Top 10 Films of 2022
It’s been a tumultuous year for the movie industry: COVID-induced production delays, streaming wars, the Slap Heard ‘Round the World.
Despite all of that, a bunch of great movies came out in 2022 and we eagerly saw as many as we could. Here are the 10 we loved the most. (Find this list on Letterboxd)
What’s in your Top 10? Let us know at heycinemasugar@gmail.com
10. Aftersun
It isn’t until we’re older that we begin to understand ourselves through the people who raised us. These figures, who once loomed infinite in our minds, are slowly rendered more human, more complex, more real. Director Charlotte Wells examines this idea in a powerful and devastating directorial debut about a father, a daughter, and the time-altering power of memory. —Kevin
9. Jackass Forever
This could have so easily been weatherworn men acting out a few pathetic rehashes on their old celebrity, but instead it’s genuinely and simply an ode to friendship all the way down to its triumphant, vomit-soaked, Misfits-blitzkrieged conclusion. Thanks, dudes. —Natalie
8. Decision to Leave
South Korean writer-director Park Chan-wook is back after 2016’s The Handmaiden with a riveting slow-burn whodunit featuring Park Hae-il as an insomniac detective on a murder case and Tang Wei as his prime suspect—and complicated love interest. Part Gone Girl, part Vertigo, yet fully its own creation, the film combines Park’s technical prowess with a terrifically twisty narrative and a haunting conclusion. Don’t sleep on this one. —Chad
7. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
Somehow among the many fantastical and horror-infused worlds imagined by Guillermo Del Toro, it’s the realities they exist in that horrify above everything else. His fresh and original take on Pinocchio is no exception. A masterful stop-motion animation musical set against the rise of fascism in Mussolini’s Italy, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio will break your heart, heal it, and keep you humming its infectious songs forevermore. —Kevin
6. The Batman
In the decades-long history of Batman films, there hasn’t been anything quite like Matt Reeves’ The Batman. Pulling inspiration from some of the finest graphic novels of the caped crusader’s story (Year One, Ego, The Long Halloween), this movie lingers in the noir-soaked streets of Gotham City, seen through the eyes of a young, brooding, and vengeful Bruce Wayne. Years from now, the MCU’s computer-generated worlds will look painfully outdated compared to Reeves’ stark and gritty realism. Matt-man and Patt-man for the win. —Kevin
5. The Banshees of Inisherin
Featuring a small but mighty cast, a darkly funny and sharply written script, and a few picture-perfect sets, Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin contains all the power and intimacy of a great play. This checks out given McDonagh’s pedigree as a playwright, but it’s the performances here (namely by Farrell and Condon) that transcend and deliver one of the finest feckin’ films of the year. —Kevin
4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
Even as the MCU noisily went all-in on the multiverse, this A24 darling took the movie world by storm with its exhilarating take on alternate timelines, familial what-ifs, and hot dog hands. Michelle Yeoh is typically excellent in the lead and Stephanie Hsu shines, but for my money Ke Huy Quan steals the show in a dynamo, multi-faceted role that welcomes him back to movies with a bang. Count us fans of this fresh, frantic, and funny film in every universe. — Chad
3. Nope
Daniel Kaluuya riding horseback up a dusty road in a Scorpion King hoodie as the shadow of one of the coolest UFO designs ever imagined approaches is the stuff of movie dreams. This is just one of the many singular, cryptic images torn from the pages of Peele’s brain that audiences are lucky enough to experience, contemplate, and discuss for years to come. As long as Peele keeps delivering his spectacles, we’ll keep looking up. —Kevin
2. The Fabelmans
In a year full of autobiopics (Inarritu’s Bardo, Mendes’ Empire of Light, Gray’s Armageddon Time), Spielberg’s personal tale of the dark magic of moviemaking reigns supreme and serves as a cinematic Rosetta Stone for his iconic decades-long career. It’s also the funniest Spielberg has been in a while. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano deliver top-notch performances, but it’s Gabriel LaBelle who wins the movie and our hearts with his earnest and affecting turn as the teenaged Spielberg stand-in Sammy. That kid—just like the man he represents—is going places! —Chad
1. Top Gun: Maverick
How could it be anything else? At Cinema Sugar we are all about celebrating movies and no movie was celebrated more this year than Top Gun: Maverick. Visually sensational, emotionally compelling, and revitalizing of an industry in peril—this is the summer blockbuster audiences have been craving and it delivered in the biggest way. We could go back and forth on our top movie of the year, but this movie instructed us not to think, just do. —Kevin