{"id":9844,"date":"2023-03-12T15:00:35","date_gmt":"2023-03-12T19:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=9844"},"modified":"2023-03-12T15:00:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T19:00:36","slug":"top-ten-movies-of-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/12\/top-ten-movies-of-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Top ten movies of 2022."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019ve tried to publish some sort of ranking of films in each of the past few years, either on its own or folded into another post, usually tying it to the Oscars or to seeing some specific film that I thought I had to see to make the list more or less complete. This year, I still have too many acclaimed 2022 films left to see to keep putting this off \u2013 Living<\/em>, EO<\/em>, The Quiet Girl<\/em>, Saint Omer<\/em>, and Return to Seoul<\/em> among them \u2013 so I\u2019m just calling it today, and if I see something later that belongs in this top ten, I\u2019ll add a note here at that point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. Nope<\/a><\/em>. Jordan Peele\u2019s third feature as writer-director wasn\u2019t quite as good as his debut, Get Out<\/em>, but also shows that he\u2019s deft at more than just horror, and that his thematic range is much broader than that first film (or the second, Us<\/em>, based on what I\u2019ve read) implied. Two siblings run a ranch where they train horses for use in films, but a mysterious presence in the sky is spooking their horses and raining down metal objects without warning. As in Get Out<\/em>, we learn in stages along with Daniel Kaluuya\u2019s main character, with several surprises, a clever dose of humor, and this time some incredible special effects as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. La Caja<\/a><\/em>. Venezuela\u2019s entry for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film is, unfortunately, only available on MUBI, which is how I saw it, but which also seems like it might bury its chances of finding any sort of audience. It follows a young boy who goes to Mexico to claim his father\u2019s remains, only to spot a man he believes to be his father walking around in the same town where he supposedly died. It\u2019s small, but powerful, addressing themes of immigration, economic inequality, and the exploitation of workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. T\u00e1r<\/a><\/em>. I was completely on this film\u2019s wavelength until the last twenty minutes or so, when the main character, Cate Blanchett\u2019s Lydia T\u00e1r, experiences her fall from grace, and it\u2019s no longer clear if everything we see is real. She\u2019s a world-famous conductor of classical music, an impossible celebrity in our era, and extremely used to getting whatever she wants, without consequences for her actions. The majority of the film is such a perfectly slow burn that it\u2019s frustrating when the pace gets faster for the final portion, but what comes before is a remarkable work of writing and direction from Todd Field, as well as yet another masterful performance from Blanchett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. The Menu<\/a><\/em>. \u201cRich people are terrible\u201d was a big theme in movies this year, but unlike some of the others, The Menu<\/em> gets the tone right with its extremely dark comedy that also skewers modern food culture and features an excellent ensemble cast led by Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy. A group of mostly unlikeable people head to a restaurant on an island for a prix fixe dinner that costs $1250 a person, only to find the celebrity chef\u2019s behavior increasingly disturbing until something big happens that makes it clear this is no ordinary meal. It\u2019s funny, and strange, and gives the viewers more to chew on than the diners get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Broker<\/a><\/em>. Hirokazu Kore-eda\u2019s 2018 film Shoplifters<\/em> was one of my top 3 films of that year, and this movie, starring Parasite<\/em>\u2019s Song Kang-ho, has a lot in common with the earlier film, as both revolve around a group of people who form a makeshift family after they find the world has cast them aside. Broker<\/em> focuses on two men who steal abandoned babies from a \u2018baby box\u2019 at their church to sell them on the black market to parents desperate to adopt, but this plan goes awry when one of the mothers comes back the next day, learning about their illicit business and demanding to come along with them as they try to find adoptive parents. It doesn\u2019t quite pack the same punch as Shoplifters<\/em>, but it\u2019s still lovely in its own way, and the story gives it more of the edge of a thriller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. The Eternal Daughter<\/a><\/em>. I wasn\u2019t a huge fan of Joanna Hogg\u2019s The Souvenir<\/em>, and didn\u2019t see The Souvenir Part Two<\/em>, but this sort-of sequel is a knockout, featuring Tilda Swinton \u2026 and Tilda Swinton, as she plays two characters, the main character from The Souvenir <\/em>films (played by Honor Swinton-Byrne, Tilda\u2019s daughter) and her mother (played by Swinton in the first two films). They travel to the mother\u2019s childhood home, now a creepy bed and breakfast in north Wales, as the daughter tries to learn about her mother\u2019s life to make a film about her and hold on to these memories before her mother is gone. I know Swinton can be a polarizing actress, but this is her at her absolute best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Aftersun<\/a><\/em>. Charlotte Wells\u2019 feature debut about an 11-year-old girl taking a trip to Turkey with her father, who is divorced from her mother and not very present in his daughter\u2019s life, packs a huge emotional punch by doing very little \u2013 the camera observes, as we are watching the daughter\u2019s memories from some point later in her life, and we are left to decide what might really have happened. It\u2019s a heartbreaking look at how hard it is for us to understand our parents, especially through the lens of childhood memories, and features two standout performances from Paul Mescal (nominated for Best Actor) and first-time actor Frankie Corio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Decision to Leave<\/a><\/em>. The most ridiculous snub of the year at this year\u2019s Oscars was the omission of Decision to Leave from the Best International Feature Film category \u2013 it made the 15-film shortlist, and it was miles better than the two eventual nominees I\u2019ve seen. Director Park Chan-wook\u2019s first film since 2016\u2019s The Handmaiden<\/em> follows a depressed detective in Busan as he tries to determine whether the death of an immigration officer who fell from a mountain he climbed frequently was an accident or an almost-perfect murder at the hands of his wife. The detective becomes obsessed with the case and the young widow, which sets off a series of events that can only end badly for at least one of them. It\u2019s a masterful plot that eschews easy answers, anchored by two strong lead performances by Park Hae-il as the detective and Tang Wei as the widow\/murder suspect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The Banshees of Inisherin<\/a><\/em>. Colin Farrell\u2019s P\u00e1draic and Brendan Gleeson\u2019s Colm are best friends and drinking buddies, but one day, Colm says he doesn\u2019t want to drink with P\u00e1draic any more \u2026 or even talk to him, which drives P\u00e1draic, who doesn\u2019t have much going on in his life and lives with his sister (Kerry Condon), to increasingly desperate measures to which Colm responds in turn. This latest film from Martin McDonagh reunites the stars of his In Bruges<\/em> in a film that is by turns comic and tragic, standing as a parable for the Irish Civil War while also serving as a meditation on male friendship. All four of the film\u2019s most prominent actors, including Barry Keoghan, deserved and earned Oscar nominations, and the dialogue in this film is spectacular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Everything Everywhere All At Once<\/a><\/em>. My favorite film of the year, which isn\u2019t to say it\u2019s the best film of the year except that I think it is. It\u2019s a madcap trip through the many-worlds hypothesis that ends up a poignant and insightful story about parenthood, self-sacrifice, the hopes and dreams we have for our kids that we didn\u2019t fulfill for ourselves, the immigrant experience, and more. It\u2019s also funny, exciting, and laced with cultural references that were right in my wheelhouse. Ke Huy Quan deserves all of the praise and accolades he\u2019s receiving, while Michelle Yeoh gets her best role at least since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon<\/em>. I want to watch it again and again, but I also know it\u2019ll never quite hit the same way as the first viewing, where all of that madness turned out to be something magical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re curious, 11 through 15 on my list right now are Glass Onion<\/a><\/em>, The Wonder<\/a><\/em>, The Fabelmans<\/a><\/em>, After Yang<\/em>, and Women Talking<\/a><\/em>. My favorite animated film of 2022 was The Sea Beast<\/em>, on Netflix, and my favorite documentary was probably The Janes<\/em>, which made the Oscars shortlist but not the final five.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve tried to publish some sort of ranking of films in each of the past few years, either on its own or folded into another post, usually tying it to the Oscars or to seeing some specific film that I thought I had to see to make the list more or less complete. This year, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1290,215,260],"class_list":["post-9844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2022-movies","tag-movies","tag-rankings","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9845,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9844\/revisions\/9845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}