Overstreet’s Favorite Films of 2022 — Part Two: Top-Ten-Worthy Runners-Up

If you read through Part One, which was a list of epic proportions, you already have a long list of 2022 feature films I'd recommend — for the challenges, for the surprises, for the imagination, for the wisdom.

But wait — there’s more!

Those were the “Honorable Mentions.” These?

The fifteen films on this — the "Top-Ten-Worthy Runners-Up List" — all belong in my Top Ten List for the year,
and I cannot believe I'm not including them on that list.

If I’m being honest, I’ll admit that any one of these might suddenly be bumped up into the Top Ten next time I see it, because all of these gave me so much to discover, enjoy, and ponder — and a sense that there’s so much more to discover, enjoy, and ponder next time that I never realized the first time. And yes, I will be watching all of these again.

If you have thoughts about any of them, or if you want to link to your own reviews, post them in the Comments! I want to learn more. I want to be persuaded.

As I wrote this post, I was ranking them in order of how eager I am to see them again. But eventually I gave up. If my Top Ten had never been released, I’d have looked at these and said “What an extraordinary year!” anyway.

For what it's worth: Subscribers to my new online Substack newsletter Give Me Some Light received this list in its entirety a few weeks ago. If you want to get posts like this one early, subscribe!

Note:

Some of these films (The Worst Person in the World and Petit Maman, for example) played in festivals and in NY/LA awards-qualifying runs in 2021. But I’m counting them as 2022 releases because that’s when they came off of the festival circuit and gained a wide release — either in theaters or streaming — so that I, in the cinema-savvy city of Seattle, could access them without getting them on a plane. I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of American moviegoers couldn’t have seen them before 2022, and thus they became a part of the common cinephile conversation in 2022. There. That’s how I rationalize my standards on a subject that is always maddeningly subjective.

https://youtu.be/vm3B-fDc9Xw

Writer and director: Hirokazu Kore-eda

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “Sang-hyeon is the owner of a launderette and a volunteer at the nearby church, where his friend Dong-soo works. The two run an illegal business together: Sang-hyeon occasionally steals babies from the church’s baby box with the help of Dong-soo, who deletes the church’s CCTV footage that shows a baby was left there, and they sell them on the adoption black market. But when a young mother, So-young, comes back after having abandoned her baby, she discovers them and decides to go with them on a road-trip to interview the baby’s potential infertile parents. Meanwhile, two detectives, Soo-jin and Detective Lee, are on their trail.”

From my Letterboxd notes:

I went to see Broker reluctantly tonight.

I was feeling beaten down by hardships, and betrayed by those who speak of grace and love when they're at a microphone but then, behind closed doors, contrive to deny such things to those who need them.

And so, the prospect of dedicating an evening to a movie that puts words like "COMPASSION" and "TENDER" in the trailer in all caps... well, it felt like it might just add insult to injury. Fantasies with happy endings can really sour my spirit if the world is making such things seem impossible.

Shouldn't I know better by now? Hirozaku Kore-eda's Shoplifters showed up at the very end of 2018, and I approached that one warily as well. It overcame my cynicism and delighted and moved me so much it catapulted into my top 10 for that year. But no, I still haven't learned my lesson. I'm still braced to suffer a movie that feels manipulative or superficial in its comforts. I'm not in the mood for art that contrives hopefulness out of wishful thinking.

But in Broker, as in Shoplifters, the world is the problem — not Kore-eda's hopefulness. I think his strength comes from the fact that he knows that the world is in dire straits, and he portrays that with honesty born of experience. (This is the guy who made the harrowing Nobody Knows, after all.) But in his recent storytelling, he's begun to remind me a little of Miyazaki: Where others tend to invest their talents in spectacular visions of trouble and violence, he gives his all to discover poignantly human moments of goodness, gentleness, generosity, insight, and decency. And his gift is that he not only finds them, but he draws performances from actors that make those moments ring true.

And, as a result, Broker, like Shoplifters, is good medicine for weary hearts, and, yes, one of my favorite films of 2022, which has been an outstanding year in cinema.- - -Song Kang Ho is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. He's pure joy here. And IU (Lee Ji-eun) is positively radiant.

https://youtu.be/In8fuzj3gck

Writer and director: Jordan Peele

Universal Pictures Synopsis (via IMDB): “After random objects falling from the sky result in the death of their father, ranch-owning siblings OJ and Emerald Haywood attempt to capture video evidence of an unidentified flying object with the help of tech salesman Angel Torres and documentarian Antlers Holst.”

From my Letterboxd notes:

I loved the big-screen spectacle of this. And, as with his first two films, Peele is wryly commenting on (and, at times lamenting) cultural sins that have gone unacknowledged and unresolved.

…

It's hard to cook up, at this point, a fresh take on UFOs for a summer blockbuster, and I applaud Peele for serving something clever and surprising. I also applaud his cast: As the central horse trainer whose ranch is terrorized by a mystery, Daniel Kaluuya dials everything down where most actors would have cranked things up. He's so, so good at this. Keke Palmer is funny, spirited, and frantic as his sister. Steven Yeun is strange as a trauma survivor and showman in an adjacent storyline (which provides the true horror of the film) that helps us interpret what's going on in the main narrative. And, well, what a joy to see Michael Wincott in a significant big screen role again as something other than a sneering villain!

But if I were at the writing table, I'd have recommended they leave the title... in the title. It's spoken several times in the film with diminishing comic returns.

https://youtu.be/ZKLu3t-G9Do

Writer and director: James Gray

Synopsis by Letterboxd: “A deeply personal coming-of-age story about the strength of family and the generational pursuit of the American Dream.”

From my Letterboxd notes:

Jeremy Strong in the last act of Armageddon Time looks and moves so much like my father that I may never recover. Same jacket, cap, glasses, hair, expressions. Uncanny. If his voice had been anywhere close to my dad’s, I’d have had to leave.

My father never beat me. Never discouraged my desire to make art. Never told me to get a real job. Never shouted at me. Gave everything so I could go to a good school and practice creativity. I am so grateful.

But then my family and community rejoiced when Reagan won. “A good Christian man” who would do something about crime and drugs. The best thing about the rich getting richer was that the success would trickle down to the poor! Well… we know how that turned out. (I wouldn’t wake up to the ugly truth about those old reliable GOP bullshit tactics about wealth, whiteness, “law and order,” and posturing as “pro-life” for many years.) So… we had our problems. What’s more — I never had more than one black classmate at my evangelical Christian private school, and remained ignorant of and uncomfortably disinterested in all questions about race—or poverty, for that matter—until college.

So, this film—although it feels frustratingly guarded and muted, like every aspect from the camera to the performances are being held back, and although its white-guilt penance is heavy-handed—is nevertheless going to stick with me as a film in which I saw a life very like my own, meaningfully similar, meaningfully different. I see so many ways in which my community’s privilege and fear kept me sheltered from necessary truths of the world, so many ways in which I was spared hardship and blessed with priceless gifts.

https://youtu.be/Od2NW1sfRdA

Directors: Guillermo Del Toro and Mark Gustafson

Writers: Guillermo Del Toro and Patrick McHale

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “During the rise of fascism in Mussolini’s Italy, a wooden boy brought magically to life struggles to live up to his father’s expectations.”

From my Letterboxd notes:

Well... it's truth in advertising:

Gorgeous puppetry and extravagant sets.

Darker, stranger, and braver storytelling than Disney animation has ever dared (and thus truer in spirit to "the old tales" like Collodi's 1883 original).

And, above all, it's Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio — a re-imagining of Collodi's strange story in a way that allows the enfant terrible of big-screen fantasy to preach another conflicted and ultimately confusing Del Toro Gospel — Christianity-reviling and yet Christ-haunted at the same time — even as he indulges increasingly familiar and derivative-of-themselves Del Toro fantasies.

…

For me, the most interesting thing about Del Toro's films is that, despite their childish attachment to moments of cathartic violence against villains, and their increasingly predictable attacks on Christianity as merely a system for exploiting people's hopes and keeping them in line... the philosophy these films illustrate feels at war with itself, incongruous with the "deeper magic" of mythology to suggest something timeless and eternal.

There is a lot of energy expended here on emphasizing the connection between the church and fascism. What complicates that in a fascinating way is how the figure of Jesus — so surprisingly prominent here — manifests as a "puppet," a character carved from wood, fitted together with puppetry joints, and lifted up for people to marvel at in ways that allow evil men to exploit the enchanted. In a way, Jesus himself escapes the complaint. The real enemies here are manipulative and abusive institutions, not the Gospel itself. The accusations are fashioned to criticize a corrupt religious establishment rather than the Loving and Living Word of God.

But Del Toro never seems to figure out how to reconcile this. He throws the Baby Jesus out with the dirty bathwater he's been immersed in. He has to dismiss the possibility of "eternal life" and a Loving God, reducing everything to the popular and practical gospel of just "being good" — one that doesn't seem to work out too well in the real world.

- - -

Fortunately for audiences, there are other forces at work in Del Toro's storytelling than his reductive philosophies. Maybe that's why he keeps telling stories. Maybe they aren't finished with him yet.

I can't help but notice that Geppetto still sleeps under a sign of the cross, and it's still there at the end of the film, like something Del Toro can't bring himself to give up.

https://youtu.be/d9BR3Z_-Hh8

Director: Park Chan-wook

Writers: Jeong Seo-kyeong and Park Chan-wook

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “Hae-Joon, a seasoned detective, investigates the suspicious death of a man on a mountaintop. Soon, he begins to suspect Seo-rae, the deceased’s wife, while being unsettled by his attraction to her.”

From my Letterboxd notes:

On how much Hitch could Park Chan-Wook riff
if Park Chan-Wook could riff on Hitch?
Park Chan-Wook would riff on all the Hitch he could
if Park Chan-Wook could riff on Hitch!

And, in fact, he has! Decision to Leave finds Park Chan-Wook riffing on so much Hitchcock that it seems like the old master deserves to have his name in the credits!

I mean... my head was spinning so violently with how many reversals of the famous Stewart/Novak dynamics Park wove into this long (over-long?), complicated (over-complicated?) tapestry that I got dizzier than Jimmy Stewart standing on a stepladder.

• • Cops and detectives chasing crooks across rooftops.
  • A rocky precipice above violent, smashing waves.
  • The shots of Detective Hae-jun driving slowly behind his suspect and even commenting on how he enjoys trailing a mark.
  • A vivid bouquet.
  • A shot with the tormented cop/femme fatale against a mirror image emphasizing the ways in which they are "doubled."
  • The "vertigo" shot (the dolly zoom).
  • The low-angle shots of Park Hae-il as the discombobulated detective, often looking down from high places.
  • And even a literal whirlpool that would've made Hitchcock wish he'd thought of that as another variation of the spirals that are the engines of Vertigo.

I'm both delighted by the giddy extravagance of these relentless callbacks/tributes/spoofs of Vertigo and frustrated with how they constantly disrupt my suspension of disbelief. I've never really been on Park Chan-Wook's wavelength — I'm sure it's not him, it's me — and until now Stoker was the only film of his I've really enjoyed (I have some admiration for aspects of Thirst, but I've always disliked Oldboy). But I enjoyed this as much as Bong's Parasite, and I'm glad it's in the running for the Oscars' International Feature award. I just can't tell how much of my enjoyment is about my love for Vertigo and how much I care about this film apart from that clever re-imagining.

https://youtu.be/55M5ZgAqbWo

Director: Joachim Trier

Writers: Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “Chronicles four years in the life of Julie, a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, leading her to take a realistic look at who she really is.”

From my Letterboxd notes:

More than any other movie I can think of right off the top of my head, this is a movie that will quickly divide audiences into moviegoers who judge a complicated character and moviegoers who are curious about and capable of empathizing with a complicated character.

Julie is a character whose decisions hurt people all around her, behavior I was taught to condemn. But Trier's film draws us into such intimacy with Julie that eventually it becomes possible to see just how much the world she's in has been harming her, starving her, depriving her of being seen and known (especially by herself). The fact that she ends up harming most another complicated, imperfect human — who, I believe, loves her and knows her better than most — is a shame. But people who are neglected and disrespected and made to feel unvalued from childhood run on deeply fractured software, and loving them as they find their way through the wreckage of their hearts and minds is costly. I've seen it happen in so many relationships. I've been in those relationships. I've been impatient with and dismissive of people like Julie. And, frankly, I know that anyone who dares to love me is in for some rather disappointing revelations — so there are moments when I recognize my own most-alarming behaviors in Julie.

The trailer made me think that this was the kind of movie that makes me furious and I end up wishing I hadn't seen. There is nothing more aggravating for me than a story that takes infidelity lightly and that champions the libido as faultless, as the guiding moral compass, as an appetite that must always be prioritized. But that is not at all what this movie is. It's one of the most thoughtful movies about human nature — and one of the most thoughtful about a woman — that I've seen since the peak of Kieslowski.

Renate Reinsve is extraordinary and should be alongside Olivia Colman as the [2022] Oscar front-runner. But everybody who sees this is talking about her. We should also be talking about Anders Danielsen Lie, whose performance is every bit as three-dimensional; he really moved me. With this and Bergman Island, he had quite a 2021.

And, in a year of enigmatic closing moments, this rivals 2022's The Green Knight for the most provocative and surprising.

[Note: Most critics counted this as a 2021 release. Seattle didn't have it onscreen until long into the next year, so for me it's a 2022 release.]

https://youtu.be/qFqgmaO15x4

Director: Edward Berger

Writers: Edward Berger, Ian Stokell, and Lesley Paterson

Based on All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.”

Here’s my full review at Looking Closer.

https://youtu.be/Na6gA1RehsU

Writer and director: Todd Field

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “The film, set in the international world of classical music, centers on Lydia Tár, widely considered one of the greatest living composer/conductors and first-ever female chief conductor of a major German orchestra.”

Here’s my first-impressions review at Looking Closer. And here are my second-viewing follow-up thoughts at Letterboxd.

https://youtu.be/rHPcubS9XbM

Writer and director: Terence Davies

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “Poet Siegfried Sassoon survived the horrors of fighting in the First World War and was decorated for his bravery, but became a vocal critic of the government’s continuation of the war when he returned from service. Adored by members of the aristocracy as well as stars of London’s literary and stage world, he embarked on affairs with several men as he attempted to come to terms with his homosexuality.”

From my Letterboxd notes:

Thoughts on watching Benediction:

1. 1. Having just finished Season One of Slow Horses and loved every minute of it, I was already sold on Jack Lowden as an action-hero spy guy. Now that I've seen him give one of the strongest performances of 2022 as a quiet, tender-hearted war veteran, poet, and Catholic, count me a fan. He's fantastic here.
   2. This is the second very good film I've seen in which an actor plays Ivor Novello, sits at the piano, and performs "And Her Mother Came Too." I can't say I ever expected that.
   3. … [See Letterboxd.]
   4. This is simultaneously one of the gayest and one of the most serious-mindedly Catholic films I've ever seen. That's not a complaint; I think it’s quite a meaningful achievement. And, given that the director is Terence Davies, I guess it shouldn't be surprising.

https://youtu.be/acfBNIXovww

Directors: Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman

Writer: Saul Williams

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “In the hilltops of Burundi, a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region’s natural resources – and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry.”

An excerpt from my long, long Letterboxd post:

Living in the bubble of white privilege, I am woefully naive of the ways in which my hour-to-hour routines are running on engines built and fueled by unseen, anonymous, exploited workers in poverty around the world.

Watching this movie is like listening to a prophet who, overcome by a Holy Spirit, is testifying in allegory, and promising the world that the souls we have exploited, neglected, and buried are not finished with us.

- - -

Most reviewers I'm reading are describing the narrative as too cryptic to follow. Well, it's abstract and heavily symbolic, yes. And it requires close attention. But I wasn't terribly confused:

I followed the futuristic arc of a miner named Matalusa (Bertrand Ninteretse) who works in a camp of slaves that dig up the essential materials used to power the world's internet-dependent culture. Matalusa's brother Tekno pauses for a moment in his work to marvel at the treasure he is mining, and he is murdered. Matalusa flees the mine and runs through the looking glass into a wonderland wilderness.

There, he meets Neptune an intersex person defiant of binaries who has been persecuted for their nonbinary biology. (When we first meet Neptune, they suffer a sexual advance from a Christian pastor... because, well, of course.) Neptune is first played by Elvis “Bobo” Ngabo, and then later played by Cheryl Isheja, after they claim their identity and reject being named and controlled by others. Together, Matalusa and Neptune become an unconventional couple, a sort of Jospeh and Mary ushering a a new definition of life into the world.

They gather a community of tech experts from a Black community of poverty and technological genius. They engage in a variety of debates about whether to form an army and fight back with violence, or to take the path of artists and awaken the world to their existence, their essentiality, and their vision for a world of nuance, beauty, poetry, and music. Their collective password is Unanimous Goldmine, which seems to represent their vision of treasure in transcendent unity.

When their vision goes global, disrupting the worldwide system of oppressive hierarchies, they are identified by the hacker name "Martyr Loser King," and the oppressive sovereign called the Authority strives to wipe them from the earth with a military strike.

This makes the punk-rock edge of George Miller's Mad Max films look like pop music by demanding that the audience go on a fast from their diet of easy narrative formulas and violence served up as entertainment. Instead, it delves into dance, poetry, and music, telling a story of symbols that we read the way we might translate hieroglyphics, with characters bearing names as heavily symbolic as Memory, Psychology, and Innocent.

At times, conversations become rather cumbersome, having been obviously crafted to deliver sermons and lectures. Still, those lectures are compelling, ablaze with righteous anger, and yet calling for a refusal to answer violence with violence. These revolutionaries are daring to insist on a moral integrity that the rest of the world does not understand and will probably go on punishing.

https://youtu.be/V03Oz5j-_Co

Director: Alice Diop

Writers: Alice Diop, Amrita David, and Marie NDiaye

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “A novelist attends the trial of a woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. But as the trial continues, her own family history, doubts, and fears about motherhood are steadily dislodged as the life story of the accused is gradually revealed.”

An excerpt from my Letterboxd notes:

[This is one] of two films I saw this year in which the Mona Lisa makes a surprising experience early in the film, quietly preparing us for living manifestation in close-up later in the film. I won't say this one is "better," as they're in very different genres with very different priorities, and both films deliver in so many satisfying ways. But where the other film's Giaconda is a moment of smug satisfaction, the one we see here is profoundly disorienting, a moment that will haunt me.

- - -

The power of Diop’s camera is not in how it moves, or the light it captures (although the actresses here are captured in radiance), but in what she leaves out of the frame until we're ready to learn a little more about the complexity of this courtroom drama. That effortless control of subtle surprises actually made me almost overlook that the cast — particularly Guslagie Malanga as the defendant accused of matricide — are navigating very difficult emotional terrain over very long takes.

Diop’s direction is like that of one of her mentors, Claire Denis, in how she makes close-ups of thoughtful stillness as gripping as any action movie's vertiginous plunge. And some of her deep understanding of parent–child intimacy here reminds me of 35 Shots of Rum.

But then, I went into Saint Omer half-expecting to see Denis' influence. What I didn't expect that this courtroom drama would remind me even more of the constantly shapeshifting nature of Farhadi's ethical dramas like A Separation or A Hero, the heart of the matter looking altogether different every time a new lens is introduced to us.

But the movie I thought about most, and with which this would make a brilliant double feature, is what I consider to be Michael Haneke's greatest work: Code Unknown. Here is another portrait of Paris as a city dreaming of law and order and human flourishing in the overlaying of many different peoples and cultures. Here is another one that asks, "Are progress and harmony possible?" At times, Saint Omer plays almost like a gentle sequel, reminding us that if you draw a diverse community into a room and ask them to explore a question, you will only find more and more questions until you can hardly know what to believe anymore.

But where Code Unknown concludes in a way that leaves me shaken and fighting back cynicism, Saint Omer makes a bold move away from what almost any other filmmaker (and viewer) would wish for it's conclusion, and attends instead to one character's deepening wisdom. I was moved by hope.

https://youtu.be/Z3tDnQ8EWvA

Writer and director: Laura Wandel

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “When Nora witnesses Abel being bullied by other kids, she rushes to protect him by warning their father. But Abel forces her to remain silent. Caught in a conflict of loyalty, Nora will ultimately try to find her place, torn between children’s and adult’s worlds.”

From my Letterboxd post:

Once upon a time, this movie would have torn me to pieces and then moved me to tears and gratitude with its conclusion.

It says something about how the world has changed, and how bullying has become the out-in-the-open strategy for so many people in power, that the movie, as I watch it today, tears me to pieces and then leaves me struggling to decide whether or not I can actually suspend my disbelief enough to accept its final grace note. Have I become too cynical? Have my hopes been smashed to such ruins that the final scene here feels too much like wishful thinking?

I'll give it some time and watch it again, if I can muster the courage. This film has a short running time, but it is punishing in its unflinching portrayal of playground bullying and the cruelty of children. Having witnessed and experienced a lot of bullying in childhood, I have difficulty recovering from movies about it, just as I have difficulty with the daily news accounts of politicians belittling and persecuting the vulnerable, the poor, and the outsider.

Having said that, the cast — both the young actors and the adults — create a world that's almost too convincing. The siblings in the spotlight and the adults towering over them — misunderstanding them, failing them, and only occasionally offering them meaningful help — will remain alive in my imagination for a long time to come. The stark cinema realism (which I suspect was influenced by the Dardenne brothers' handheld cameras, natural light, high tension, and long and charged silences), and the fiercely unsentimental depiction of how children will behave when adults aren't looking, should serve to activate our empathy.

And maybe, just maybe, this path of such deep suffering brings us to a moment of clarifying wisdom. I'm not sure.

I want to believe all of it.

https://youtu.be/mdORAHCydyY

Writer and director: Céline Sciamma

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “Eight-year-old Nelly has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods where her mother used to play and where she built the treehouse Nelly has heard so much about. One day her mother suddenly leaves. That is when Nelly meets a girl of her own age in the woods, building a treehouse.”

Here’s my review at Looking Closer.

https://youtu.be/G9jOaggGPKQ

Writer and director: Charlotte Wells

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between miniDV footage as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn’t.”

I haven’t found the right time yet to compose my thoughts about this one. I need to see it again. Suffice it to say that I found every scene absorbing, the camera constantly surprising, all that is unsaid as affecting as anything that is, and the karaoke scene as memorable as any such performance since Lost in Translation. And then the last few minutes of it may be my favorite finale to a film all year. For a proper review, here’s Josh Larsen at Larsen on Film.

https://youtu.be/xyCI741MqPY

Writer and director: David Cronenberg

Synopsis via Letterboxd: “As the human species adapts to a synthetic environment, the body undergoes new transformations and mutations. With his partner Caprice, celebrity performance artist Saul Tenser publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. Timlin, an investigator from the National Organ Registry, obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed. Their mission — to use Saul’s notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.”

Here’s my review at Looking Closer.

by Jeffrey Overstreet

Overstreet's Favorite Films of 2022 — Part One: Honorable Mentions

The Super Bowl is over.

Valentine's Day has passed.

The Oscars are coming!

And I've already seen some of 2023's new releases.

I guess it's time for me to make up my mind and share my list of favorite films from 2022.

This post was previously published at Give Me Some Light.
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As my longtime readers know, I don't like to rush things. I'm unwilling to join the circus of film reviewers who rush to post their favorites list in November, when there are still several weeks of movies that haven't yet been revealed. And even if I could see them all by November, I wouldn't have the time necessary for reflection, for reading others' perspectives, for (in some cases) second viewings. I like to give art time. Because there's so much going on in a good movie that isn't immediately evident. Thoughtful interpretations and assessments take a while to compose.

So, even though my opinions will continue to evolve, I'm ready to share the first of three posts highlighting the films released in 2022 that I found to be worth seeing and recommending.

2022 was full of unexpected highlights, many singular and strange. But where last year I couldn't decide between my three favorites, this year I have a clear #1 pick, great confidence about my Top Five, and after that it starts to get blurry.

Part One of this series — the "Honorable Mentions" — will be listed alphabetically instead of ranked. It's a long list of films I recommend highly, even if I didn't admire them enough to rank them at the very top. If you follow the links for each, you'll my first impressions, interpretations, and reflections in more detail.

And hey — why not post some information about your own favorites of 2022 in the Comments? What am I leaving out? What have I missed that I need to see?

A Hero

https://youtu.be/zAJ6_lmr_HQ

• Director and writer: Asghar Farhadi

From my Letterboxd post:

Farhadi's cinema is a moral X-ray machine so fine-tuned that his narratives leave me at a loss for words unless those words come from the Scriptures. And this film — is it worth saying :one of his finest" when so many are so great? — is no exception. It shows us the folly in exalting anyone's righteousness. When we make a hero of human beings, they will likely then suffer the kind of scrutiny that will expose their humbling faults — and that, in this world of reactionaries and bullies, might end up doing them more harm than good. Worse, the simplest act of goodness can be so easily exploited by others.

Love your neighbor quietly. And pray your love doesn't attract attention. It's blood in the water for the devil’s sharks, including those within within your own heart.

Saleh Karimaei, the boy who plays Siavash, would have made Abbas Kiarostami weep. Farhadi knows the best way to break our hearts over the failures of adults is to place a child among them and let him watch, with dawning horror, how corrupt his elders really are.

Belle

https://youtu.be/izIycj3j4Ow

• Writer and director: Mamoru Hosoda

From my Letterboxd post:

With animation so dazzling that it's easy to suffer through the movie's patience-testing duration, Belle gives us a clever re-contextualization of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. In fact, the homage is so blatant — especially in the design of the Beast's castle and the choreography of his turning-point encounters with Belle — that I'm surprised I haven't read about any tension between Disney and Studio Chizu. There is so much, light, color, and extravagance, I was often awestruck. And I recommend you see it on the biggest, brightest screen you can. But, as with so much anime, everything is so big, so overblown, so obvious, it's hard not to come away feeling that stronger writers could have made this a masterpiece.

The Black Phone

https://youtu.be/3eGP6im8AZA

• Director: Scott Derrickson
• Writers: Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill

From my Letterboxd post:

It's so much more engaging, and it's about so much more, than most movies about serial killers, I was pleasantly surprised. … Contrary to what I might have expected from reading the early reviews, I like the young actors and how their performances gave this a surprisingly comic undertone throughout. Contrary to the approach of so many horror films, including Derrickson's own Sinister, the enemy is not made to seem invincible or awe-inspiring, but is actually something of a buffoon; The Grabber reminds me more of the Coen Brothers' approach to killers than other Blumhouse icons, and that's a good thing.

James Ransone FTW.

As a "period piece," this looks and feels just right.

Both Sides of the Blade

https://youtu.be/OBTJTtOiuzg

• Director: Claire Denis
• Writers: Christine Angot and Claire Denis, based on Agnot’s novel Un tournant de la vie

From my Letterboxd post:

We want freedom from control, but we can’t stand the idea of losing our influence over others. Is the ache of heartbreak from the loss of the Other, or from the loss of the desire the Other has for us? This isn’t a movie about love, really. It’s a movie about phones and credit cards, and the charade of virtue we put on to seem noble until somebody takes our power away. We don’t want to be told we can’t. That’s the hurt that shows us who we really are: utterly dependent. And, if we’re not careful, spoiled rotten.

[For more substantial reflections: Darren Hughes' notes from Berlinale.]

Bullet Train

https://youtu.be/0IOsk2Vlc4o

• Director: David Leitch
• Writer: Zak Olkewicz

From my Letterboxd post:

I've been missing well-made action comedies. Since Edgar Wright moved on from the Cornetto trilogy, I've been wondering who would step up and seize the opportunity. Bullet Train isn't as strong as any of those three films. Wright's films earn 'A' grades on every count, while Leitch's film here is 'B'-grade on most counts. Wright knows how to sustain a very tricky balance: He can weave meaningful character development and thoughtful thematic exploration into his action, while also celebrating and innovating on genre cliches, and somehow avoiding irresponsibly gratuitous violence. Leitch isn't nearly as ambitious and doesn't seem to be as gifted — Bullet Train has some playful comments about luck and fate along the way, but there's not much to discuss afterward. What it does have is a feast of dazzling, tongue-in-cheek action sequences, and some very clever braiding of plots and subplots. As an exhibition of slick craftsmanship, it's consistently impressive and engaging.

Corsage

https://youtu.be/P7LpMtLRe2E

• Writer and director: Marie Kreutzer

From my Letterboxd post:

There are fleeting images of bodies of water here that I will remember more than anything in The Way of Water. And there is a quiet image of the Empress alone at a table holding a teacup that I find more striking than any image in the box office top 10 this year. And forget the dance in Wednesday — give us the closing-credits Krieps.

Cyrano

https://youtu.be/5e8apSFDXsQ

• Director: Joe Wright
• Writer: Erica Schmidt; based on her 2018 stage musical of the same name, which is based on Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac
• Music: Aaron and Bryce Dessner

Notes:

I’m always impressed by Peter Dinklage. I’m always moved by this story. And the decision to switch Cyrano’s affliction from a prominent nose to achondroplastic dwarfism works better than I might have guessed. But overall, the most interesting aspects of this were the Dessners’ forays into making a familiar story into a big-screen musical surprising enough to move us all over again.

Here’s Steven Greydanus’s detailed review, which is so good it makes me want to see it again, even as it makes me content to recommend it rather than attempt anything so substantial myself.

Elvis

https://youtu.be/Gp2BNHwbwvI

• Director: Baz Luhrmann
• Writers: Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, Jeremy Doner

From my Letterboxd post:

If you don't like Baz Luhrmann films, this won't change that. If you like The Great Gatsby and loved Moulin Rouge! as I do, you'll have a good time with this. . . .  This is the story of two men: one, addicted to gambling; another, addicted to attention. It’s a tragedy for both, given the gifts evident in both of them. And, as dealmaking and showmanship are two of America’s most notorious strengths, this shows you where it’s all headed. . . . How long until Butler plays John Travolta in a biopic that gives a lot of attention to Saturday Night Fever?

Emergency

https://youtu.be/FVi9hlvQOrg

• Director: Carey Williams
• Writer: KD Dávila

Here’s my full review at Looking Closer.

Emily the Criminal

https://youtu.be/Xzf1YCEkLDI

• Writer and director: John Patton Ford

From my Letterboxd post:

Tense and efficient and surprisingly uncomplicated, Emily the Criminal makes for a suspenseful 90 minutes that feel more like 60 or 70. Shot with a lot of effective, tight, handheld close-ups, it feels immediate and convincing.
…
Aubrey Plaza and Theo Rossi are both very good here, and perhaps the best compliment I can give them is that they develop some impressive, engaging chemistry in very little time. I've been a big fan of Plaza since Parks & Rec, but I've been disappointed in the variety of movies she's been in so far. This feels like a giant step in the right direction.

The Eternal Daughter

https://youtu.be/5hJR8hEsLZU

• Writer and director: Joanna Hogg

From my Letterboxd post:

Some surprisingly Lynch-ian vibes here in what often feels like a low-key take on The Shining. A haunting whisper of a film, as ethereal as a wisp of fog blurring the moon. As one compelled — uselessly, really — with an insatiable desire to impart happiness to my parents, and often feeling that my efforts have backfired, I really feel this movie.Tilda Swinton: 2022 MVP. This is my second-favorite Swinton-Lost-in-a-Soundscape film of the year. Can this surprisingly enchanting new genre become a biannual event?

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

https://youtu.be/-xR_lBtEvSc

• Writer and director: Rian Johnson

From my Letterboxd post:

That's entertainment. And it's also therapy for those exasperated Americans who, over the last several years of insurrection, authoritarian narcissists, and billionaires-gone-bananas, have felt like they've been taking crazy pills.

I need to put my past misgivings about The Bloom Brothers and Looper away and admit that, at this point in his career, Rian Johnson is an undeniable force for good in the world.

And not just because he's given Kate Hudson her best role in 22 years. Not just because Edward Norton is fun again. Not just because we can put Antebellum behind us and be excited about the camera's love affair with Janelle Monáe again. Not just because this has several of the cleverest surprise cameos any director has ever pulled off (I mean, the flex this guy is showing off right now).

But because, as much of a three-ring circus of hijinks and fun as this is, it serves up so many meaningfully cathartic laughs about things that deserve to be laughed at. Others have already marveled at the seeming prescience of this film's script given what we're seeing in the headlines this week. But just... wow. I needed this movie so much.

God’s Creatures

https://youtu.be/fyOk1QVDlsI

• Director: Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer
• Writer: Shane Crowley

From my Letterboxd post:

Holmer and Davis … elevate this material, drawing out yet another extraordinary performance from the great Emily Watson (who doesn't get nearly enough leading-role work these days), and finding in Paul Mescal's performance some of the same chemistry of boyish charm and deep shame that makes him so magnetic in Aftersun.
…
[A]s an intense immersion in a persuasively constructed Irish coastal community, and as one of this year's several brilliant portraits of "women talking" (or, in this case, not talking) about men's violence, this is a film that will stick with me. And I'm delighted to find that these filmmakers eschew the prevalent cynicism about the role of faith in a community, showing it to have a powerful influence on those who refuse to cast their conscience aside for the sake of self-preservation.

Hit the Road

https://youtu.be/6PTz6Dzsv6A

• Writer and director: Panah Panahi

Here’s my review at Looking Closer.

The House

https://youtu.be/wqbZlAEUb5w

• Directors: Emma de Swaef, Marc James Roels, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Paloma Baeza
• Writer: Enda Walsh

From my Letterboxd post:

For a movie about the soul-threatening perils of investing your love in a temporal thing, this film is a testimony to the near-miracles that become possible when we invest our love in temporal things. What awe-inspiring animation this is!

And yet, it's a film that most will find difficult to love, as we try to make sense of why the cast of characters are first manifested as human, then as rats (and other vermin), and then as cats. The deliberate unpleasantness of the tone is as abrasive as some of its characters' fabric.But I'm not one to write off a movie for making me uncomfortable. The unease of great horror is deliberately and purposefully cultivated, and can be a path to wisdom. I'm convinced that the storytellers are doing meaningful work here, but this is a tough trilogy to interpret with confidence.

Kimi

https://youtu.be/_Gr2zXuEBL0

• Director: Steven Soderbergh
• Writer: David Koepp

Notes:

A high-energy COVID-19-lockdown take on Rear Window with a strong lead performance by Zoe Kravitz and a surprisingly non-cynical take on in-home technology and artificial intelligence. And I had a lot of fun seeing my city look so sleek and shiny as our hero dashes through it and dodges her sinister stalkers.

Murina

https://youtu.be/fC2sUO6xhOA

• Writer and director: Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović

From my Letterboxd post:

I've finally found a movie adaptation of The Little Mermaid that I love.

Nothing Compares

https://youtu.be/-VLy1A4En4U

• Director: Kathryn Ferguson
• Writers: Eleanor Emptage, Kathryn Ferguson, Michael Mallie

Here’s my full review at Looking Closer.

The Northman

https://youtu.be/oMSdFM12hOw

• Director: Robert Eggers
• Writer: Sjón and Robert Eggers

Here’s my review at Looking Closer.

Official Competition

https://youtu.be/3b0ZYBmST-U

• • Directors: Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat
  • Writers: Mariano Cohn, Andrés Duprat, Gastón Duprat

From my Letterboxd post:

Imagine a more sophisticated version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, set this time in the world of arthouse filmmaking, with the two competitive rival Scoundrels being egomaniacal leading men with very different methods of acting. But this time, the woman they're both drawn to is in charge from the get-go — she's the director who wants them to act opposite one another as feuding brothers in a major motion picture, and she proves to be just as aggressively contentious as the two of them.
...
I miss comedies that remember to use the whole screen. I miss comedies that expect their audiences to be intelligent. I miss comedies that use silences and body language cleverly, instead of just delivering written jokes. I miss comedies in which jokes have two, three, even four stages of detonation.And I miss sophisticated comedy performances like these. All three leads are fantastic, and José Luis Gómez is particularly funny in a dry, subtle supporting role as Humberto Suárez, a multi-millionaire monster who, knowing he's hated for being heartless, wants to reinvent himself as a gift to humanity by producing a meaningful film based on a Nobel-prize-winning novel.But this is Penélope Cruz's show, above all, and she is sensational. I want to see her doing more of these ambitious comedies. Few actresses would be able to give a complicated performance in a wig as spectacular as this one, but she is glorious.

Prey

https://youtu.be/wZ7LytagKlc

• Director: Dan Trachtenberg
• Writer: Patrick Aison

From my Letterboxd post:

In this Predator prequel, which might as well be called Episode One: The Phantom Menace, the New Mexican Aubrey Plaza — Fort Peck Sioux tribe member Amber Midthunder — catapults to the front lines of action stars with a supremely confident and engaging performance and achieves what might be the most difficult thing to do in a Predator movie: She steals the movie from the alien and makes me want to see more movies about Naru instead of any soulless, roaring, extra-terrestrial bigfoot.

I approve. Since franchise installments apparently must be made endlessly as long as there is money to be made from the fans who are addicted to the familiar, why not spice them up with something thought-provoking? Why not ambush audiences with some aesthetic beauty and some provocative undermining of genre tropes? Why not do what you can to wake a few viewers up to how much better movies can be, and make a few a little more willing to loosen their ignorant assumptions about gender? Why not try new things?

P.S.

I mean, I knew Malick's The New World would be influential. I never dreamed it would inspire this.

She Said

https://youtu.be/i5pxUQecM3Y

• Director: Maria Schrader
• Writer: Rebecca Lenkiewicz

From my Letterboxd post:

This is a much stronger film than the trailer or the early buzz led me to believe. Sure, it's somewhat formulaic. And yes, it's hard to make a film about journalists working hard to reveal the truth without having them say obvious things about truth-telling. We've seen so many of them. Spotlight may deserve to be celebrated for greater artistry (as does Dark Water), but I think it won its Oscars in part because of good timing and a long highlight reel full of flashy Oscar Moments (particularly one featuring Mark Ruffalo that had me cringing in the theater). She Said impresses me just as much, if not more — it's just as urgent and relevant, just as suspenseful (even if you know the story), and it never feels like it's straining to win awards. And while it's about one man who is now in prison, it's also about many, many other men who aren't — not yet, anyway. I wish I could convince everyone I know to see it and share it.

. . .

Now, I admit that I may not be the most objective critic on this film.I know quite a few women who are journalists. And I was caught up in a recent drama in which a powerful man pulled all the strings he could to silence many "she saids" that represented women who were very close to me, women I count as trusted friends and model of integrity. How could I watch this and not be aggravated, upset, inspired, and (if you will) evangelical about it when it's over? I'm thinking about how this film might (if anybody sees it) inspire others to fight for similar surges of truth-telling to overthrow other abusers in power.

. . .

What's best — She Said isn't a courtroom drama. It doesn't revel in the truth-tellers' victories. It's a journalism drama — a movie about work. It may not represent what life is really like at The New York Times... I don't know. But it doesn't romanticize what journalists do. While it abbreviates a great deal to fit the story into a two hour span (I'm sure this is a case of "The book is so much better," because of course it is), it represents the long hours, the hard work, and the cost to every aspect of journalists' lives. And, specifically, the sacrifices that many women in journalism make remain front and center.

Stars at Noon

https://youtu.be/Yg3EQ1_zRow

• Director: Claire Denis
• Writers: Claire Denis, Léa Mysius, Andrew Litvack; based on the novel The Stars at Noon by Denis Johnson

From my Letterboxd post:

As unconvincing as the political drama and intrigue of mid-'80s Nicaragua might be here, the film's focal characters touch something true: It’s remarkable how much we will rationalize in our desire to be known, to be needed, to feel purposeful. When the world rejects what we have to offer, we might be surprised how many compromises we can live with if it means we get a taste of being loved… and of loving. Or of something close to that.

. . .

Denis is so patient, so focused on craft, so uninterested in anything conventionally "entertaining," so preoccupied with quiet rhythms, so attentive to capture moments of persuasive human expression. She knows what so many great filmmakers know: that there is no subject more enthralling than the face of a human being deep in thought. She has been prolific in recent years: High Life, Let the Sunshine In, Both Sides of the Blade. All of those films are compelling explorations and playful variations in her style and themes. I admire them. But this... this feels like a return to her strengths. It took me mere moments to relax into that rare feeling of being on an adventure with a master director, one driven by questions and intent on discovery.

The Territory

https://youtu.be/wL9wvdbk7A4

• Director: Alex Pritz

From my Letterboxd post:

Trigger warning for survivors of religious trauma: You will watch as men pray in the name of Jesus for blessings upon their work, and then they will turn and chainsaw their way into what's left of the heart of the world; they will unleash hell on a vulnerable community; they will (allegedly) commit murder; they will render "law and order" meaningless so the natives have no one to call for help; and they will speak without any shame at all about God has given this land to them.To watch these cruel and compassionless capitalists slash and burn their way through so much Amazon rainforest beauty is harrowing to behold. (And it's made all the more sickening in that I'm watching my own country on the brink of surrendering control to the same kind of merciless, arrogant fools.)

This Much I Know to Be True

https://youtu.be/o-f8HDIs6uM

• Director: Andrew Dominik

From my Letterboxd post:

A perfect match of filmmaker and musicians.I saw Cave and Ellis live at the Paramount in Seattle a couple of months ago — a dream come true — and I'm still shook.

But where that was a rare case of a thunderous, rigorous, riveting communion between artists and audience — an experience that felt like a monsoon — this is an intimate journey into an private arena where artists are confronting cosmic questions, grieving unfathomable losses, and wrestling angels at risk of their souls. It's like watching spiritual warfare manifested as mixed martial arts matches.

In one sense, the film is about a unique and fruitful collaboration between two singular talents, but in another sense it's almost like Ellis is providing Cave with exactly the right sphere in which he can sculpt his anguish and his faith, giving shape to his unspeakable wounds and offering companionship and consolation to the lonely and desperate souls who write to him asking for guidance.

Three Minutes: A Lengthening

https://youtu.be/I8RprTU0hXY

• Director: Bianca Stigter
• Based on Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film, by Glenn Kurtz

From my Letterboxd post:

I love Bonham-Carter, but her presence here was, for me, an odd distraction in an otherwise profound exhibit of curiosity, detective work, academic inquiry, visual experimentation, and moral vision. Short enough to show during a typical class period, it will become a favorite for professors and teachers intent on making sure new generations of students know that the Holocaust was real and that bearing witness matters. It’s also an impressive display of finding a whole world in a grain of sand — or, in this case, three minutes of grainy footage.

Three Thousand Years of Longing

https://youtu.be/TWGvntl9itE

• Director: George Miller
• Writer: George Miller, Augusta Gore

From my Letterboxd post:

George Miller's The BFG (for adults) with heavy doses of Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Tarsem's The Fall, and a tone that reminds me of Jean-Pierre Jeunet.I've now seen two new films in 2022 in which Tilda Swinton plays an eccentric who bonds with a strange man and, through an intimate touch, shares with him communal perception of other dimensions.
...
There's so much to enjoy all the way through. Swinton is Swinton-ing all over the place. ... Elba, by contrast, is surprisingly otherworldly and yet affectingly human at the same time — an unlikely but inspiring choice for this character. The fantastical stuff gives us some glorious images I'm so glad I saw on a big screen, but the scenes that are just about Swinton and Elba in white terry-cloth bathrobes sharing stories in a hotel room are every bit as savory and delightful. I could have listened to them talk all night.

Turning Red

https://youtu.be/XdKzUbAiswE

• Director: Domee Shi
• Writers: Julia Cho and Domee Shi

From my Letterboxd notes:

I appreciate how this one shows Pixar embracing animation less as an opportunity to dazzle us with how "lifelike" anything is and more as an opportunity to play. It's not as brave among Pixar movies as The Emperor's New Groove was among Disney animation features, but it has something of that film's recklessness. It also bears (AUGH!) witness to the influence of both Miyazaki and Aardman on the creatives — which is a good thing. And — perhaps best of all — it knows when to quit (something I unfortunately can't say about The Mitchells vs. the Machines, even though that's an unpopular opinion). It felt shorter than its hour-and-40-minute running time.This is a promising move in a new direction for a studio that has, for me, lost something of its magic over the last three features.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

https://youtu.be/d4s7v7djmBM

• Writer and director: Jane Schoenbrun

From my Letterboxd post:

A re-imagining of one of horror's most fundamental texts — the confrontation between Clarice and the behind-bars Hannibal Lecter. But in this case, "Casey" – the film's Clarice – is trying to find the clues she needs in order to track herself down, in order to find out who she really is and how to cope in a world that has forced her into isolation. And "JLB," who we're conditioned to assume is a Hannibal Lecter just waiting to feast, is actually just a lonely guy — one whose strategies are dangerous and, for some, ultimately destructive.

But as "Casey" comes to JLB needing guidance and attention and affirmation, the other recognizes something in her, and the intimacy that forms between them transcends the templates of horror and becomes a rare and inspiring example of how Love Your Neighbor breaks down binaries. The game can go wrong depending on how it is used, but it can also become a language through which we cultivate real and redemptive relationship. And the game master is not a monster after all. I can feel the good in him.

Here's to a "horror" film that isn't about perpetuating horror by endorsing coercive violence against an Other, but rather seems to have a genuine interest in the cure for all horrors.

White Noise

https://youtu.be/SgwKZAMx_gM

• Writer and director: Noah Baumbach
• Based on the novel by Don DeLillo

From my Letterboxd post:

Is White Noise Noah Baumbach's most hopeful film?

I'm not sure. But it's certainly his most imaginative and ambitious. He's pushing himself beyond his comfort zone into a very discomforting world of clashing modes and tones: chaotic Altman-esque family activity; Coen-Brothers-esque quirky supporting characters (the doctor, the mad TV-wielding prophet); Coen-Brothers-esque dark prophecies (a la A Serious Man); truly bonkers higher-education satire (Were college professors really this insufferably theatrical in the early '80s?); prophetic grim comedy (the traffic crashes and Millers-vs.-the-Machines family-car-in-slo-mo-flight); Marriage Story drama; and... sudden bursts of song and dance?!

The Woman King

https://youtu.be/3RDaPV_rJ1Y

• Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
• Writer: Dana Stevens

From my Letterboxd post:

Very surprising.

The lead performances are stronger than I anticipated: Davis as the general Nanisca, the strong hand of King of John Boyega's King Ghezo, is a more inspiring leader than Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn, Chris Evans's Captain America, or Mel Gibson's William Wallace. But I'm stunned to find myself wondering if her performance is the strongest one here: Both Thuso Mbedu (as the young trainee who is arguably the lead) and Lashana Lynch as Nanisca's fearsome and charismatic "power forward" Izogie are compelling whenever they're onscreen.

The violence is more visceral and chaotic than I anticipated, riveting in its energy and in the ways that dance in incorporated without disrupting the style/substance balance of the battle scenes.

And the weave of character arcs is more complex and affecting than the trailers hinted at.

The Wonder

https://youtu.be/htybz7XscIY

• Director: Sebastián Lelio
• Writer: Emma Donoghue, Sebastián Lelio, Alice Birch; based on the novel by Emma Donoghue

Here’s my full review at Looking Closer.

To be continued!
Check back for the "Runners-Up" post and the Top Ten over the next few days.
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by Jeffrey Overstreet