to be in any way disillusioned by the sheer magnitude of excellence that is Everything Everywhere All at Once. Other movies this year may have had more coherent scripts, better direction, greater spectacle even, but no other movie can match this one for ingenuity, for ambition, for purpose, and for heart. Few can even match it for performances as Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan give at least two of the five best I’ve seen this year, with Stephanie Hsu a serious runner-up. This movies’ praises have been sung over and over again, its’ characters and themes and aesthetics and cultural importance have been discussed to the utmost; it’s the most surprising and cathartic success story of a movie all year. Therefore I won’t go too much into why it is so great -everybody has seen it by now and everybody knows. But I have to acknowledge the effect of this movie, one that could well make a difference on the cinematic landscape for the better. Everything Everywhere All at Once is the story of an immigrant family, the story of lost dreams and sacrifice, the story of generational trauma, and the story of emotional isolation. It is filtered through a highly elaborate and bizarre science-fiction premise, but that is ultimately a mere window for a story about the varied hardships of human experience, about the pain of getting through everyday life -and in some way it speaks to everyone. That is why it is so often so moving, it vocalizes and validates that pain, and yet it finds the comfort therein. I’ve heard its’ resolution called a ‘positive nihilism’. But I think its’ rather an anti-nihilism. Nothing matters so everything does. It’s a movie that never dismisses the misery that hangs over everything, everywhere, all the time, but it legitimately makes the case for making the most out of what we have in an organic, unprecedented, beautiful way. No movie that I can recall has made me laugh and cry in equal measure the way Everything Everywhere All at Once does -it really is the fullest kind of movie experience. What Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert accomplished with it we’re still just beginning to understand. I hope it does prove a watershed moment in cinema that some esteemed filmmakers are predicting. We could all use that joy.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

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