Gonna split this in two: my favorite films released in 2022, and my favorites from previous years that I finally saw for the first time in 2022.
2022 Movies
Revue Starlight: The Movie
I have been obsessed with this movie since I first saw it 6 months ago. There exists, to my mind, a pantheon of incredible anime sequel and reboot films that aren’t content to simply be longer, higher budget episodes of their respective series and instead use a familiar IP to do something bold and new: Madoka: Rebellion, End of Evangelion and the later Rebuild films, Adolescence of Utena, Liz and the Blue Bird, and now, Revue Starlight: The Movie. I was expecting great songs and animation, and I got that in spades (Revue Starlight’s never been short on spectacle), but I wasn’t expecting the fixation with blood and death (prop blood and figurative death, but still), and the duels are absolutely wild, more conceptually ambitious than in the series (the finale in particular is completely unhinged, it rules). Hell, they could have just released the Revue of Souls as a standalone short film and it probably still would have been my favorite of the year. When Claudine shouts “Right now, you’re cuter than you’ve ever been!” mid-duel and Maya responds “I’m always cute!”? Iconic.
Everything Everywhere All At Once
When I got back home from seeing EEAAO, the very first thing I did was look up DANIELS’ filmography and watch several of their short films. I’d already seen Swiss Army Man and so was very familiar with their approach of using their weird, occasionally gross brand of comedy to disarm you before hitting you with unexpected sincerity and emotional catharsis, but watching Possibilia and Interesting Ball, both of which deal in the infinite possibilities of the universe/multiverse, it really felt like everything they’d done before had been leading up to this funny, sweet, chaotic movie.
Nope
Look, Keke Palmer does an Akira Slide in this movie, what more do I need to say?
RRR
An utterly ridiculous and over-the-top action extravaganza about a couple of actual historical Indian revolutionaries that dares to ask, “what if they were the two strongest men alive, and they met each other and defeated the British together by being the world’s bestest bros?” This movie commits 200% to everything it does, whether it’s an acrobatic rescue through a wall of fire or a dance battle or a piggyback fight scene, and is all the better for it.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
I hope Rían Johnson and Daniel Craig get to keep making more Benoit Blanc mysteries for as long as they want, because it looks like they had nearly as much fun making Glass Onion as I did watching it. Ultimately, I don’t think this movie has as strong of an emotional core as Knives Out, but goddamn is it funny, and its release could not possibly have been more timely given the comedy of errors that is Twitter in the Age of Elon.
The Batman
I'm very grateful that unlike the Marvel and the MCU, DC hasn't forced all of its film and television offerings to all co-exist in a shared, stylistically homogeneous continuity, because it means that even if I don't care about the DCEU at all, there's still plenty of other wildly varying superhero media for me to enjoy: Harley Quinn, Doom Patrol, Young Justice, and this year's The Batman. I love Robert Pattinson's brooding weirdo loner take on Bruce Wayne, I love that this movie actually remembers that Batman is supposed to be a detective, and I love that it questions whether Batman is really what Gotham needs.
Turning Red
Between Everything Everywhere All At Once, Butterfly Soup 2, and Turning Red, this really was the year for stories about rocky relationships between first-generation immigrant Asian-American mothers and their second-generation daughters, huh? I've definitely become less and less enamored with Pixar over time—my hot take is that WALL-E, Up, and Soul would all be much improved if they just stopped at the end of their first acts—but Turning Red was really charming, a breath of fresh air from a new creative team. After all of the dubs that Disney handled for Studio Ghibli films, it's about time that we got a Disney film that clearly takes inspiration from anime.
Top Gun: Maverick
I'm not particularly nostalgic for the original Top Gun, I dislike the franchise's unavoidable propagandistic streak, and just I wasn't the biggest fan of a lot of the writing in this decades-removed sequel, but for all of that, watching the now-60-year-old Tom Cruise continue doing his damnedest to single-handedly save cinema by putting himself through all kinds of insane shit never gets old, and the flying sequences are legitimately breathtaking.
Wendell & Wild
I came into this movie with high expectations (a new movie from Henry Selick! co-written by Jordan Peele!) and it ultimately didn't live up to them (I had some issues with the writing and editing) but at the end of the day, it's still a really good-looking and visually inventive stop-motion movie, which is really all I needed it to be (the designs of Wendell and Wild themselves in particular are fantastic). Plus, there's a trans guy in the supporting cast, that's pretty neat!
Pre-2022 Movies I Watched In 2022
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
I'm kicking myself for not seeing this movie sooner, because wow, is it gorgeous! The scene where Kaguya runs away is genuinely one of the most incredible things I've ever seen, I was losing my mind watching it. Despite having watched a bunch of Studio Ghibli movies, this was somehow my first Takahata-directed film (in my partial defense, Grave of the Fireflies isn't on HBO Max), and I've definitely got to check out his other work ASAP.
Fargo
I feel like this movie gets referenced constantly, but for whatever reason, I hadn't seen it until now, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. Just an incredibly well-executed and darkly hilarious crime movie.
Apocalypse Now
War movies tend to be really hit or miss for me; stuff like 1917 or Saving Private Ryan just doesn't do anything for me. On the other hand, if the movie really leans into how fucked up war is, films like Full Metal Jacket and Catch-22 and Apocalypse Now? Hell yeah, sign me up. I can't get enough of callous yahoos going surfing while violence rages around them or blasting "Ride of the Valkyries" while killing a bunch of people, and as it goes on everything gets stranger and more nightmarish; it's great. I watched the Redux cut on Netflix, which felt kinda slow in places due to the added material, but even this lesser version was still an incredible film. Also, it will never stop being wild to me seeing some teenager in a supporting role in an older movie or show and realizing that they went on to be a famous movie star; in The Wire, it was finding out that Wallace was Michael B. Jordan, and in Apocalypse Now, it was looking up the cast and seeing that Tyrone Miller was played by Laurence Fishburne.
Blade Runner 2049
I feel like this didn't need to be a Blade Runner sequel, but I guess it probably wouldn't have been greenlit otherwise. Anyways, 2049 was evocative and gorgeous when it wasn't busy trying to do legacy sequel stuff.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Alternately dark and funny Western anthology film; the titular Buster Scruggs vignette was my favorite of the bunch but the whole thing was a good time.
The Matrix Resurrections
Absolutely wild to me that when Warner Bros. demanded another Matrix sequel, Lana Wachowski went ahead and made a Matrix sequel about Warner Bros. demanding another Matrix sequel. They straight-up say "Warner Bros." in the movie! Anyway, I honestly wasn't a fan of the action scenes, but on the other hand Resurrections finally managed to sell me on the romance between Neo and Trinity, and that and the early video game industry meta stuff were both great.
Reservoir Dogs
Extremely solid crime movie, and it's interesting seeing Quentin Tarantino's style pared down to the simplest, lowest-budget version, before he'd become a massive success. I especially like how we never actually see the heist gone wrong, we just get to see the aftermath and hear all the different characters describe it.
The Breadwinner
A difficult but compelling watch about a young girl in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. This was my first Cartoon Saloon film, and I definitely need to make time for the rest of them after how good this was.
The Royal Tenenbaums
I'm going to be honest: I don't really remember much from this movie (I saw it all the way back in February), but I always enjoy Wes Anderson's distinctive style and The Royal Tenenbaums was no exception.
The Wind Rises
The Wind Rises is a Miyazaki movie, so of course it's beautiful to look at, but I also found the tension between his admiration of Japanese fighter planes as works of engineering and his abhorrence for their purpose as instruments of death interesting to watch unfold onscreen. Also, I loved how the plane sound effects are obviously just the foley artist making them with his mouth; it was charming in Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! and it was equally charming in this film.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
A completely unnecessary sequel, but man, I'm just happy to get to spend more time with these characters. The rest of the movie can't quite live up to the early parts with Jesse traumatized by his time in captivity and being helped by Badger and Skinny Pete, which were fantastic, but it's still a solid follow-up.
I Lost My Body
Really beautiful French animated movie that's one part romantic drama, one part adventures of a disembodied hand. I had mixed feelings about the romance, but all of the stuff with the hand was great.
