2022 was an excellent year for new releases, my favorite in quite some time. I rarely give 4.5/5 stars for new releases and I dished out five this year. There were plenty of my favorites in contention at the 95th Academy Awards, so that was a fun ceremony to watch. In terms of trips to the theater, this was my busiest year. I went 79 times! I watch every movie that becomes the #1 movie at the box office in the United States so that certainly contributes to that number, but I also started watching more selections at the arthouse this year. It's all about expanding those cinematic horizons, baby. My full Top 25 List per my Letterboxd is available at the link below. Alas, my ten favorite films of 2022 are:
Won 0 Oscars / Nominated for 9 more (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing)
Plus one for the border collie but minus one for a tasteless homophobic joke that felt like a laugh from the early 2000s. Still though, a great feckin' movie!
Won 0 Oscars / Nominated for 0 more
And just when I thought Penelope Cruz couldn't get more attractive, she has red curly hair and acts with a functioning eccentricity. My word.
8. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio [Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson]
Won 1 Oscar (Best Animated Feature Film) / Nominated for 0 more
"What a powerful story that gets right to the terrible joy of mortality. Animation is inherently a medium for children and this is a wonderful narrative for a kid to witness. It doesn't sugar-coat topics like death, war, and harsh consequences like other animated features would. Plus, the stop motion is absolutely stunning as is the voice acting (my favorite performance coming from Christoph Waltz followed closely by Tilda Swinton) and a score/original songs that will certainly get stuck in your head. I'm still salty that "Ciao Papa" didn't get nominated for Best Original Song and Alexandre Desplat's score wasn't nominated for Best Original Score.
Disney's Pinocchio is one of my favorite films of all time but Guillermo del Toro's vision merits this adaptation while fitting in perfectly with Disney's legacy. What a terrible joy of a filmmaker.
Won 0 Oscars / Nominated for 0 more
How about this cast? Of course Alexander Skarsgård nails the persona of the raging viking who vows for revenge and Anya Taylor-Joy looks like she can stare daggers into your heart but I found the performances of the more minor characters the most fulfilling. Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Björk have little screentime but they certainly make the most of it. Claes Bang as the uncle is among my favorite performances and Nicole Kidman steals the whole show with a scene that turns the narrative on its head.
Although this had lofty expectations from me, this film still met them. I'm also glad I didn't live in this time period so more kudos to Eggers for not romanticizing. The only romance I need from this scenario are those ATJ closeups.
Won 0 Oscars / Nominated for 7 more (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Production Design)
There seems to be a lot of semi-autobiopics being made these days and I'm here for it. It's not every day a master of modern cinema gets to reflect on his formative years by including us the audience and the cast and crew that helped him create his vision. Spielberg is a real one and this would be the ultimate send off, a story that foreshadows greatness in addition to sadness.
Every performance is outstanding but I fell for Judd Hirsch's single scene in the bedroom as he talks about art and family, even if it is so on the nose. That family/art push and pull was at the forefront of my mind for the rest of the film and it put the parents' actions into focus. Paul Dano and Michelle Williams are excellent and I would love hearing a piano being played with long nails any time.
Speaking of the piano, the John Williams score is incredibly poignant. What he does with that instrument enhances the relationship Sammy has with his mom and it gives me bittersweet feelings for someone who is getting up there in age. If this is his last collaboration with Spielberg, that would be just perfect. I was rooting for him to win that Oscar so hard!
Keep them horizons at the top or the bottom, kid (what a cameo!).
Won 0 Oscars / Nominated for 3 more (Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design)
There are so many other aspects I love about this movie. Justin Hurwitz's score (which sounds lot like his music from La La Land at times), the many musicians playing on screen, Robbie's and Brad Pitt's performances, Jean Smart's knockout scene discussing Pitt's character's legacy and the end of his road, Li Jun Li's pure sultriness, descending society with Tobey Maguire, and the gonzo closing that caps off Chazelle's love of cinema.
The movie industry is complex and conflicted and this manages to toe the line of being both that proverbial love letter to film as well as an admonishment of the people that make them. It's quite the balancing act that had me sway to this movie's camp completely.
Won 0 Oscars / Nominated for 1 more (Best Actor)
A pair of marvelous performances must not go overlooked. Paul Mescal is about as good of a dad as you'll see in a movie. He's able to pull off being an authority figure as well as a friend to little Sophie but he sneaks in a sense of dread every now and then. His chemistry with Frankie Corio is fantastic and I just adore Corio's presence throughout. This might be the best kid performance since The Florida Project.
Oh, and sorry to Wayne's World but this now has the most profound use of a Queen song.
Won 0 Oscars / Nominated for 0 more
There's a lot of creative editing taking place to achieve this storytelling. Placing lead Park Hae-il within the physical space of a scene he is reconstructing in his head or cross-cutting with two different points in time are two ways that keep this fully engaging throughout. I also love the use of technology. I like to see the methods of detectives in older movies and, although this sometimes felt like an Apple commercial, it will be neat to watch this in a few decades to see the investigative methods of the 2020s.
Mahler 5 isn't the only thing this has in common with Tár. If Cate Blanchett gives the best performance of the year, Tang Wei isn't too far behind. Underneath the highly entertaining mystery aspect of piecing things together, this is also a beautiful romantic story that starts and ends with Wei's performance. She brought me to tears multiple times and the push and pull of her relationship with Park Hae-il is transfixing. She also photographs wonderfully as she is an amazingly gorgeous woman set against amazingly gorgeous landscapes. Be it the snow in the mountains or the tide on the beach, there are some incredible shots here that reinforces the melancholic beauty of this tragic story.
Park Chan-wook showing restraint makes for consummate cinema.
Won 0 Oscars / Nominated for 6 more (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing
Mahler's Fifth Symphony rears its head again and seeing Blanchett discuss it in detail gave me immense pleasure and nostalgia. There's so much great music here and I have to check out that Elgar cello concerto.
Here's hoping Field won't take another sixteen years for a film to come to fruition but if it takes that long to develop a vision like this, so be it.
Won 0 Oscars / Nominated for 0 more
This film takes its time in all facets of the narrative. The futuristic setting is never run through any type of exposition which enables us to deliberately learn the world organically, there are extended sequences that settle you into a mood of comfort with the soothing music and mostly static camerawork (and Colin Farrell making tea!), and there really isn't much in the way of a plot - what you read in a brief synopsis is basically what happens. The film is exploratory, meditative, and just gorgeous to look at.
Despite this simplicity in the plodding plot, the thematic elements of loss, identity, technological advances in the future, and "the end" are all wonderfully interwoven between Yang's memories and Farrell's despondent facial expressions.
This was a film so good, I had to see it twice. My local theater did an A24 series, showing dozens of A24 films over the course of a month, and I just had to see this in the proper way, with a room full of people positively reacting to all of the adorable things Mika says and laughing at the few moments of levity that Kogonada weaves into his script. The bigger screen is a better canvas for the way he plays with the aspect ratio, which makes it even more apparent when we are in Yang's memory bank and when we are experiencing a flashback by way of Jake's (Farrell) or Kyra's (Jodie Turner-Smith) memory. Also, by giving 100% of my focus on the film, I was more apt to ruminate on all of the themes Kogonada touches on. I typically don't go for films that bring up so many topics but the rewatch enabled me to connect the dots a bit better.
I ultimately latched on to the idea of memory and the concept of how we may recall certain events, or what even constitutes as "memorable." Something interesting I noticed on the rewatch is that I don't think the film is overall "memorable" - that is, I didn't quite remember which scene was coming next. That's mainly due to the nonlinear structure of diving into memories and recordings, but I also think it's because the plot doesn't drive the film. When I think back on this, I won't think of the steps Jake takes to try and fix his son or what their decision was, but I will think about what it has to say about family (the tree grafting sequence melts my heart) and how we reminiscence.
Oh, and Farrell's mustache inspired me to grow my own like his. A gift of a film that keeps on giving.