Adam closes out the best of 2022 discussion with his XXL list of the Top Films of 2022.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten grumpier about “top” lists. It’s all a hive mind. People all love the same movies all the time. Not even love them. They feel like their list must be about what’s considered “important”.
This list consists of 30 films.
Honorable Mentions (10)
The Good (10)
The Elite (9)
The Best Films of the Year (1)
The only film that has a number designated to it is the #1 film. The rest all could trade places with one another on a given day in my head. This year more than any other I feel that’s the truth. I know I’m grouping them in a sort of fashion but it’s more to make this unwieldy bastard child I’ve created makes more sense.
The films are presented in alphabetical order to ensure there’s no way to figure it out. Why??? Because there is no real order. I’ll give at least one sentence for each film to give some kind of context.
Honorable Mentions
Violent Night (dir. Tommy Wirkola)
Miracle on 34th Street meets Die Hard. Violent Night is a supreme crowd-pleaser. The audience I saw it with was drunk and rowdy as fuck. The film delivers on the promise of Santa going to fuck shit up.
The Whale (dir. Darren Aronofsky)
A brilliant performance by Brendan Frasier. All the awards.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Dir. Tom Gormican)
Nicolas Cage in a bromantic comedy of the highest order. Pedro Pascal teaches Cage how to be Cage again.
The Outfit (dir. Graham Moore)
EVERYONE. SLEPT. ON. THIS. FILM. This film is smart and brave enough to make Mark Rylance its lead and paid the price for it. We’ll be talking about this movie in a decade and people will ask, “why’d we sleep on it?” The answer is, I didn’t. You did. You all did.
The Northman (dir. Robert Eggers)
Bob loves him some Millius Conan. Burns $90 million on an esoteric Viking Flick. I love it.
Tar (dir. Todd Field)
Cate Blanchett is the GOAT. The real GOAT.
Hunt (dir. Lee Jung-jae)
Directors be like “I wanna make a hard-hitting spy thriller.” Directors make Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy… blergh!!! Lee says he wants to make a spy thriller… it’s the hardest-hitting spy thriller with tinges of melodrama. Best of all, it’s not a snooze-fest, but rather one of the more entertaining films of the year.
Fast & Feel Love (dir. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit)
The only Fast & … movie that I’ve cared about in the last ten years (when was Fast Five???). Yeah, put that in the bank. In all seriousness this coming-of-age story about competitive cup stacking may be one of the most surprising film of the year.
Bad City (dir. Kensuke Sonomura)
There are crime thrillers. There are Crime Thrillers. There are CRIME THRILLERS. Then there’s Bad City. Proof that Keanu is not the only old man that knows jujitsu that can fuck some shit up.
A Wounded Fawn (dir. Travis Stevens)
The best Giallo-inspired film in a very long time. Very long time.
Bonus Points: The film was shot in 16mm!!!
The Good
Triangle of Sadness (dir. Ruben Östlund)
That YouTube clip of Östlund not getting a nomination and freaking out like a little man-baby has soured me on all his work since seeing it. The kind of work that Östlund does should not require the kind of … award adulation that he so desperately wanted. It makes me feel like all the themes in his films are award-chasing posturing. It’s taken a few more movies, years, and then this piece of monumental work to make me reconsider.
BTW, if you’re questioning what happened at the end of Triangle of Sadness, you’re part of the fucking problem.
Top Gun: Maverick (dir. Joseph Kosinski)
When Tom Cruise is done with making movies it will be a sad, sad, sad end to a beautiful era. TGM is the example of what a committed Super Star – who is proving to be more Tony Stark/Ironman than all the billionaires out there – can do when given three years of production, half a billion dollars, and the backing of a studio with full faith in him. The result isn’t just a movie but a pop culture moment that everyone collectively got behind.
The Batman (dir. Matt Reeves)
Best Batman movie ever. Better than Nolan. Better than Burton. Better than Schumacher.
The Banshees of Insherin (dir. Martin McDonagh)
We’re in a bit of a row, aren’t we???
Pearl (dir. Ti West)
Mia Goth should get all the awards. This isn’t just a horror film. This is a technicolor melodrama inspired by the work of Vincent Minelli. Her “talk to me speech” is what should net her a Best Actress nomination. Even if it doesn’t, Pearl and its sequel show Goth is a powerful artist beginning to come into her own.
Note: West and Goth made a sequel to Pearl called X.
Nope (dir. Jordan Peele)
Jordan Peele is Jordan Peele. He isn’t the new so-and-so. He’s the dude that people will be saying, “oh, he’s the next Jordan Peele.” Nope is just confirmation of this. Justice for Gordy.
Glass Onion (dir. Rian Johnson)
Give me eight films over the next twenty years with rotating cast members and at the center Daniel Craig with his Foghorn Leghorn accent.
Crimes of the Future (dir. David Cronenberg)
Wait twenty-five years. That is how long Videodrome took to become a reality.
Bullet Train (dir. David Leitch)
Pitt inspired by Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton. If we see another three of these with Pitt running away from all manner of villains, I’m good with that.
Broker (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda)
Koreeda proves two things; Song Kang Ho continues to be one of the best living actors and he can take just about any subject and turn it into an empathetic portrait of the family we build.
The Elite
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (dir. Eric Appel)
The over-the-top musical biopic that you should be talking about. Radcliffe as Yankovic is the kind of forward-thinking brilliance this film is overstuffed with. Rachel Evan Wood will be my Madonna.
Three Thousand Years of Longing (dir. George Miller)
Dr. Miller, you make equally amazing non-Mad Max films. This is the proof.
The Menu (dir. Mark Mylod)
Eat the rich. Eat the influencers. Eat the food culture. Burn the whole thing down like a flaming s’more!!!
RRR (Rise Roar Revolt) (dir. S.S. Rajamouli)
Happiness and joy in a 3-hour anti-colonialist package. You don’t like it… that’s your problem. Maybe you should get that checked out, colonialist.
Project Wolf Hunting (dir. Hongsun Kim)
The hardest go-for-broke action movie of 2022.
Moonage Daydream (dir. Brent Morgan)
Brent Morgan has created a documentary of sound and vision. One that made me cry multiple times. The film manages to put what is most important first… the staggering monumental work of one David Bowie.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (dir. Dean Fleischer-Camp)
Kindness.
Decision to Leave (dir. Park Chan-wook)
The most haunting ending of 2022. The elegance at which director Park builds from the opening moments to that ending. Well, there are few directors, if any, working right now that have control of the medium in the way that he does. People say it’s Hitchcock inspired. I say no. I say that it’s Park inspired. So much of his career has been built towards this kind of Rube Goldberg style of intricate storytelling. To watch it unfold is to watch a true master at the height of his powers and prowess as a storyteller.
Bones and All (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
A road movie. A coming-of-age tale. A love story. A tragedy. Played out against the crumbling ruins of the Midwest of the early 1990s. Luca Guadagnino’s film will continue to connect with this beautiful dark and tragic tale of connection and loss with those who see it until, like The Velvet Underground or Near Dark, becomes more influential than its contemporaries.
Avatar: The Way of Water (dir. James Cameron)
Two things. One, you know all that stuff about Director Park??? Same with Cameron. Second, never-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever bet against James Cameron.
The Best
Everything Everywhere All At Once (dir. Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert)
It truly is the everything bagel of film. Perfectly rendered films are a true rarity. I think the last film that I saw that was head-to-toe perfect was Mad Max Fury Road. Ironic because EEAAO pushes the cinematic language and landscape as far as MMFR in what is possible. The Daniels give Michelle Yeoh the role of a lifetime. Ke Huy Quan, welcome back to the show, let’s hope you’re at the table for at least twenty years. Stephanie Hsu, the woman deserves all the roles and top choices of anything she wants.