It’s New Year’s Eve, it’s time to look back on our best films in our film industry and select the top 10 best films of 2022. We picked our favorites, so check out to see what we selected. To pay homage to filmmakers and actors, we don’t dare to rank them. Thank you for reading our contents, please continue to support our site.
Abe Friedtanzer
- The Whale
- Everything Everywhere All at Once
- Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
- Women Talking
- Girl Picture
- Athena
- Don’t Make Me Go
- Dual
- Cha Cha Real Smooth
- Official Competition
2022 was a great year for movies. The Whale featured extraordinary performances from Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, and the rest of its ensemble in a moving and intimate human story. Everything Everywhere All at Once was stunningly creative, bursting with invigorating energy and a dazzling interpretation of the multiverse. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was a sequel that managed to be even better than its predecessor, expanding on a working concept and dialing it up with an equally tremendous cast. Women Talking took a simple premise and made it vital and layered, full of thought-provoking conversations and arguments. Girl Picture fleshed out three teenagers and the complexities of human relationships. Athena started with a bang and didn’t let up for a second in its depiction of citizen uprisings about police brutality. Don’t Make Me Go humorously and warmly portrayed an endearing father-daughter dynamic. Dual took the notion of identity theft to a whole new level. Cha Cha Real Smooth paired up a delightful romance with uplifting and irresistible comedy. Official Competition brilliantly skewered excess and ego with wondrously enjoyable results.
Niclas Goldberg
● Aftersun
● EO
● TÁR
● One Fine Morning
● The Eternal Daughter
● Memoria
● Saint Omer
● The Wonder
● Corsage
● A Love Song
In 2022 many great films reflect on memory and its fragmental, sensitive and complex aspect. In her debut film, the rare, beautiful Aftersun, Charlotte Well’s remembers the childhood vacation in Turkey with her father and in spellbinding Memoria Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul takes Tilda Swinton to Colombia to explore the sonic vibrations from the past. Swinton also makes the screen gently vibrates while playing both mother and daughter in gothic and spooky The Eternal Daughter, director Johanna Hogg’s remembrance of her mother. Time seems to have stopped in Max Walker-Silverman’s tender A Love Song as Dale Dickey longs for her past lover by a Colorado lake. To remember, or to pay tribute to, Robert Bresson’s classic Au Hazard Balthazar, Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski leads a donkey on a visual knockout ride in surreal and moving EO. In rebellious Corsage Marie Kreutzer makes a salty kind of homage to Empress Elisabeth of Austria and in haunting meta-film The Wonder Chilean Sebastián Lelio travels back in time to the green plains of Ireland with Florence Pugh. Mia Hansen-Løve returns to Paris and dives into her own past in astonishingly fluid One Fine Morning while Alice Diop reconstructs a horrifying story in tense, documentary-like court drama Saint Omer. And finally, Todd Field returns from the past.
In his splendid TÁR Cate Blanchett hits all the right tones as the maestro heading for a fall.
Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
● EO
● Winners
● Bardo
● Argentina, 1985
● Tár
● Official Competition
● She Said
● Triangle of Sadness
● The Whale
● The Territory
Cinema is an escapist journey where audiences can come across different perspectives. 2022 has taken diversity to wondrous levels with films that connect spectators with unexpected points of view. We empathise with a different species in EO; in Winners we witness how a prestigious accolade travels across a land of repression; we are catapulted in the lysergic magnum opus of Bardo; in Argentina, 1985 we are inspired by those who dared to prosecute those responsible for the crimes of a fascist military dictatorship; we feel sympathy for the physical and psychological plight portrayed in The Whale; with Triangle of Sadness we question whether social groups are forever bound by their limitations and observe the breaking of the taboo of scatology in cinema. Furthermore, the female sphere has been portrayed in new ways on the silver screen. Tár presents a talented yet bellicose lesbian music conductor; Official Competition is driven by an eccentrically charismatic stage director; She Said sets an example of aspirational, courageous investigative journalists ready to subvert a patriarchal system. There have also been a wide selection of exceptional documentaries shedding light on the environmental crisis of our era, like the The Territory that stands out for the way it hands the storytelling to its protagonists.
Edward Moran
• Back to That Day
• Call Me Anytime, I’m Not Leaving the House
• The Exiles
• The Janes
• Kaddish
• Lucy and Desi
• The Neighbors’ Window
• Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island
• Three Minutes: A Lengthening
• Words That Move: See Through a Different I
There are no box-office blockbusters or big-studio franchise films on my Top 10 list. It’s because I cherish the independent, low-budget features and documentaries that are too often overlooked but that represent grassroots filmmaking at its best. Because they’re all so damned good, I’ll run through them alphabetically–from B to W. Back to That Day explores grief and consolation around the death of a promising young Japanese woman mourned by her sister, while Call Me Anytime, I’m Not Leaving the House focuses on two Ukrainian sisters–one in war-torn Odessa, the other in Brooklyn–dealing with their own issues of separation. The Exiles, which took the top prize at Sundance, presents a searing account of the fate of some Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989, while The Janes focuses its lens on a clandestine network of women abortion providers in pre-Roe-v-Wade Chicago. Kaddish is a heartfelt short film on the Holocaust by a Muslim filmmaker from Bangladesh who learned Yiddish to give the production greater authenticity. InLucy and Desi, we observe the marital ups and downs of one of America’s great comedic duos from the 1950s, while The Neighbors’ Window, an Oscar winner, offers a poignant story of two New York couples who observe each other through adjoining apartment windows. Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island testifies to the power of intrepid women and mothers united in the face of America’s worst nuclear accident. Three Minutes: A Lengthening uses vintage film footage to recreate the lives of a Jewish shtetl in Poland during the Holocaust. Finally, Words That Move: See Through a Different I employs dazzling animation and special effects to enhance a poet’s commentaries on life, love, and our fractured civic landscape.
Karen Benardello
• She Said
• The Whale
• Barbarian
• Hellraiser
• Orphan: First Kill
• The Menu
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• Devotion
• Living
• Women Talking
The most compelling films of 2022 feature complex protagonists who break free from environments that they don’t feel comfortable in. She Said stars Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, who expose Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct against women. The Whale features Brendan Fraser as an obese man who reconnects with his estranged daughter. In Barbarian, Georgina Campbell’s aspiring documentarian proves it’s important for women to trust their instincts in dangerous situations. Hellraiser features Odessa A’zion as a recovering addict who battles her fears after she unleashes the Cenobites. Isabelle Fuhrman shows how her titular character used her seemingly innocent nature to con her way into her first American family in Orphan: First Kill. The Menu’s Anya Taylor-Joy created a working-class woman whose wit satirizes America’s upper class. Avatar: The Way of Water’s Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña’s Na’vi characters once again repel the human invasion of Pandora in groundbreaking underwater motion capture performances. In Devotion, Jesse Brown, the first African-American elite fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy, endures institutional racism to defend his country. Bill Nighy shines as a Public Works office bureaucrat who searches for meaning after being diagnosed with a terminal illness in Living. In Women Talking, women from an isolated Mennonite colony achieve justice after their lives were constricted by religious tradition.
Matthew Schuchman
• Decision to Leave
• Every Everywhere All at Once
• Glass Onion
• Nope
• Resurrection
• RRR
• Tár
• The Banshees of inisherin
• The Menu
• The Outfit
Even though my top picks are listed in alphabetical order, let’s make one thing clear; Everything Everywhere All at Once is bar-none, the best movie of 2022. Never has a film made me cry from laughter and pure dramatic emotion at the same time. Trying to truncate all my feelings about the film into a few sentences is impossible, we would be here forever if I kept going on about it. The criminally underseen Resurrection starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth is my unmitigated choice for 2nd best film of the year. Call it a psychological thriller if you need to put a specific genre onto it, the performances in this film drive an already packed story and the fact that both Hall and Roth are not going to see nominations behind their work in this film, is another crime of 2022. People want to hem and haw over Mia Goth’s monologue from Pearl, but just wait till you see Rebecca Hall’s 7 minute, unbroken speech from Resurrection.
While the pure fun and spectacle of films like RRR and Glass Onion are enough to put them on everyone’s list, they both have more layers to them for people looking for more than just awe and comedy. And the same goes for films like Nope and The Menu, but both of those films have a more even balance. I know Nope has been very divisive with audiences, but I now consider it the best Peele film out there. It would not be right for me to finish this breakdown without talking about the other underseen film this year that needs more attention, The Outfit. A small, much more indie affair in many ways, this is the gem of the year that people are still overlooking.
Nobuhiro Hosoki
• Living
• The Whale
• Aftersun
• She Said
• Happening
• Bardo
• Triangle of Sadness
• The Territory
• We Are Still Here
• Nitram
“Living :” How could anyone even dare to remake Akira Kurosawa’s remarkable “Ikiru” except a guy who won the Nobel prize for literature. Writer/screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro beautifully transforms this cinematic masterpiece by transplanting it to an English setting. Lead actor Bill Nighy’s performance captured the strong will of the human spirit. “The Whale:” In this film prosthetic make-up is used on an impressive scale beyond what’s usually seen in a horror film. Director Darren Aronofsky gets a gripping performance out of Brendan Fraser that will melt your heart. You probably won’t see a better performance than he presented in this film for a long time.“Aftersun:” Intentionally immersing its audience into this parent-child relationship, the film completely strips away any exterior trappings except for sharing with us their precious little time together. Director Charlotte Wells reveals it as a shining jewel, which haunts the mind. “She Said:” Depicting the remarkable investigation of Megan Twohey and Jodi Cantor into movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s many sexual crimes, this film really delves into the mindset of the survivors, whose courage is to be reckoned with on the highest level. “Happening:” Based on Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux’s novel, this film tackles illegal abortion in ’60s France. Like what some states in America are doing today — legally prohibiting abortion — director Audrey Diwan’s cinematic version really made me question what chances women have to enjoy their basic rights with such laws in place.
“Bardo:” Director Alejandro Iñárritu’s recent epic is loaded with a lot of autobiographical elements which reminds me of Fellini’s “8½;” it’s full of imagination as it explores many aspects of human behavior. We don’t get to see this type of film as a studio production these days.
“Triangle of Sadness:” This movie captures the way that certain systems enforce societal inequities and what might happen if that unravels. Director Ruben Ostlund’s black humor is brilliant, and his laughing at money-worshippers is priceless. “The Territory:” Alex Pritz’s fascinating documentary shows what will happen if the destruction of the rainforest continues forcing its indigenous people to leave the place. It’s really important to acknowledge what’s going on there. “We Are Still Here:” This film was created as a response to the 250th anniversary of the second voyage of James Cook to Australia in 1772. The project consists of 10 linked short films by 10 indigenous Australian and Māori filmmakers about the impact of the settlers’ colonialism on the region’s native cultures.
All are remarkable pieces that effectively connect together. “Nitram:” Based on events that lead up to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre on Tasmania, this film mainly provides a single perspective, which was really scary, rather than provoking a response full of emotions, it tells of the hows and why it happened. The film really reminded me of Gas Van Sant’s “Elephant.”