The Best Films of 2022 (by Andreas Babiolakis)
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
I won’t lie: I was feeling the fatigue of 2022 for quite a while. It seemed like everyone was right for a little bit: cinema was going through a rough patch. Highly anticipated works just didn’t hold up as well as we had expected. Theatres continue to hurt regarding box office returns. Artistic expressions continue to take a backseat for blockbuster experiences (mind you, at least Top Gun: Maverick and The Batman were quite great, and you can consider those two honourable mentions right away). It felt as though all of the naysaying felt true. However, upon some further digging, and with enough patience to hold out for the end of the year, 2022 has come through with some greatness after all (including some of the greatest works in recent memory, particularly my number one selection). Whether cinema has encouraged us to let all of our pent up rage and sorrow out, transported us away from our current lives, or offered us familiar ideas in ways we’ve never seen before, film did shine this year after all. Here are the ten best films of 2022.
10. The Fabelmans
While The Fabelmans certainly plays to Steven Spielberg’s most obvious tropes, they feel sincere in this semi-autobiographical look at how the American auteur fell in love with filmmaking. It’s a magical enough film full of Spielberg’s usual wide-eyedness, but it becomes all the more special when you consider how he is using film to hold a conversation with his younger self, particularly during a vulnerable time (where he could have used the guidance). The Fabelmans is everything Spielberg, whether this notion considers how he makes motion pictures or who he is down to his barest soul. It’s one of his finest films in years because we have never connected so much with him until this very moment.
9. Everything Everywhere All at Once
Somehow a film containing snot-eating, sausage fingered humans, and trophies that can double as rectum-plugging devices has won almost every single person over. Everything Everywhere All at Once is shocking, sure, but it also upholds its promise by being as earnest and beautiful as such a picture can possibly be. One may see this as an action film with some of the most creative choreography and sequences: I see a trek that a mother must muster in order to repair her relationship with her daughter. No matter what your takeaway from this Daniels film is, you’ll feel something substantial in this multiverse collage that goes the distance with its endlessness (and yet it still knows how to aim directly at your heart).
8. Women Talking
Sarah Polley takes her time when it comes to directing films, but each and every release is well worth the wait. Women Talking is one of the most considerate trauma-based films of late, but its message — the silencing of women, especially when they have been abused — must urgently be heard. Women Talking makes the most of a powerful cast, minimalist storytelling, and histories of systemic imbalance. It gets its point across as plainly as can be, but don’t underestimate how precise Polley is as a visionary. Women Talking is equal parts startling and empathetic, and it’s a fresh approach to difficult conversations (one that doesn’t need to yell or exploit in order to make an impact).
7. The Menu
Of all of the eat-the-rich films and series to come out this year, The Menu knew the perfect balance between satire, spite, and sorrow. It progressively gets more and more ridiculous whilst convincing you that it actually is making better sense, despite the unusual premise (let’s just say the title of the film holds up its end of the bargain: there truly is no menu like it). Without ever getting too sadistic, The Menu leaps ahead of its peers by remembering that it is a film first and foremost (and a scathing response to the elite secondly): it never gets too carried away by its experiment, as it prioritizes juicy, twisty storytelling above its punishing ways.
6. Saint Omer
Documentarian Alice Diop accomplished her first narrative feature with Saint Omer, but the truthfulness her works usually possess is hardly lost here. Instead, she conveys her observations from a real trial she witnessed where a mother was convicted of abandoning her child in order for it to die alone. In Saint Omer, Diop is now Rama: an academic and writer that wants to take what she is seeing and turning it into a mythological tale. It feels like Diop herself may have intended on doing something similar before she decided on just providing the experiences as she had them. And thus Saint Omer is one of the heaviest, most captivating courtroom and journalist dramas of our time: a realization that some monstrosities of civilization cannot be abandoned, reinterpreted, or sugar coated (they can only be understood at face value in order for us to heal and learn).
5. The Northman
Robert Eggers has quite an astounding resume at this point, and you can now say he handles epics quite well. The Northman is one of the most intense films of the year (it certainly is the angriest), and the director’s affinity for meticulous, anthropological and historical detailing is on full display here. Hamlet at its barest, Norse roots, The Northman is a quest of vengeance and retaliation that never loses steam: it charges forth right until the molten end. The film transcends being a historical flick due to its drive, of which is impossible to ignore: you don’t need to be well versed in Norse mythology or viking culture to feel just how furious The Northman is (but maybe having a strong stomach will help).
4. The Banshees of Inisherin
Can things go wrong even when nothing has happened? Sure. Everything comes to an end, even without any proper telltale signs of an impending demise. The Banshees of Inisherin sees a long friendship crumble after one of the buddies hilariously (yet tragically) decides he no longer wishes to live a dull life. What starts out as an attempt to repair said friendship turns into a cutthroat series of retorts and responses, all entirely out of the pain gestated within an existentially damning world. The Banshees of Inisherin is a tragicomedy for the ages, particularly because it never loses sight of what love is even within the coldest hearts and deadest of relationships.
3. Decision to Leave
Park Chan-wook has been synonymous with challenging cinema for as long as I can remember, so seeing him dealing with poetic restraint is quite a treat. Decision to Leave is an exercise in making a neo noir film without any real ties to the style (all while dialling back on the sex, violence, and shocking imagery that the director could easily wring out of such an environment), and the end result is one of the Korean master’s finest films. This mysterious, chilling thriller leaves your head spinning because of all of the story you don’t see, making all of the obvious revelations warnings of the twists you won’t predict. It took an outlier to make one of the style’s most memorable recent efforts, and we now have a new influence that will shape mystery cinema for years to come.
2. Tár
Todd Field hasn’t made a film in over fifteen years, so Tár would have been a welcome return nonetheless. What we get instead is the actor/director’s finest film yet: a three hour, slow burning epic that perfectly captures the destruction of a (fictional) icon by her own hand. It realistically realizes how such a downward spiral can take place with the warning signs being so damn obvious (and yet they’re actually easy to ignore at the same time, leaving us to understand how the egomaniacal, titular conductor could have allowed such a demise to take place). Never has self destruction been shown with such prestige and class; Tár is a singular experience, and one of the best American films of the 2020s thus far.
1. Aftersun
Of course, I was getting around to great films from 2022 towards the year’s latter months (they’re usually savoured for the awards season around this time), and it’s only then that I came across Aftersun: unquestionably my favourite film of the decade thus far. Charlotte Wells’ rewrites how nostalgia and heartbreak can be felt in cinema with this retrospective look at the late 90s between an estranged father and his inquisitive daughter. It is a time capsule of a film that transports you to a place, an era, and a sensation effortlessly. Additionally, Wells is clearly already a master of manipulating time and emotions in her medium, and this is abundantly clear with the greatest final shot of the year: one that changes Aftersun’s entire purpose for existing. It almost feels silly discussing Aftersun on a list that wraps up a year, because this is a film that I can already tell will be timeless and discussed in university lecture halls for years to come. Aftersun is a gorgeous, heartbreaking, instant classic of indie cinema, and I could not select it as my top film of the year any more quickly.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.