Staff Inquiry: Top Ten Best Films Of 2022

Kristy Strouse is the Owner/Editor in Chief of Film Inquiry,…

What a year it has been for film! 2022 brought us back to the theaters for some real blockbuster bangers, festival darlings, and international treasures. There were some intimate, touching dramas, and some visually stunning fantasies. We saw Tom Cruise hit the sky again and Cate Blanchett conduct symphonies. Avatar finally got its sequel and Spielberg got personal. Horror made a huge imprint with Peele, Cronenberg, and West getting in some epics along with a slew of other incredible directors. The Academy will have a tough time with performances this year too with some stellar, memorable portrayals.

What did our team think? Here are some of our writers sharing their favorites of the year!

Faisal Al-Jadir

Staff Inquiry: Top Ten Best Films Of 2022 — No Bears (2022) – source: Celluloid Dreams

No Bears (Jafar Panahi)

There’s a scene early on in the film where Panahi loses his laptop’s internet connection while directing his film’s cast and crew remotely. Currently residing in a village far from Tehran, he wanders out of his little house and takes his camera out. He photographs the villagers as they go about their various activities and festivities. In essence, it’s an artist so comfortable in his element and joyfully painting on his canvas. Never truly taking into consideration what repercussions may follow.

This is Panahi’s ultimate statement, not just on the state of cinema, but on any being’s butterfly effect on the world around us. No Bears is satirical yet tragic. Poetic yet devastating. An unpleasant experience in some respects, for sure, but one filled with colour, humour and joy. Yet Panahi is a realist first and foremost. He directly confronts both the idea of an artist’s (supposed) responsibility to his audience and subjects, as well as the consequences that may result from our own actions and desires.

Panahi is a strong enough cinematic presence to function as his own documentarian, protagonist and (more fascinating) a deity who ends up being held accountable to his supposed indifference by his “characters”. It’s a multi-faceted picture with many layers to unfold that is deceptively simple in terms of premise and execution.

When this film was released, Panahi was imprisoned by the authorities of the Iranian regime, after protesting the arrest and detainment of a fellow filmmaker. This would leave a void whenever No Bears was screened at a film festival (as was my experience at the 2022 Toronto film Festival). Ironically enough, this is a film about individual human rights as well as the strange laws and social contracts that hold us hostage to our communities. Panahi rejects these man-made notions (emphasis on “man”, by the way), and manoeuvres through his film like an anarchic comedian (albeit more restrained than, say, Groucho Marx) but one who seeks to understand the world around him like an anthropologist or scientist. He’s no less a humanist than Kurt Vonnegut, and can weave together the darkness and dread we face with the more farcical absurdities our existence can offer.

We live in a world where cinema is being enslaved by soulless (yet cowardly) corporate masters who simply don’t care about the potential that any genre or story can have as a piece of art so long as it makes billions of dollars so they can dine on lobster caviar while taking a shit.

I feel open-minded enough to distinguish between the bad and great examples of mainstream cinema (I also stand against the idea that all mainstream cinema is childish and trite). However, I do fear for the future of independent, arthouse cinema. They may not always be great (and believe me, some of them are quite naff), yet I would much rather hear the voice of an individual than that of a regime that serves some suffocating dogma.

For that alone, Jafar Panache’s No Bears gets my undivided attention as one of the most significant pieces of my lifetime. Change my mind. Try it.

1. No Bears

2. The Banshees of Inisherin

3. Nightmare Alley

4. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

5. The Northman

6. The Eternal Daughter

7. Mad God

8. Crimes of the Future

9. Subtraction

10. TÁR

Honourable Mentions:

Viking, Pearl, All Quiet on the Western Front, Nope, Three Thousand Years of Longing, The Batman, The Tragedy of Macbeth, The Fabelmans, Farha, Nocebo, A Gaza Weekend, Saloum

Diego Peralta

The Batman (Matt Reeves)

Matt Reeve’s spectacular vision for Gotham City is thrilling. Pattinson and Kravitz deliver fantastic performances in one of the best blockbusters in recent years, accompanied by Michael Giacchino’s enchanting score.

1. The Batman

2. Nope

3. Avatar: The Way of Water

4. Turning Red

5. Pinocchio

6. Top Gun: Maverick

7. Puss in Boots

8. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

9. Bodies Bodies Bodies

10. Everything Everywhere All At Once

Alexander Miller

Decision to Leave (Park Chan-Wook)

Park Chan-Wook has never looked better; Decision to Leave is not only slick with that diamond-cutter degree of perfection we come to expect from the maverick director, but there’s a playful fetishism that’s oh-so tantalizing throughout. This voyeuristic, sleekly executed modern noir is violent, sexy, and directed with a deft meditative balance of substance and style. Detail-oriented with an icy cool vein of proceduralism courses throughout, thanks to a beating heart at the core. It’s a relatively sexless erotic thriller, a romance by way of Park Chan-Wook is laced with fetishistic voyeurism and pitch-black humor that is so perfectly tuned with the acerbic modernity it would slide right by you if Decision to Leave wasn’t so thoroughly engaging.

Just as Bong Jun-Ho wowed us with his expertly crafted Parasite in 2019, Park Chan Wook returns to his native soil to wind us up with his wholly unique visionary talent. It might be one of his finest credits to an already illustrious and dazzling body of work. Compared to the machiavellian revenge films that brought him to the fore of the world stage, Decision to Leave is deceptively simple. A layered murder investigation gradually presents a macabre litany of meticulous flourishes consistent with the director’s oeuvre; all the while, you can see this manic energy pulsing at every juncture. And yet, for all of the film’s tightly wound aesthetic chops, it’s bubbling with an intuitive, playful wit that manages to delight and startle with its unpredictable narrative shifts and character developments.

And once again, Park Chan-Wook‘s deliberate execution doesn’t limit his vision but amplifies it to a level that reminds us that he’s got more drive than ever with his most recent film. He made us wait for it, but damn, it’s worth it, and if all we have to do is watch a John LeCarre miniseries and a couple of short films between the six-year gap it takes for him to spin another yarn, so be it.

Decision to Leave
The Eternal Daughter
Bones and All
The Fabelmans
Broker
Nope
Crimes of the Future
Benediction
Aftersun
Inu Oh

Crockett Houghton

The Batman (Matt Reeves)

2022 was full of amazing films for sure but for me there was no topping The Batman. It is a movie that I has been literally waiting for my entire life. Matt Reeves crafted something really special and brought back the “worlds greatest detective” aspect that Batman films had been missing. Placing Batman in the middle of a modern day film noir was what that character always needed and Robert Pattinson played both sides perfectly. The cast was stacked and I could go on listing everyone but the best performance Pattinson played both sides perfectly. The cast was stacked and I could go on listing everyone but the in the movie was probably the one on the screen the least: Colin Farrell’s portrayal of “Oz” was a masterclass in having fun on screen.

The Batman took the character seriously, it wasn’t a joke or tongue-in-cheek version of a superhero movie, it was Batman placed in the middle of a high-stakes mystery like Se7en or Zodiac and it was perfect for doing so. I’ve been a fan of Batman ever since I was a small child, I even wrote a love letter to this film earlier this year, so maybe my decision to place it at the top if my list is a little bias. I don’t think so though, I truly in my heart believe it deserves to be at number one. From the writing to the genre work, to the cinematography and the score, this movie had it all and delivered on every level.

If you’ve avoided watching this movie because superhero films aren’t your thing I would just say, watch it anyway, it will definitely surprise you. The Batman goes above and beyond to be different from any version you may have seen in the past and I personally think it is the most honest portrayal of the character on film. It’s the movie I was most excited to see last year and the best movie in a year that gave us the best cinema experience since the pandemic.

1. The Batman

2. Bones And All

3. The Woman King

4. RRR

5. Nope

6. Prey

7. The Menu

8. Glass Onion

9. Barbarian

10. Hellraiser

Jake Tropila

RRR (S. S. Rajamouli)

With one great exception, 2022 took a while to get going. For several months, I found most new releases to be lackluster and even though the most glowingly reviewed films (Everything Everywhere All At Once, Top Gun: Maverick) were grossly overrated. Thankfully, the back half of the year was a trove of delights, with my favorites being a gritty Hong Kong procedural, a Korean neo-noir with distinct Hitchc*ckian flavor, the triumphant returns of Wai Ka-Fai, David Cronenberg, and Todd Field to the directorial fold, two films by Claire Denis, and two that heavily featured an adorable donkey.

But these are all child’s play compared to my number one spot of the year: S. S. Rajamouli’s RRR, which grabbed 2022 by the throat and did not let go for a moment. A glorious epic teeming with all kinds of cinematic possibilities, RRR put a big smile on my face for all three hours of its unabashedly bombastic runtime. I never wanted it to end.

RRR
The Banshees of Inisherin
Stars at Noon
Limbo
EO
TÁR
Crimes of the Future
Decision to Leave
Detective vs. Sleuths
Both Sides of the Blade

Clement Tyler Obropta

A Night of Knowing Nothing (Payal Kapadia)

Whenever Top 10 time rolls around, I haven’t seen nearly enough movies. So here’s my chaotic list, including some really great genre thrills from Michael Bay, Rian Johnson, and Dan Trachtenberg, standout work from Pixar, and the mild-bending, ridiculous, and earnest Everything Everywhere All at Once. The Fallout made me sob (big year for Jenna Ortega), and I loved the eerie cinematography of the short doc Holdout, but the real surprises of the year, for me, came from India.

The bombastic, bloody RRR is energetic, pulpy, and historically adventurous, but I prefer A Night of Knowing Nothing, Payal Kapadia’s documentary about student protests across India in 2015. So rarely do films leave you feeling both totally zen and also like you’ve just been enveloped in an enigma. Kapadia’s tone, pacing, and execution are far from traditional, using non-diegetic sound and grainy black-and-white image to present a protest film as though it’s been conjured in a dream. Romantic, calming, and enervating all at once, A Night of Knowing Nothing isn’t an easy watch or an easily understood one, but it feels both like cinema of the moment and cinema that transcends time altogether.

A Night of Knowing Nothing
RRR
Turning Red
Till
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fallout
Holdout (short film)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Ambulance
Prey

Emily Wheeler

After Yang (Kogonada)

Good films move you. Great films make you look at the world a little differently. Truly special films poke at so many aspects of what it is to be human that everyone experiences something different. The latter is the magic of After Yang, only the second feature from writer/director/editor Kogonada. It’s quiet, contemplative science fiction that gives you many ways to latch onto its story.

Perhaps you’re drawn to the father who feels a vague disconnect from his family. Or perhaps your brain is tickled by Yang, the family’s broken robot companion whose deep well of memories brings into question the separation between robot and human. Or maybe it’s the delicate nature of Kogonada’s approach to filmmaking, which is to look long and tenderly at life itself, that makes the most impact.

Everyone I’ve spoken to about After Yang has keyed in on something different, and the sheer openness of the filmmaking, as if Kogonada is inviting you to stop, take a breath, and ruminate on something mulling around deep inside you, is a magical thing to behold. He’s mastered the art of making specificity into universality, wonder from something mundane, and he’s wrapped it up in a film so gentle that you feel comforted even as it breaks you down. And as a bonus, there’s a pretty great Werner Herzog impression thrown in there.

After Yang
Aftersun
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
X
Women Talking
Nope
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Top Gun: Maverick
White Noise
RRR

Stephanie Archer

The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)

2022 was jam-packed with undeniable hits, so much so, making my top 10 list this year proved to be a daunting task. And while rounding out my selections proved challenging, there was no denying my favorite film of 2022 – Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale. In a sense, The Whale proved to be as alluring as the whale mentioned in its reference. It took a while for me to catch the film, and now, I can’t wait to revisit it. A film of nuance, each element and layer of The Whale is carefully constructed and presented to its audience. From facial expressions to mise en scène, from lighting to music, The Whale packs a punch.

I had not expected to be as moved by The Whale as I was. An idea of the predictability of direction and conclusion was unable to dissuade the emotional investment it was able to bring to life. Pensive in its pace, The Whale is never in a rush to move forward, drastically contrasting and elevating both situations and characters in the process. It gives its audience the time to feel, see and process every nuanced action and expression the film has to offer. It spans over the course of a week, and much like its central character, this pace taking everything day by day.

The Whale though finds the heart of its success in the performance by Brendan Fraser. I am convinced there is no other actor that could have brought him to life on screen. His attention to detail and skill in the nuanced control of his facial expressions make Charlie feel lived in and authentic. Fraser’s performance demands your attention, the film’s vast array of close-ups and intimate setting further compounding the inability to look away. Hong Chau is just as memorable, her performance bringing a balance of pain, strength, and fear to her Liz. And where Chau’s Liz brings a steady rock to Charlie’s life , Sadie Sink’s Ellie brings the chaos.

Coming off the heels of her season 4 performance of Stranger Things, Sink brings a deeper complexity that speaks volumes – her own story intertwining with Charlie’s for an undeniably effective conclusion. Sink is committed to every element of Ellie, both in pain and in strength, while balancing the manic and misguided coping her character has developed over the years. Where Fraser has delivered the performance of his career thus far, Sink too is destined for greatness.

The Whale is a film I can not wait to watch again. There is so much to the film both conceptually and visually, as well as with performance, that it is overwhelming to take in on the first watch. While the film only encompasses the passing of a week, it speaks volumes to a lifetime. Nuanced, layered, and unforgettable, The Whale is not one to be missed.

1. The Whale

2. The Menu
3. Scream
4. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
5. Nope
6. Fall
7. TÁR
8. Everything, Everywhere All at Once
9. The Batman
10. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

Honorable Mention: The Banshees of Inisherin, Vengeance, Blaze, White Noise, Bob’s Burgers

Wilson Kwong

Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino )

To quote the movie itself: “There’s before bones and all, and then there’s after.”

Although Aftersun came in at a relatively close second, there was no question that Bones and All would sit at the top of my personal list for 2022. Horror elements aside, it’s almost scary how good this film is. On paper, the eerie juxtaposition of horror and romance shouldn’t necessarily be a recipe for one of the greatest love stories of the year, but Luca Guadagnino finds a way to do just that. It’s been more than 4 months since I first saw the film, and my heart still swells up every time I think about that final shot. The film beats with a romantic pulse that is constantly affectionate, while never losing sight of its raison d’être. In fact, that seems to be the case for most of the films on my list this year.

Whether it’s a tender and intimate portrayal of a deeply personal story (Aftersun), a bombastic depiction of how insane Hollywood is/was (Babylon), or just one of the best damn adaptations of a superhero narrative (The Batman), the list just goes on with filmmakers relentlessly sticking to their guns. There was a general sense of vitality when it came to the defining cinemas of 2022, and it was genuinely hard to hone down on just 10 films, despite my many notable blind spots (Avatar 2 doing one of them!).

The model of how films are made and seen might’ve changed during the pandemic, but it’s ever reassuring to know that the quality of filmmaking hasn’t blundered at all. And for those who might question seeing Warrior of Future on a top 10 list, I concede that the film itself isn’t the greatest of achievements. But the rallying of support behind the (much delayed) film locally is certainly one of the most touching news stories to come out of the Hong Kong cinema scene this year. Hopefully, the sequel will be in contention for my top 10 list again before the end of this decade.

Bones and All
Aftersun
Babylon
The Batman
Broker
Women Talking
Valeria is Getting Married
After Yang
RRR
Warriors of Future

Kristy Strouse

Decision to Leave (Park Chan-Wook)

A problem I often have (not a bad one to have) is the challenge that comes from having to choose only 10 top films for a year. This means that there were so many amazing movies that I had a hard time leaving any out. 2022 was definitely one of those years. It took me a long time to figure out what would make the top ten and even then I had a tie on my #10. There was also one that I left off because its release is in 2023, but I absolutely adored and it would have been in my top three: The Blue Caftan.

Romance, intrigue, heartbreak. True stories, bizarre stories, intimate stories. There’s a donkey that’ll steal your heart, characters that turn into rocks in an alternate universe, AI teaching us about the beauty of human life, and the most horrifying movie of the year because of its realism: The Happening.

My favorite documentary Fire of Love, which I saw nearly a year ago still has stunning visuals that’ll never leave my brain.

There’s quite a variety in my favorites and each one holds a special place in my heart. My top two were very close, and The Banshees of Inisherin is truly a lovely film with terrific performances. But, it was Park Chan-Wook‘s (much like his last film) Decision to Leave that left me smitten. It was one of the most intelligently constructed movies of the year that felt like every second resonated and was exactly where it was supposed to be. There’s a yearning intertwined with a twisty mystery that bursts with style and the cinematography by Ji-yong Kim is just enchanting. That and the playful and undeniable chemistry between our two leads made it so I was so wrapped up in this film that I felt transported. It’s sexy, engrossing, and my favorite of the year.

Decision to Leave
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Crimes of the Future
Aftersun
After Yang
Broker
The Happening
Fire of Love
Bones and All & Anais in Love

Honorable Mentions: RRR, Top Gun Maverick, TÁR, Women Talking, The Batman, Return to Seoul, Moonage Daydream, The Fabelmans, Speak No Evil, The Innocents, Pearl, Subtraction, The Northman.

Well, that’s a wrap on 2022, until next year, Happy movie watching!

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