The Top Ten Films of 2022

Rant by Paul Preston

I’ve known since the mid-point of 2022 that Everything Everywhere All At Once and Top Gun: Maverick were going to make my top films of the year. But, as ever, a TON of movies were dropped at year’s end with about sixty days to see forty or so films. I call this “backloading” and it when it makes it tough for movie nuts like myself to see everything, it’s gotta be impossible for Joe Muggle to keep up. This may be a contributing factor to the Oscar telecast’s dwindling ratings – a collective, “What are these movies?”

I’ll be back with a full Oscars post-mortem tomorrow, but to set context on my mindset going in, here are my Top 10 Films of 2022:

OK, eleven…

11. WOMEN TALKING: One of the great acting ensembles of the year comes together to tell the story of women in a religious community banding together to form a plan to prevent further abuse at the hands of the community’s men. Mostly rape, because, men. Couple awful men with religion and this is certainly a potential byproduct and the women must decide whether to do nothing, stay and fight them, or leave. The top-tier talent pool includes Rooney Mara, Frances McDormand, and Ben Whishaw, but let me call out a couple more. Jessie Buckley is continuing a red-hot winning streak after The Lost Daughter and I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Claire Foy is us – she is US in the wake of these atrocities, spewing rightful hate at the men who deserve it, and Judith Ivey, who I saw in The Glass Menagerie at The Mark Taper Forum. She’s been working steadily in TV and it’s great to see her in a film where she really shines. There’s not much more to say about the plot, the title says it all. Credit to writer/director Sarah Polley (adapting a book) for directing without feeling we’re missing something, in that I never felt that the film needed to expand beyond the farm in which it takes place. The touch by director and writers is sublime in a must-see film for all MEN.

10. BROS: A neurotic podcast host with commitment problems meets a lawyer who likes to play the field, and also has commitment problems. But they give things a go…kind of. I always try and make room in my top ten for the funniest movie of the year (the other-end-of-the-comedy-spectrum movie, Jackass Forever, was also very funny, but that may be mostly because it was the first cinema comedy I’d seen in two years and laughing with an audience full of people was exciting to have again). But Bros was the last film where I thought I’d find myself crying. And yet… There’s something about the reverence Billy Eichner has for gay cinema while lampooning it that walks a delicate balance, and it just got to me. And, dammit, the love story is one of the sweetest things you’ll see on screen all year. The characters talk about what I’ve been saying about gay cinema for years – it’s just too damn sad. And while they’re talking about that, they are refreshingly delivering NOT that. The stories of repression and homophobia and violence need to be told, but is that it? I remember seeing a film called Becks at Outfest a number of years ago and that stood out as refreshing amongst the downer cinema around it and I think that film (see it if you can find it!) and this are great signposts on the road to inclusion because romantic comedy is a genre not explored enough in gay cinema. I think Bros is funnier and more widely appealing than Becks, but it was criminally underseen! So get to Peacock and check it out. The fake Hallmark woke movie titles and trailers as well as the exhibits in the LGBTQA+ History Museum are fall down funny. This is my favorite Nicholas Stoller movie yet.

9. ALLL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: Take Saving Private Ryan’s opening Normandy sequence and expand it to two and a half hours and you have All Quiet on the Western Front, a war epic so brutal it works wonders as an ANTI-war film. World War I from the German perspective yields so many interesting takes on the war movie I haven’t seen before, from the young Germans excited to defend the fatherland, to the despicable moves of the generals and German leadership whose careless choices fail to prevent the deaths of more soldiers. We mostly follow one soldier, Paul, who goes from one horror situation to another, encountering unique situations or familiar ones that are told with shocking authenticity by director Edward Berger. The war genre is feeling a little like the zombie genre these days – are there any new stories to tell? All Quiet on the Western Front’s answer is a dynamic YES.

8. SHE SAID: Have I mentioned yet that men can be real assholes? Oh, that’s right, I’ve already written about Women Talking. Well, here’s another asshole taking front and center in the figure of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. I love movies about the press. The press are badass modern-day heroes and whey they get maligned by running-scared bullies like Donald Trump, we need a movie like this to remind everyone how vital and essential they are. I’m not talking about talking head noise you’ll get in cable news. I’m talking about newspaper journalists who will vet their stories, research them to death and do everything they must to uncover the truth. Who better to front this with the resolve to bring serial rapist Harvey Weinstein down than Carey Mulligan, showing great strength as New York Times reporter Megan Twohey, who with Jodi Kantor (played by Zoe Kazan, who has the film’s best acting moment), launched the #MeToo era, ending the silence of those in the film and TV industry who were victims of sexual assault. Credit director Maria Schrader for bringing tension and suspense to a story we already know!

7. DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS: My girlfriend has done a fine job lately of breaking down films we’ve seen to core issues, and she says Marvel does this better than you’d expect from a major blockbuster franchise. With Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the core theme is “Are you happy?”. The multiverse has been inching its way into the MCU for a while now, and as much as the stories explore threats from other timelines (like in the finale of Spider-Man: No Way Home), this film explores the more interesting angle of using multiple universes as a way to find out if you’re happier in those universes. And if so, what will you do, how extreme will you act, to get there? And who will you hurt who may stand in your way? Despite the heaviness of that storyline (mostly beared by Scarlet Witch), what a ride! Director Sam Raimi and screenwriter Michael Waldron offer up a story that’s fun with visuals that are straight OUTSTANDING! Check yourself and be sure you’re not taking for granted just what a movie can do. If this movie underwhelms you, that’s on you. Victor Wong is the unsung hero here, he seems to have been the voice of reason for the last couple MCU films. Plus, he kicks ass. As the themes pile up – sacrifice, dreams as alternate universes, happiness – the film never forgets to deliver the action goods and does so with flair. Some of the best things about the film are spoiler-ridden, so I’ll wrap it here to say the risk to put a name director at the front of this film, not necessarily a Marvel move, pays off.

6. EMILY THE CRIMINAL: Emily, played by Aubrey Plaza, is working at a food delivery service. She’s an artist, but doesn’t have much time to pursue it as a career because: she needs money, is saddled with student loan debt (timely), is victimized by the gig economy, and is saddled with an aggravated assault charge that may not be because she’s a horrible person. Based on a friend’s recommendation, she attends a meeting where she could make some extra money – in one hour, you’ll earn $200. You’ll have to do something illegal, but you won’t get hurt and you won’t hurt anyone. Turns out it’s buying something with a stolen credit card that these criminals will no doubt re-sell. She starts getting used to the money and gets roped into buying bigger and bigger items, next thing you know, she’s the title. The frustration of a young person trying to do the right thing and losing the ability to do it due to the system is palpable here. She chews out someone offering her an unpaid internship and it’s a cheer moment. This is one of the tightest script of the year by John Patton Ford (in his feature debut!) – things build, things make sense one scene to the next, there is no fat. Plaza is a producer, and I wouldn’t be shocked if she saw this and wanted in immediately and became a producer just to ensure she’d play the part of Emily. I haven’t always been a fan of Plaza’s, but I think it’s a rare vulnerability that sits on her well here. I’m urged to compare it to something like Better Call Saul in its efficiency, although it’s made differently in terms of how it’s made – the handheld camera and slightly more kinetic style of filmmaking (NOT ADD-addled, though). There’s REAL danger here, and it’s plausible and, mostly, potent. Not watered down with any bad calls by the director. It’s serving film fans, not internet-addicted yahoos. This is one of the best films of the year, holds surprise after surprise and the ending is great!

5. MOONAGE DAYDREAM: This movie is outstanding! Is it a music video? Concert film? Lecture? Documentary? All those things? A whole new thing? That’s the experience here and no surprise when you’re dealing with David Bowie. Brett Morgen (Montage of Heck, The Kid Stays in the Picture) made this film, but it’s totally a piece of art Bowie would have made. His estate is behind the film and allowed never-before-seen footage to be used. I saw the film in IMAX. Bowie three stories tall is incredible and the audio is out of this world – MONTHS of mixing, apparently, and years of cutting, according to a friend of mine. Morgen’s the real deal, starting and finishing a project with equal passion. This doesn’t happen as often as you’d think as filmmakers concern themselves with being more of a brand than an artist. Morgen sweat and toiled over this movie to where it’s brilliant and at the same time indescribable. The overlaying of interviews, concert footage, random shots of whatever with dialogue, backstage stuff, Bowie just filming himself walking through the streets – all adds up to a cinematic experience that, no hyperbole, can change your idea of what a film can be. Great by product? Bowie comes off very likeable. I don’t think there’s anyone who would tell you, “Ah, the David Bowie was an asshole, right?”, but the glimpse into his artistic soul that you get here, as the film uses a seemingly endless supply of Bowie interview audio, is intoxicating. It covers every era, too, but not so linearly like a standard biopic of documentary – the gender-bending Starman, the ‘80s comeback kid, and the ‘90s Trent Reznor-influenced era. I never saw Bowie in concert, but now I feel like I have.

4.TOP GUN: MAVERICK: I thought that Top Gun was style over substance. For every one of Tom Cruise’s style-over-substance films of the ‘80s, he would always couple it with a “prestige” pic. For your Cocktail, he’d make Rain Man, for Days of Thunder, he’d make Born on the Fourth of July, etc. Before seeing Top Gun: Maverick, I watched Top Gun again and had a better appreciation for it. It is stuck in the ’80s at times in how glib it can be but the film turns around to really address grief more than some of the shallower flicks of the time (and Tony Scott looks like David Lean compared to some of the noisy action pics out there today). An older Tom Cruise combined with a current filmmaking period that’s more in tune with what would actually be important for a character like Maverick has cranked out an absolutely fantastic sequel that succeeds on all counts – funny, dramatic, emotional, exciting. The action plot is attack-the-Death-Star easy to follow that the film can just relax in, the movie may contain the acting scene of the year with Cruise and Val Kilmer brilliantly underplaying (that’s not been applauded enough) and a meta vibe that’s galvanizing. This sequel is trickier to make than you think. First of all, one-upping Tony Scott in the technical side of things should be do-able 36 years after the first film, but still…ain’t easy. Joseph Kosinski has done it with spectacular visuals and tense combat sequences and NO WAY should a scene with characters caught behind enemy lines work, and yet… Secondly, there are so many script trip-ups that could’ve done the movie in, from going over-nostalgia with the film or recapturing to a fault the original film. Instead, the character growth over time is embraced and the story branches out in new directions. Black Adam and films like it take note – it’s as easy as: CIA guys show up, Indiana Jones tell them how The Ark works, AND WE’RE OFF TO THE RACES. That’s how Maverick works, we have to do blah blah blah to win AND WE’RE OFF TO THE RACES. Now, let’s have fun within that, and let’s have fun with the last great movie star. It’s awesome.

3. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN: A brilliantly written enemies origin story. It’s time to start talking about Martin McDonagh’s winning streak – he hasn’t made a bad film, and I don’t think he will. He shows such extraordinary precision in his writing and miraculously directs with that same specificity. He’s a fantastic world-builder and there’s no doubt of place and time in this film. Also, I’m glad we’ve stopped taking Colin Farrell for granted and undervaluing him. Like Tom Cruise, he’s coupled prestige pics with crowd-pleasers for most of his career and we’re better for it (and so are the blockbusters – do we doubt the best part of the Fantastic Beasts movies?). Now, he seems to seek out the oddball project when he could be coasting. He’s been McCounaughssaincing his whole career, and don’t overlook the VARIETY he’s been bringing for years, which is also leagues above his looks (which could’ve sent him down a path of boring-only roles). Compare The Batman to The Gentlemen, or Saving Mr. Banks to Crazy Heart. He’s killing it and I’ve waited to long to enlighten everyone about the great work he’s doing because now everyone is going on about how great he is in Banshees. He’s awards tracking and rightfully so. I’ll re-use the word “complicated” to describe The Banshees of Inisherin as that’s what this tale is, rich with metaphor and deep feeling (I mean, you can’t fault Colm, but your heart breaks) and it all plays out in such an isolated place, that the loss is TRAGIC. My kingdom for every movie being director-driven.

2. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE: Everything Everywhere All At Once has such an out-there premise, the fact that The Daniels and their cast and crew stick the landing as confidently as they do is a damn miracle. Add the fact that this is a bold attempt at a multiverse movie when the MCU is having such success in the genre is all the more impressive. And the filmmakers really dive into the possibilities of multiple universes and the results are dramatic, goofy, romantic and action-packed. It’s quite literally a movie that has everything (bagel). And if you can’t root for the legend Michelle Yeoh getting the role of her lifetime and knocking it out of the park or Ke Huy Quan finally getting to show the incredible depth he has, you’re dead to me, and perhaps to doctors.

1. TÁR: A fascinating and blistering study of the most complicated character I may have ever seen in a film. Cate Blanchett delivers the performance of the year (across all four lead and supporting categories, in my opinion – of course, this whole post is in my opinion) as a power-tripping symphonic conductor who you love, hate, feel for, cheer on, and every other emotion in the book. She is no doubt brilliant, but she also abuses her power, potentially flirts with affairs but she seems to love her wife? Is the relationship with her assistant poisonous? Is she a monster, is she a victim? There are shades of cancel culture, shades of separating the art from the artist and an overall feeling of “is any of this even any of our business”? The best thing is that it’s not soft on any of these topics. I have talked about this film every day since I first saw it, and that was Dec. 27th. Todd Field’s writing and direction never take the easy or, often, the traveled-before-at-all path to tell this story. Mesmerizing.

THE WORST:
Black Adam – See the Top Gun: Maverick review above for one reason this movie fails. The other reason is the rest of the movie.
Elvis – Austin Butler is outstanding, but Baz Luhrmann brings the same technique to EVERY MOVIE, whether the story calls for it or not. He was the wrong guy for this one.
Day Shift – The ultimate straight-to-video awful movie when that’s not a thing anymore.
Blonde – Wanted to turn this off and it just…kept…going. Marilyn Monroe was NEVER happy? Ever?
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore – Franchises shouldn’t be this tired three movies in.
Jurassic World: Dominion – There are more ideas to explore with dinosaur movies, especially when they’re released across the globe. This film didn’t think of any of those ideas.