The Best Movies Of 2022

The Fabelmans. Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

2022 wasn't a great year for movies, although there were certainly some great ones I saw, but it was a year with a fair amount of good films. It's funny how themes of the year's best films often come together or become noticeable as you're compiling a list - and this year was no different. 

One film in my 10 runners up and four films in my top 10 (and there's a fifth that contains some elements as well) have to do with artists - three documentaries that deal with artists of different stripes, one film on how art helped a young man deal with life's challenges before he went on to become a great artist, and another that posed the question of whether an artist's work remains valid once it is discovered that they aren't such a great person.

As usual, there were a fair amount of very good movies that I liked but just didn't have room for in my top 20. This year's crop of ones that almost made the cut included Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Broker," Terence Davies' "Benediction," Chinonye Chukwu's "Till," Audrey Diwan's "Happening," Steven Soderbergh's "KIMI" and Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis."

There are also a few highly regarded movies that I have yet to see, but plan to eventually - including Sarah Polley's "Women Talking," Davy Chou's "Return to Seoul, Jafar Panahi's "No Bears" and S.S. Rajamouli's "RRR."

But for now, here are my 10 runners up (11-20) and my top 10 of 2022.

Ten Runners Up

20. Moonage Daydream (Brett Morgen) - This dazzling blend of sound and vision was less a straightforward bio documentary of the great David Bowie, and more an attempt to capture his essence. It succeeds in abundance. Reviewed here.

19. Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) - I didn't love this film as much as seemingly everyone else, but I admired its energy and creativity and believe it deserves a spot on this list. The performances are across the board strong - and I loved the talking rocks. Reviewed here.

18. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells) - Here's another one that I didn't love quite as much as others, but it's a film that I appreciated quite a bit after the fact. It's a subtle and affecting picture that comes into focus more and more after the credits roll. Reviewed here.

17. Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (Richard Linklater) - Linklater combines several of his favorite elements - the hangout picture, a great soundtrack, Rotoscope animation, memories from a past era - into this delightful film set against the backdrop of the moon landing. Reviewed here. 

16. Emily the Criminal (John Patton Ford) - Aubrey Plaza gives her finest performance to date in this indie wonder about a low-pay worker who gets into a life of crime to pay the bills. 

15. The Whale (Darren Aronofsky) - Brendan Fraser gives a remarkable comeback performance in Aronofsky's overwhelmingly sad chamber piece. Reviewed here.

14. Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski) - It's funny, I was never much of a fan of the original "Top Gun," but this sequel - which is significantly better - is not only the best blockbuster of recent years, but a welcome return to big budget action filmmaking that relies on star power. It has incredible camerawork and is lots of fun. Reviewed here.

13. Horror Movies: The Black Phone (Scott Derrickson), Watcher (Chloe Okuno, X (Ti West) - It was a very good year for horror movies, from Derrickson's powerful coming of age horror film "The Black Phone" and Okuno's icy and creepy "Watcher" to West's delightfully sleazy slasher/porn throwback "X." There were some others that also deserved mention, but these three were the best in a solid year for the genre. "The Black Phone" reviewed here. "X" reviewed here.

12. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg) - All hail the new flesh, indeed. Cronenberg's first movie in eight years was a disturbing and appropriately icky homage to his early body horror work. A fascinating take on the future of the human race's development. Reviewed here.

11. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier) - Some people had this on their best of the year list for the previous year. It didn't reach my neck of the woods until well into February. Trier's film is a dizzying romantic, fresh (in more ways than one) and achingly sad drama about amour fou and finding one's way. Reviewed here.

Top Ten

10. Holy Spider (Ali Abassi) - This gripping film chronicles how societal misogyny enabled a serial killer to prey on sex workers in Iran in the early 2000s. Deeply unsettling and sure to provoke anger, the film couldn't be more timely considering recent protests in Iran revolving around the behavior of its morality police. Reviewed here.

9. Fire of Love (Sara Dosa) - This stunning documentary combines a mesmerizing blend of archival footage and photography captured by French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. Some of the video footage taken by the duo is unlike anything you've ever seen. Reviewed here.

8. Cha Cha Real Smooth (Cooper Raiff) - Some reviewers had a hard time with Raiff's film due to his portrayal of its overly earnest lead character. But this is a funny and lovely coming of age film that feels like the cinematic equivalent of a hug. Reviewed here.

7. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras) - Another captivating documentary in a year full of them. This one chronicles the groundbreaking photographic work and dedicated activism of Nan Goldin. The film combines her personal history with her protests against the Sackler family and her decades of unique photographic work into one powerful and fascinating package. Reviewed here.

6. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski) - The great Polish director has decades of terrific filmmaking under his belt, but he might have made his best at age 87 with this sad and visually and sonically entrancing riff on "Au Hasard Balthazar." This is a film that invites you to see the world through a different pair of eyes - in this case, a wandering donkey. Reviewed here.

5. Petite Maman (Celine Sciamma) - Clocking in at just over an hour, this little film is a lovely fantasy in which a young girl comes face to face with death (of a loved one) and loneliness, that is, until she makes an unexpected friend. Such a lovely film. Reviewed here.

4. Armageddon Time (James Grey) - The past few years have been loaded with memoir films from great directors (most of them very good), but while they have mostly been warm remembrances of things past, Grey's semi-autobiographical picture is a mournful saga about the evils of complicity. Reviewed here.

3. The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh) - McDonagh's latest could be called bleak if it weren't so damn funny. Set against the backdrop of the Irish civil war, the film focuses on isolation, despair, mortality, and the virtues - or lack thereof - of being nice. Reviewed here.

2. TAR (Todd Field) - Here's a film that deserves a thesis, not a blurb, but Field's third feature is a stunning tour de force that poses the question of whether the reputation of an artist's work should withstand said artist's bad behavior. Yes, "TAR" tackles cancel culture, but rather than taking a side for or against conductor Lydia Tar, it uncomfortably forces the moviegoer to examine their own views on the matter. Cate Blanchett gives what is easily the year's best performance. Reviewed here.

1. The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg) - The divorce of Spielberg's parents was the breakup that launched many a classic (its influence can be seen on everything from "E.T. the Extra Terrestrial" to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"), but he tackles it head on in this exceptional memoir film. Less an ode to the magic of the movies (there have been a few too many of those in recent years), "The Fabelmans" is more about how a young man distraught by his parents' divorce and bullied by anti-Semites at school learned how to take a passion - in this case, moviemaking - and use it as a weapon to humiliate enemies, an obsession that can be used to impose control over a life lacking such a thing, and a means of escape to a world where pain can be channeled into artistic expression. This is one of Spielberg's best films in years - and probably his best of the 21st century. And in case you haven't heard, it has a cameo for the ages. Reviewed here.