2022 was one of the best years for film I’ve been alive for. Especially after a particularly dry 2020 and 2021, we were all blessed with how much art we bore witness to this year. This list contains everything from billion dollar blockbuster behemoths, to meditative dramas, and everything in between. I hope you enjoy it!
Honorable Mentions:
The Northman; GDT’s Pinnochio; ELVIS; Jackass Forever; X; Decision To Leave
15: AMBULANCE (Dir. Michael Bay)
“Yeah... I AM the ambulance…”
This might be the craziest movie to crack my top 15 but I’ve loved Ambulance ever since I saw it back in February. Michael Bay is a director who gives audiences exactly what they want. There’s nothing deeply analytical to say here – Ambulance is just a ridiculously good time. Amazing action set-pieces, swooping drone shots, an easy-to-follow thriller with real stakes. Movies like Ambulance showcase how tired action thrillers have gotten, especially franchises like Fast & Furious. Even ‘formulaic’ stories can wow you if they’re made with intention.
AVAILABLE ON HBO MAX.
14: THE BATMAN (Dir. Matt Reeves)
“I’m vengeance”
Sure, this is a Batman movie, but more importantly, it’s a gripping, dark, neo-noir, serial killer mystery. Maybe it’s a sad state of the industry that directors like Reeves only get their full artistic license when their ideas are attached to a franchise character like Batman. But Reeves doesn’t let the expectations of the character stop him from making a good movie first. There’s loads that makes this possible – he brings the panels of a comic book to life, painting Gotham and its dwellers as a gritty and horrific urban landscape. We’re right there with Robert Pattinson’s Batman as he seeks to make sense of it all.
AVAILABLE ON HBO MAX
13: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Dir. Edward Berger)
What is a soldier without war?
I’m not the biggest war movie guy,I think it’s rare that they can successfully thread all the necessary lines. Showcase the horrors without being gratuitous about it. Display the fervor underlying soldiers without glorifying it all. Balance the mundanity of war with its ever present dread. Present meaningful characters without falling into tropes of heroic saviors. Most movies invariably fall one way or the other along these – All Quiet on the Western Front does not. One of my favorite war movies I’ve seen in a long time, this movie is all about beauty scarred by warfare, both the pristine natural beauty of Europe and the youthful innocence of its teen soldiers.
AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX
12: BABYLON (Dir. Damien Chazelle)
“It's written in the stars, I am a star.”
Babylon is a tale of two movies. Simultaneously a love-letter to Hollywood and a horrifying portrayal of how spectacle corrupts. The latter, what I believe is the heart of the movie, makes Babylon shine. Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land) is no stranger to stories about our dreams for greatness. In the quest to become a larger-than-life figure, how willing are we to give up our humanity? When Babylon chooses to focus on this question, it tells a heartbreaking story of characters you can’t help but root for. Chazelle paints a love of spectacle as an addiction that strips us of our humanity. But Chazelle, himself a victim of the very story he tells, succumbs to his worst influences as well. Still, I’d follow him till the ends of the Earth – Babylon really worked for me.
11: AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (Dir. James Cameron)
“The way of water has no beginning and no end.”
In a period where blockbusters are defined by their cheap thrills, exhilarating experiences that fade from your memory just as quickly as they entered, spectacle without heart, Avatar is a remarkable work of fiction. VFX certainly make this movie what it is – its narrative and themes are not high art – but I don’t mean to reduce Avatar to just a visual spectacle. Instead, Avatar stands as a promise of what cinema is capable of. In a world where we can generate anything on the screen, why do we consistently accept hollow illusions that barely scratch the surface of what’s possible? Is a superhero on a green-screened background with a suit that looks shoddily added on satisfactory? James Cameron brings modernity back to the theaters, showing us what’s truly possible if we push for it. Avatar is a reminder not to settle for cheap thrills, it’s a promise of what’s to come.
10: TRIANGLE OF SADNESS (Dir. Ruben Östlund)
“[picking up a live grenade] I say, Winston, I believe this is one of ours.”
How do I begin to describe Triangle of Sadness? Above all as a series of contradictions – a stinging critique of the ultra-wealthy in all their capacity, the nouveau influencer rich to the ‘old money’ elite, but still a movie that won first prize at the most prestigious (and elite) film festival of the year. If anything, though, the successes of Triangle of Sadness are just another example of its central message. A satirical comedy about the excesses and indulgences of the elite, Östlund presents a class of citizens whose faux-intellectualism and positions of critique comfortably leave them out of the scope of change. Part of the tradition of other art this year like The Menu and White Lotus, but without insisting upon itself. Triangle of Sadness is subtle by comparison, laugh-out-loud funny but more absurd than anything else.
9: BARBARIAN (Dir. Zach Cregger)
“Do I look like some kind of monster?”
Two horror movies on my list this year is not something I would’ve expected. We often think about film (and art in general) as a medium to elicit emotion. If that’s the case, then Barbarian certainly brought out the most elemental in me. True, deep-seated fear, a film where I nearly left the theater and only stayed behind out of a connection to the central character. Barbarian is smart horror – it knows exactly what we expect, leading us on to exactly that endpoint, and rug-pulling you just when you least expect it. Over, and over, and over again. And in doing so, it becomes a movie unlike any I’d ever seen. A ridiculously fresh take on the age-old question – what’s hiding in the basement?
AVAILABLE ON HBO MAX
8: TOP GUN: MAVERICK (Dir. Joseph Kosinski)
“You think up there, you're dead, believe me.”
In a period of movies so dependent on big budget franchises, rehashing old movies instead of creating original work, and sequels to stories long-since dead, Top Gun: Maverick was poised to be an egregious example of all things wrong with Hollywood. And how wrong we were. Plenty of people have talked about how good this movie is as an action blockbuster, how tight the plot is, its riveting and exciting fights, its life-or-death stakes. But what still sticks with me is how Tom Cruise grapples with his own legacy as an action star in this movie. The sun is setting on his career; not just him, but the larger-than-life movie stars of his era. What does that mean for the world he loves and helped shape? In any case, his sun clearly hasn’t set yet.
AVAILABLE ON PARAMOUNT+
7: NOPE (Dir. Jordan Peele)
“What’s a bad miracle?”
With every movie Jordan Peele makes, he pushes the envelope farther and farther on what horror can be. I recently watched Get Out, certainly an exceptional movie, but I was taken aback with how overt its themes and messaging are. What I loved about NOPE is how its message remains just lingering at the fringes of the story. We watch all of our characters fall victim to the same ill, a relentless pursuit of spectacle. A belief in the stage, a willingness to sacrifice our humanity in order to entertain. The message lingers so much, in fact, that by the time we realize it, we are inadvertently part of the spectacle. We chase the thrill, the knowledge of who or what the alien is, Stephen Yeun’s story of Gordy the chimpanzee. And we root for OJ to get the picture he needs (not for their safety, their sanctity or their well-being). We’re all part of Peele’s horror-scape.
6: RRR (Dir. S. S. Rajamouli)
“He said that an Indian's Life is not worth a bullet. So how will this bullet earn its value? When it comes out of your gun and pierces an Englishman's heart.”
It’s a unique experience watching a South Asian film take the Western world by storm. There aren’t many instances of this – Slumdog Millionaire, 3 Idiots, Lagaan. Each time it’s hard for me to figure out what makes *that* movie break out of its bubble. RRR was initially one such movie for me, a fantastic film but not one that’s necessarily groundbreaking in the Indian canon. But in speaking with an American Oscar voter recently, I came to understand what makes RRR so special this year. This movie offers heart and vibrancy in an era of American film that is utterly devoid of it. Viewers everywhere are stricken by its audacity, its rowdiness, its unadulterated belief in itself, its sheer conviction. Upon rewatch, it’s easy to see what people mean. The best action movie, the best comedy, the best musical, and the best historical drama of the year. All of the above?
AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX (Dubbed in Hindi)
5: AFTERSUN (Dir. Charlotte Wells)
“I think it's nice that we share the same sky.”
There’s a lot of superlatives I could ascribe to Aftersun this year. The most human movie of the year, the most soul-crushing, the most stripped down, the most unsettling for me personally. Aftersun is a meditative ruminating on parenthood, told from the perspective of someone reflecting on her last happy memories with her father. Have you ever looked back on a memory with renewed eyes, filling in gaps and finding greater understanding that you never could have earlier? This movie takes us through that visual experience, and it's one that has made me reflect on my own childhood. It uniquely captures the ongoing realization that our parents are people too, filling in the caricatures we all have growing up. It made me wonder what details I missed, what tidbits will become clear over time.
4: THE FABELMANS (Dir. Steven Spielberg
“Art will give you crowns in heaven and laurels on Earth, but also, it will tear your heart out and leave you lonely. You'll be a shanda for your loved ones. An exile in the desert. A gypsy. Art is no game! Art is dangerous as a lion's mouth. It'll bite your head off.”
Many have dismissed The Fabelmans as just another Oscar season love letter to the movies, Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical retelling of his own childhood and passion for film. That’s not the movie I watched. The movie I watched told another cautionary tale about one’s devotion to art. How viewing the world through the lens of a camera distances everything from you, your family, your emotions, your wellbeing, because all that matters is *the shot*. Sammy Fabelman, our stand-in for Spielberg, has a twisted relationship with film in this movie. It’s obviously his release, his meaning for being in the world. But it’s also his worst enemy, one that ruins his life, a love that he grapples with in every scene. Flash forward to today, this extraordinarily personal work from one of our era’s greatest filmmakers, and we see how much Spielberg has given up for his audience, for the perfect shot.
3: THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (Dir. Martin McDonagh)
“I just don't like ye no more.”
One of the strangest fears we all share is that lurking suspicion that our closest friends don’t like us. That our relationships are fleeting and could crumble at the slightest provocation. The Banshees of Inisherin digs right into that fear: A portrayal of two flawed men whose relationship crumbles around them. And like many of its peers from this year, this movie too explores what it costs to be remembered. In seeking to be remembered by many, you risk being forgotten by those who love you the most. What are we really willing to give up in our quests to be greater than ourselves? In this case, maybe it’s the people who’ve made us who we are. A horrifying concept, yet somehow encapsulated in a movie that never ceases to make you laugh.
AVAILABLE ON HBO MAX
2: TÁR (Dir. Todd Field)
“You want to dance the mask, you must service the composer. You gotta sublimate yourself, your ego, and, yes, your identity. You must, in fact, stand in front of the public and God and obliterate yourself.”
I went into Tár worried I’d be bored to death. I left the theater thinking about one of the most interesting characters I’d ever seen come to life, a challenging and gut-wrenching character I still think about today. This movie does not exist without Cate Blanchett’s performance as Lydia Tár, a character with so much gravity that you can’t escape her orbit. This is all-too-true in the story, as we see how prestige and acclaim have stripped Tár of her humanity, how it leaves her as a husk whose actions have no real consequences. But the viewer is no less culpable. We are in Tár’s orbit as well. We hang onto her every word, we watch her world crumble around her and can’t help but squirm. We become entranced by this mythic figure. In watching Tár, I’m reminded of a quote from Frank Herbert’s Dune: Messiah.
“Here lies a toppled god.
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.”
1: EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (Dir. The Daniels)
“You think because l'm kind that it means I'm naive, and maybe I am. It's strategic and necessary. This is how I fight.”
“Sometimes a piece of art comes along at the exact moment you most need to see it.” This was the first line of my review when the film came out last April, and it still rings true to date. In a class I’m taking this semester, we discussed the idea of film as a religious experience, the idea of cinema as miraculous. EEAAO reminds me of that – the right movie at the right time can change everything.
I struggle to put into words how profound of an impact this movie had on me. Never had I felt something touch me so profoundly, leaving me sobbing in the theater (and even more the second time). My anxieties, the overwhelming pace of life, my relationships with those around me, my own search for meaning. This movie crawled into every aspect of my life and firmly lodged itself in there. Where does one find meaning in a world where it always feels like the walls are closing in? The answer: Nowhere. We create it ourselves. We find our life’s meaning in everything, everywhere, all at once. I hope this movie wins every award there is to win.
Thanks for reading! If you think I missed any, please let me know! You can see my compiled list on Letterboxd HERE.
Next week, I’ll be putting out a short form to gauge interest in MERCH!!!! After, I’ll be taking a break for a few weeks to reset for the upcoming years (and will hopefully be back in time for the Oscars)!
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