The Best Movies of 2022

Every man will meet what he wishes to avoid.

2022 was the year I went back to the old me, by which I mean watching even more movies than I usually do — just shy of 400 as of this writing, 179 of which were new releases. I find it an enjoyable way of passing the time but don’t necessarily recommend that anyone else do likewise, which is often what I say about the individual films I admire. Why should you, noble subscriber or passerby that you are, see a movie just because I like it or not see one because I don’t? Film criticism is often thought of as little more than a yes-or-no affair, thumbs up or thumbs down, but that’s always struck me as the least interesting part of all this.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t think you shouldn’t watch the movies that follow; quite the opposite, dear reader. It was more difficult than usual to choose just 10, with Audrey Diwan’s Happening and Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO coming closest to making the cut. 2022 was, if nothing else, an especially fruitful year for the seventh art — and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the more movies I watch, the better movies as a whole seem to be.

1. Sundown (dir. Michel Franco)

A movie that felt like it was designed in a lab just for me, which is to say that I both love Sundown and find it difficult to recommend. If the idea of a movie withholding crucial information (like who exactly its main characters are in relation to one another or why its protagonist is being such a weird little guy) in order to keep you on your toes and create an atmosphere of pervasive dread doesn’t appeal to you as much as it does to me — and, let’s be real, it probably doesn’t — Sundown might not be for you. That it was very much for me was nothing if not surprising, as I actively disliked writer/director Michel Franco’s previous films After Lucia and Chronic. Past isn’t always prologue, especially when you can’t figure out what’s going on but desperately want to find out. (Hulu)

2. TÁR (dir. Todd Field)

If I were to tell you that this movie is kinda sorta about cancel culture but also about classical music and that its title is meant to be stylized TÁR, not Tár, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t feel like devoting 158 minutes to watching it. That’d be totally reasonable, but the thing about Todd Field’s first film in 16 years is that no synopsis or description can come close to capturing its visceral power. I don’t think that Cate Blanchett has ever been more captivating than she is here, which is saying a lot given it’s Cate Blanchett we’re talking about, but the way she brings the title character to life is simply next level. (Bonus points for the Blair Witch Project reference.)

3. Women Talking (dir. Sarah Polley)

Do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. Those are the three options being considered in Sarah Sarah Polley’s adaptation of the novel by Miriam Toews, which lives up to its title in the best possible way. There were so many moments that compelled me to write down the narrator’s lyrical musings so I could remember them later — “It was all waiting to happen before it happened. You could look back and follow the breadcrumbs along the path that led to violence. When we looked back, it had been everywhere” — but I was too immersed in this desaturated world to look away from the screen long enough to actually do so.

4. Aftersun (dir. Charlotte Wells)

Charlotte Wells’ debut feature is easy to recommend, albeit with a caveat: It’s likely to wreck you. It certainly did me, and I wasn’t at all prepared for the emotional weight of this evocation of hazy childhood memories, home movies, and the bond between a struggling father and his daughter who can’t help seeing through his everything-is-fine facade.

5. The Quiet Girl (dir. Colm Bairéad)

The best movie of the year that no one seems to be talking about, at least on this side of the pond; The Quiet Girl, known as An Cailín Ciúin in Ireland and featuring mostly Gaelic dialogue, is the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time. It’s also beautiful and even a touch profound in its simplicity, with a plot so straightforward you could describe it in a sentence but an effect so potent you’d have a hard time describing it at all.

6. Watcher (dir. Chloe Okuno)

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you. (Shudder)

7. Triangle of Sadness (dir. Ruben Östlund)

The space between our eyebrows and the ridge of our nose says more about our demeanor and emotional state than most of us realize, and keeping it relaxed is crucial for those whose livelihood depends on their looks. It’s from that simple idea that everything else springs in Östlund’s second consecutive Palme d’Or winner, and “everything” here is a lot — a doomed luxury cruise, a withering look at influencer culture, and much more vomit than you’re probably expecting.

8. Decision to Leave (dir. Park Chan-wook)

The Handmaiden was my second-favorite film of 2016 (after The Lobster), and my excitement for Park Chan-wook’s follow-up was tempered by how unlikely it seemed that Decision to Leave could live up to expectations. I shouldn’t have worried. Tang Wei and Park Hae-il are mesmerizing as star-crossed lovers on opposite sides of a murder investigation, but cinematographer Kim Ji-yong and editor Kim Sang-bum are just as essential a duo on the other side of the camera — I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a movie shot and cut in such a fluid, inventive way. (Mubi)

9. In Front of Your Face (dir. Hong Sang-soo)

Elsewhere in “movies I loved by directors I don’t usually like,” one of Hong Sang-soo’s three releases this year took me by surprise in a way the ultra-prolific auteur never has before. He’s made 10 movies since 2017 alone, and the plaudits he consistently receives make me feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Almost all of them follow the exact same formula, aren’t especially interesting to look at (especially now that he’s his own cinematographer), and star his creative and romantic partner Kim Min-hee (this part is totally understandable, tbh). In Front of Your Face is an exception to at least two of those rules, and I’d even go so far as to say that I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it so much if I were normally a fan of Hong’s films. Funny how that works.

10. Earwig (dir. Lucile Hadžihalilović)

Easily the best movie ever made about a captive girl with teeth made of ice. (Mubi)