50 films to look for­ward to for the rest of 2022

Crikey, is that the time? As we reach the over-half-way mark of 2022, it’s a good time to look for­ward to the films yet to come in our cin­e­mat­ic cal­en­dar – both the big awards con­tenders, and the fes­ti­val hits that will be mak­ing their way to a cin­e­ma near you. Excit­ed to see some­thing not on our list? Tweet us @LWLies.

1. Don’t Wor­ry Darling 

Olivia Wilde proved her met­tle as direc­tor on Books­mart in 2019; now, she’s back to show the world that she’s not just a film­mak­er, but a Seri­ous Film­mak­er, the kind capa­ble of mak­ing a visu­al­ly showy psy­chodra­ma boast­ing both Acad­e­my Award nom­i­nees and the weighty themes with the poten­tial to add her to their ranks. In a Step­ford-ish sub­ur­ban utopia seem­ing­ly frozen in post­war pros­per­i­ty, a house­wife (Flo­rence Pugh) ques­tions whether her hus­band (Har­ry Styles) and the patri­archy he rep­re­sents have told her the whole truth about her real­i­ty. Smart mon­ey says she’s been unwit­ting­ly held cap­tive in delud­ed iso­la­tion — like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Vil­lage, fueled by star-span­gled misog­y­ny — but sure­ly there’s more to it than that. Charles Bramesco

2. The Fabelmans 

Steven Spiel­berg has gone to war, to the fur­thest reach­es of the dank­est jun­gles, to the end of the future itself — and now he’s going home. The final fron­tier uncon­quered by Hollywood’s favourite son is the per­son­al artist-in-repose pic­ture, which he’ll at last assay with this semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal rec­ol­lec­tion of a child­hood spent in post-WWII Ari­zona, fan­ta­sis­ing about film­mak­ing glo­ry. New­com­er Gabriel LaBelle plays the Spiel­berg stand-in, joined by Michelle Williams as his mom, Paul Dano as his dad, Seth Rogen as his uncle, and Once Upon a Time in Hol­ly­wood break­out Julia But­ters as his sis­ter for a full fam­i­ly affair. Also tipped to play a small but sig­nif­i­cant role: none oth­er than David Lynch, the cal­iber of elu­sive tal­ent book­able only through the Spiel­berg cachet. CB

3. White Noise

Even if the rumours that Noah Baum­bach req­ui­si­tioned $140 mil­lion in Net­flix mon­ey for his upcom­ing Don DeLil­lo adap­ta­tion have been most like­ly over­stat­ed, there’s a hint of big­ness to this pro­duc­tion unprece­dent­ed in its director’s oeu­vre. DeLillo’s land­mark nov­el about a pro­fes­sor of Hitler Stud­ies (Adam Dri­ver, his hair­line the worse for wear) com­ing undone in the wake of an Air­borne Tox­ic Event spread­ing harm­ful chem­i­cals over his cosy col­lege town isn’t just Baumbach’s first go at direct­ing some­one else’s writ­ing, it’s a shift into a sur­re­al, absurd post­mod­ernism alien to what we’ve come to under­stand as his style. Gre­ta Ger­wig, André ​“Three Stacks” Ben­jamin, Don Chea­dle, and Raf­fey Cas­sidy round out the cast on what could be the most auda­cious use of Netflix’s now-end­ed blank check pro­gram yet. CB

4. Athenae

Romain Gavras’ crime com­e­dy The World Is Yours received pos­i­tive com­par­isons to Guy Richie and Quentin Taran­ti­no when it pre­miered in the Cannes Director’s Fort­night side­bar in 2018, and now he’s teamed up with Les Mis­érables direc­tor Ladj Ly for his next project (Ly’s on co-writ­ing duties). Details are thin about this Net­flix-pro­duced French dra­ma, but it wrapped in late 2021 and accord­ing to CineEu­ropa, ​“plunges at the heart of ten­sions between police­men and young peo­ple of the ban­lieue”. Giv­en Gavras and Ly’s past work, it’s like­ly to be a pret­ty arrest­ing (and undoubt­ed­ly per­ti­nent) take on the cur­rent French socio-polit­i­cal cli­mate. Han­nah Strong

5. Avatar: The Way of Water 

You don’t bet against the house, and you don’t bet against James Cameron. And not just in terms of box office, either — of course the long-antic­i­pat­ed sequel to his pio­neer­ing space odyssey will make one tril­lion dol­lars, just as sure­ly as the sun ris­es in the east — but on shock-and-awe pow­er for its own mighty sake. For a wide swath of view­ers, it won’t mat­ter if the script for the next chap­ter in the saga of the azure-skinned cat peo­ple is as bone­head­ed as the last one. They’ve come to bask in the digi­tised splen­dour of Cameron’s lim­it­less vision, under which kalei­do­scopes of islands can hov­er in the sky while mutant fly­ing sharks dip in and out of the pho­to­re­al­is­tic water below. Resis­tance is futile. CB

6. Tar

For younger read­ers with cloudy mem­o­ries pri­or to the year 2006, Todd Field was once an in-demand direc­tor of sen­si­tive actors’ show­cas­es, his one-two suc­cess­es with In the Bed­room and Lit­tle Chil­dren mark­ing him as a major name of his moment. But a decade-plus of stalled projects have large­ly kept him out of the game, a lam­en­ta­ble hia­tus soon to end with this char­ac­ter piece focus­ing on the invent­ed Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), the first female con­duc­tor for a major Ger­man orches­tra. She brings us into the dog-eat-dog world of inter­na­tion­al clas­si­cal music, peo­pled by a fit­ting­ly glob­al cast that includes Noémie Mer­lant, Mark Strong, and Nina Hoss. Will Blanchett, like the char­ac­ter she por­trays, be out­stand­ing in her Field? CB

7. The Son

Play­wright Flo­ri­an Zeller adapt­ed his own script The Father to crit­i­cal acclaim in 2020, earn­ing Antho­ny Hop­kins his sec­ond Acad­e­my Award. Now comes the sec­ond in his stage tril­o­gy, with an impres­sive cast com­prised of Hugh Jack­man, Lau­ra Dern, Vanes­sa Kir­by, and…Anthony Hop­kins! Jack­man and Dern play a divorced cou­ple whose ado­les­cent son is going through a par­tic­u­lar­ly tur­bu­lent time – giv­en that The Father was a qui­et­ly dev­as­tat­ing por­tray­al of aging, it seems all but cer­tain that The Son will be sim­i­lar­ly tough-going. Get your Kleenex at the ready, and poten­tial­ly some fresh Oscar stat­uettes for that star­ry cast. HS

8. The Mas­ter Gardener 

It’s anoth­er Paul Schrad­er pro­duc­tion, so a few assump­tions can be safe­ly made: there will be an intense, age­ing man (Joel Edger­ton, as a hor­ti­cul­tur­ist hid­ing an oblig­a­tory dark past) with a weird name (Narvel Roth, in this instance) paired with a younger com­pan­ion (Quin­tes­sa Swindell, tak­ing over for Schrader’s ini­tial pick Zen­daya) whose soul he must sal­vage before it’s too late. This time, how­ev­er, we’ve also got Sigour­ney Weaver as the wealthy dowa­ger who owns the estate so duti­ful­ly tend­ed by Narvel. Sin, penance, and redemp­tion will swirl togeth­er in one Protes­tant shame-spi­ral, as is Schrader­ian tra­di­tion. Who could ask for any­thing more? CB

9. The Ban­shees of Inisherin

Five years after Three Bill­boards Out­side Ebbing, Mis­souri, Irish play­wright and provo­ca­teur Mar­tin McDon­agh is return­ing to his native land, and a duo he’s worked with before – Col­in Far­rell and Bren­dan Glee­son. The pair play old friends who take a trip to a remote Irish island, where things take a turn for the worse when one tries to break off the friend­ship, with dis­as­trous results. As if that wasn’t enough, throw Bar­ry Keoghan (an expert in play­ing Weird Lit­tle Guys) into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for dis­as­ter in the best way pos­si­ble. HS

10. Tick­et to Paradise

Mam­ma Mia: Here We Go Again direc­tor Ol Park­er has quite a reper­toire of rom coms to his name, and the reunion of George Clooney and Julia Roberts is an entic­ing prospect. Their daugh­ter, played by Kait­lyn Dev­er, heads off on a trip to Bali with her best friend (the excel­lent comedic pres­ence Bil­lie Lourde, a Books­mart scene-steal­er) and falls head over heels for a local. When she decides to mar­ry him, her divorced par­ents attempt to inter­vene. Rom-coms have been expe­ri­enc­ing some­thing of a flop era, so it’s high time we saw a resur­gence, and if any­one can be entrust­ed to bring them back from the brink, sure­ly it’s George and Julia, right? RIGHT? HS

11. The Menu 

The vibe is off at Hawthorne, an ultra-exclu­sive, invite-only haute cui­sine sup­per club locat­ed on a remote island and presided over by the expert, men­ac­ing Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). Pin­head­ed food­ie Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) is wowed by the inscrutable foams and pastes, but his slight­ly savvi­er girl­friend Mar­got (Anya Tay­lor-Joy) has her mis­giv­ings about the secret ingre­di­ents that may be lurk­ing in these dish­es. The dark truth of their once-in-a-life­time meal will be revealed in bru­tal fash­ion, though who’s to say what that will be — a tartare of human flesh, meant as a sav­age metaphor for the car­niv­o­rous ten­den­cies of the rich? In any case, bon appetit. CB

12. Wen­dell and Wild

Return of the King – it’s 12 long years since Hen­ry Selick’s Cora­line, and now, final­ly, we get a new stop-motion adven­ture from the ani­ma­tion pio­neer. What’s more, it’s a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the dynam­ic duo Key and Peele, who co-wrote the script (from an unpub­lished book by Selick and Clay McLeod Chap­man) and co-star. Key and Peele play schem­ing demon broth­ers who enlist the help of a teenage girl to sum­mon them to the land of the liv­ing, with a sup­port­ing cast includ­ing Angela Bas­sett, Ving Rhames and James Hong. You’d have to have a heart of stone to not be excit­ed by all that. HS

13. She Said

Jour­nal­ists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kan­tor were respon­si­ble for break­ing the Har­vey Wein­stein scan­dal back in 2017 – their New York Times inves­ti­ga­tion was detailed in a 2019 best­seller. Rebec­ca Lenkiewicz has adapt­ed that book for the big screen, and Maria Schrad­er (best known for Netflix’s Unortho­dox) is on direct­ing duties for what will sure­ly be an awards con­tender. Carey Mul­li­gan and Zoe Kazan play Twohey and Kan­tor, while Saman­tha Mor­ton and Patri­cia Clark­son take on sup­port­ing roles. No word on who’s play­ing Ronan Far­row yet. HS

14. Ams­ter­dam

We’ve final­ly got a title for the project long referred to as ​“Unti­tled David O. Rus­sell Fea­ture,” and the wispy sug­ges­tion of a plot: in the 1930s, three friends (Chris­t­ian Bale, John David Wash­ing­ton, and Mar­got Rob­bie) land them­selves smack dab in the mid­dle of a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion tied up in a far-reach­ing, clan­des­tine con­spir­a­cy with roots in the fab­ric of Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Beyond that, what’s going on is anyone’s guess, though the machi­na­tions will involve Rami Malek, Robert De Niro, Mike Myers, Michael Shan­non, Chris Rock, Anya Tay­lor-Joy, Alessan­dro Nivola, Zoe Sal­dana, Tim­o­thy Olyphant, Andrea Rise­bor­ough, Matthias Schoe­naerts, and — not to be out­done on art­house street cred by boyfriend Joe Alwyn’s gig in the new Claire Denis — Tay­lor Swift. The game is afoot! CB

15. Pinoc­chio 

He’s cer­tain­ly been talk­ing about it for a while now — the ear­li­est trade-rag bul­letins date back to 2008 — but it looks like Guiller­mo Del Toro has real­ly, tru­ly com­plet­ed his long-delayed take on the tale of the Ital­ian pup­pet who came to life. After a decade-plus spent in devel­op­ment hell, an unortho­dox approach to the mate­r­i­al will see the light of day as audi­ences take in a stop-motion fan­ta­sy com­plete with musi­cal num­bers, a ​‘dark, twist­ed tone,’ and a fresh his­tor­i­cal con­text in fas­cism-beset 1930s Italy. A vocal cast includ­ing Ewan McGre­gor, Christoph Waltz, Til­da Swin­ton, and Cate Blanchett (as Sprez­zatu­ra the Mon­key, no less!) add their own pres­tige to what’ll undoubt­ed­ly be one of Netflix’s biggest releas­es of the year. CB

16. Baby­lon

Mur­murs from a pre­lim­i­nary test screen­ing of the lat­est show­biz fan­ta­sia from Damien Chazelle fore­told some­thing momen­tous, ambi­tious, and pro­fane. One anony­mous attendee has been quot­ed as declar­ing the dra­ma set in Hollywood’s Gold­en Age to be Chazelle’s Wolf of Wall Street, a prob­a­ble hint that this old Tin­sel­town will be (his­tor­i­cal­ly-accu­rate­ly) fuelled by stag­ger­ing quan­ti­ties of cocaine. That’s to be expect­ed from the mili­ieu and its blend of fact with fic­tion tying a not-Clara Bow (Mar­got Rob­bie) to a not-John Gilbert (Brad Pitt), not to men­tion an eclec­tic sup­port­ing cast gath­er­ing Tobey Maguire, Sama­ra Weav­ing, Flea, Eric Roberts, Olivia Wilde, and Spike Jonze, to name only a few. Everyone’s ready for their close-up. CB

Release: Jan­u­ary 2023

17. I Wan­na Dance with Somebody

Whit­ney Hous­ton was a sin­gu­lar tal­ent who endured an awful lot of hard­ship dur­ing her life, which was cut trag­i­cal­ly short at the age of 48. It was only a mat­ter of time before she got the biopic treat­ment, but if any­one can do The Voice jus­tice, it’s leg­endary film­mak­er Kasi Lem­mons. Nao­mi Ack­ie plays Hous­ton, while Ash­ton Sanders plays Bob­by Brown and Stan­ley Tuc­ci is her record producer/​mentor Clive Davis. The only cause for con­cern is screen­writer Antho­ny McCarten, who was also respon­si­ble for Bohemi­an Rhap­sody. Oof. HS

18. Hocus Pocus 2 

Was any­one real­ly cry­ing out for a Hocus Pocus sequel? Well, we’re get­ting one any­way. Bette Midler, Sarah Jes­si­ca Park­er and Kathy Najimy reprise their roles from the 1993 orig­i­nal, as three teenagers must stop the Sander­son Sis­ters who have returned to present-day Salem. Doug Jones, Tony Hale and Han­nah Wadding­ham are new addi­tions to the cast, plus a score of Ru Paul’s Drag Race alum­ni. Direc­tor Anne Fletch­er actu­al­ly start­ed her career as a chore­o­g­ra­ph­er before tran­si­tion­ing to films includ­ing Step Up, The Pro­pos­al, and most recent­ly the charm­ing beau­ty pageant com­e­dy Dumplin’ – so she might just pull it out of the bag. HS

19. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Rian Johnson’s Knives Out sequel is titled after The Bea­t­les’ song from their self-titled 1968 album, which was pur­pose­ful­ly writ­ten by John Lennon to con­fuse fans who obsessed over their lyrics. It con­tains many ref­er­ences to oth­er Bea­t­les songs, and Lennon said it ulti­mate­ly meant noth­ing. What might this have to do with the lat­est Benoit Blanc mys­tery? Who knows, but we do have eyes on a pret­ty stacked cast that rivals the first film: Edward Nor­ton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jes­si­ca Hen­wick, Kate Hud­son, and Dave Bautista are all join­ing Daniel Craig for the next crime caper. HS

20. The Pale Blue Eye

Between play­ing a God Eater in Thor: Love & Thun­der and star­ring in David O. Russell’s next project, Chris­t­ian Bale’s quite busy, but he’s found time to make anoth­er film with his pal Scott Coop­er, who pre­vi­ous­ly direct­ed him in Out of the Fur­nace and Hos­tiles. The Pale Blue Eye is based on a nov­el by Louis Bay­nard, and sees Bale play a vet­er­an detec­tive named Augus­tus Lan­dor, who is recruit­ed to inves­ti­gate a string of mur­ders at the Unit­ed States Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my – where he is aid­ed by a young recruit by the name of…Edgar Allen Poe. Poe’s played by the rather excel­lent Har­ry Melling, and the rest of the cast is pret­ty promis­ing too, with Gillian Ander­son, Tim­o­thy Spall, Robert Duvall and Char­lotte Gains­bourg all appar­ent­ly on board. Coop­er is some­thing of an incon­sis­tent film­mak­er, but we’re here for an Edgar Allen Poe detec­tive sto­ry – espe­cial­ly one that’s being tout­ed as a hor­ror thriller. HS

21. EO

For a parade of unceas­ing, silent suf­fer­ing, Jerzy Skolimowski’s lat­est makes for a pret­ty chill mean­der through the Pol­ish coun­try­side. Cred­it it to the six don­key actors col­lab­o­rat­ing for the beatif­ic lead per­for­mance, the eyes of spec­tac­u­lar ass EO (pro­nounced ee-yaw, as in the noise the ani­mal makes) con­vey­ing both the with­stand­ing of hard­ship and his indif­fer­ence to the many tribu­la­tions piled upon him. A spir­i­tu­al pack mule, he eats some car­rots and falls in with a pack of foot­ball hooli­gans and wit­ness­es a mur­der, saun­ter­ing through it all at his own unboth­ered pace with the nature-guid­ed sure­ness of the waves lap­ping up against the shore. CB

22. The Eter­nal Daughter

It’s hard to say if we’ll see Joan­na Hogg’s lock­down film any­time soon – she shot it in secret back in 2020, and spec­u­la­tion has been rife since, but there’s no sign of it yet. This is Hogg’s fourth col­lab­o­ra­tion with Til­da Swin­ton, and has been described as a haunt­ed house film, which sounds extreme­ly intrigu­ing. A24 (who also took on The Sou­venir Parts I and II) are dis­trib­ut­ing it, so they must have been impressed. Is a Venice bow too much to ask? HS

23. The Whale

Dar­ren Aronof­sky has been bid­ing his time since unveil­ing the polar­is­ing metaphor­i­cal what­sit titled moth­er! in 2017, and it sounds like he’s read­ied anoth­er dense­ly con­cep­tu­al hunk of work for us to digest. Pun intend­ed, con­sid­er­ing that the dra­ma revolves around a mor­bid­ly obese man (Bren­dan Fras­er, going way against type in what’s shap­ing up to be a slow-build­ing come­back for the ​‘90s star) mourn­ing the loss of his lover and attempt­ing to recon­nect with his teenaged daugh­ter (Sadie Sink, of Netflix’s Stranger Things), all while adjust­ing to his grief-dri­ven weight gain. The heavy-duty pros­thet­ics piled onto Fras­er will undoubt­ed­ly split audi­ences, but either way, it’s a gift just to have some­thing to feel strong­ly about. CB

24. Cheva­lier

Stephen Williams is best known for his work in tele­vi­sion, notably on Lost, which makes him direct­ing this his­tor­i­cal biopic all the morn­ing inter­est­ing. Kelvin Har­ri­son Jr. stars as Cheva­lier de Saint-Georges, a tal­ent­ed French-Caribbean vio­lin­ist and com­pos­er in the 18^th-cen­tu­ry French court. His skill leads him to the crème de la crème of French soci­ety, but after he falls out of favour with Marie Antoinette, he sees his social stand­ing begin to slip – and uh, the French Rev­o­lu­tion doesn’t help mat­ters much either. Har­ri­son Jr. is a great young actor, so he could real­ly make this role some­thing spe­cial. HS

25. Flux Gourmet

In Peter Strickland’s arch, squelchy satire of art-world pre­ten­sion set at the ​‘Son­ic Cater­ing Insti­tute,’ din­ner is not served, but played. A trio of exper­i­men­tal musi­cians syn­the­sis­ing noise from food fall prey to infight­ing, egos, and out­side manip­u­la­tion in what can some­times feel like an MTV ​“Behind the Music” spe­cial fed through sev­er­al rounds of gar­bled trans­la­tion. Their fetish­es and inse­cu­ri­ties — par­tic­u­lar­ly those of the chron­i­cal­ly flat­u­lent doc­u­men­tar­i­an chron­i­cling the group’s res­i­den­cy — rise to the top like so much milk­fat, skimmed off with barbed affec­tion by Strick­land in his style of inim­itable, void-plumb­ing abstrac­tion. CB

26. Dis­ap­point­ment Blvd

Said to clock in at a whop­ping four hours, Ari Aster’s impend­ing new film is short on intel, the only descrip­tion being ​“an inti­mate, decades-span­ning por­trait of one of the most suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neurs of all time.” That could mean any­thing. Scathing stealth Walt Dis­ney biopic? Maybe! What’s known for cer­tain is that Joaquin Phoenix will deliv­er anoth­er typ­i­cal­ly tow­er­ing per­for­mance, backed by Nathan Lane, Pat­ti LuPone, Park­er Posey, Stephen McKin­ley Hen­der­son, Richard King, and Michael Gan­dolfi­ni — all of whom sor­ta have peri­od-piece-friend­ly faces. Those tak­en to bet­ting may do well to bank on some­thing set around the first half of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. The rest of us can only wait. CB

27. Hav­oc 

Gareth Evans has made quite a name for him­self between The Raid, The Raid 2 and Apos­tle, as well as the well-received tele­vi­sion series Gangs of Lon­don, and his next action-thriller promis­es more high-stakes adren­a­line, like­ly with some nifty stunt chore­og­ra­phy too. Tom Hardy, For­rest Whit­tak­er, Tim­o­thy Olyphant and​Luis Guzmán are among the cast in this sto­ry of a drug deal gone wrong and a detec­tive attempt­ing to res­cue a politician’s estranged son, but per­haps the most intrigu­ing part of Hav­oc is that it was shot in Wales – Hardy was spot­ted at the Bar­ry Island Plea­sure Park. How this does or does not fac­tor into the film remains to be seen, but as film fans may remem­ber from Locke, we do know Hardy loves to attempt a Welsh accent. Here’s hop­ing we get one in Hav­oc too. HS

28. Armaged­don Time

James Gray’s poignant work of drama­tised mem­oir gar­nered some of the most pos­i­tive notices out of the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, with spe­cial com­men­da­tions (of the Oscar-prog­nos­ti­ca­tion vari­ety) reserved for Jere­my Strong and Anne Hath­away as the lov­ing, imper­fect par­ents to Gray’s pint-sized stand-in. When not busy avoid­ing threats of ground­ing or his dad’s belt, lit­tle schmen­drick Paul Graff (Michael Banks Repe­ta, one to watch) dreams of star­dom as a painter, learns a lit­tle about social strat­i­fi­ca­tion in his fledg­ling friend­ship with class­mate John­ny (Jaylin Webb), and bonds with his refugee grand­fa­ther (Antho­ny Hop­kins). It’s peak GFTJ — IYKYK. CB

29. Res­ur­rec­tion

In this house we love and sup­port Rebec­ca Hall – after the suc­cess of her direc­to­r­i­al debut Pass­ing, she’s back in front of the cam­era in Andrew Semans’ psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller, which pre­miered at Sun­dance ear­li­er this year. Hall plays a woman des­per­ate­ly try­ing to pro­tect her­self and her teenage daugh­ter from her abu­sive ex-part­ner, played by Tim Roth, who returns after a 22-year absence. It’s worth going into Res­ur­rec­tion not know­ing much about it, as there are some tru­ly buck wild moments, includ­ing one mono­logue from Hall which I’m still think­ing about six months lat­er. HS

30. War Pony

Direc­tors Riley Keough and Gina Gam­mell won the Cam­era d’Or for best first film out of the Cannes pre­mière of this slice-of-life dra­ma set on the Pine Ridge Indi­an Reser­va­tion in South Dako­ta. There, a pair of Lako­ta boys (Jojo Bapteise Whit­ing and Ladain­ian Crazy Thun­der) strug­gle along sep­a­rate yet par­al­lel paths, cash-strapped and knocked around by lives that force them to grow up fast while still ulti­mate­ly being kids goof­ing around. The nat­u­ral­ism of the local­ly-cast actors anchors what could’ve been non-stop mis­ery in a ground­ed reg­is­ter, the point­ed cri­tiques about the undue hard­ships faced by this com­mu­ni­ty paired with the sort of fid­gety ado­les­cent ennui that comes from long sum­mer days with noth­ing to do. CB

31. Three Thou­sand Years of Longing 

Nar­ra­tol­o­gist Dr. Alithea Bin­nie (Til­da Swin­ton) picks up a lamp while pass­ing through Istan­bul for an aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ence, and lands in a sto­ry she knows all too well: a djinn (Idris Elba, CGI’d up to a mas­sive scale sure to delight gigan­tism fetishists) pops out of the curio with an offer of three wish­es, a set­up that Bin­nie has been around long enough to rec­og­nize as an iron­ic come­up­pance wait­ing to hap­pen. His ensu­ing effort to con­vince her of his good inten­tions sling­shots the film into a max­i­mal­ist fan­ta­sy that could only come from George Miller, a grandiose vision teem­ing with lost love, wild crea­tures, and swoop­ing cam­er­a­work. At its ten­der heart, it’s a trib­ute to the oral tra­di­tion of yarn-spin­ning, brought to daz­zling life by the visu­al com­po­nent of cin­e­ma. CB

32. Bones and All

That Ital­ian scamp Luca Guadagni­no is already film­ing his next pic­ture (Chal­lengers, a ten­nis dra­ma star­ring Zen­daya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist and sched­uled for an August 2023 release) but all eyes are on his ​“can­ni­bal love sto­ry”, star­ring Tim­o­th­ee Cha­la­met and Tay­lor Rus­sell and hit­ting cin­e­mas in Novem­ber. Adapt­ed from Camille DeAn­ge­lis’ 2016 nov­el, it sees Rus­sell play Maren, a dis­en­fran­chised teenag­er who embarks on a romance and a road trip with drift Lee (Cha­la­met) through Regan’s Amer­i­ca. If reports are to be believed, they’re joined by an entic­ing­ly star­ry cast of Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, André Hol­land, Jes­si­ca Harp­er, Chloë Sevi­gny, Francesca Scors­ese, and David Gor­don Green. One thing’s for sure: the stans are going to eat this one up. Lit­er­al­ly. HS

33. The Nightingale

The Fan­ning Sis­ters, togeth­er at last! Mélanie Lau­rent directs Dako­ta and Elle in this adap­ta­tion of Kristin Hannah’s 2015 nov­el, set dur­ing the Ger­man occu­pa­tion of France as two sis­ters try to sur­vive and resist Nazi rule. Vianne and Isabelle are estranged from each oth­er and their father, as the Sec­ond World War begins, their paths diverge, but both must face the harsh real­i­ty of oncom­ing war in their home­land. The film was ini­tial­ly sched­uled for Decem­ber this year but appears to have been pulled from Sony’s ros­ter – here’s hop­ing it makes an appear­ance in the near future. HS

34. Emi­ly the Criminal

Aubrey Plaza plays a col­lege grad with a crim­i­nal record and crush­ing debt in John Pat­ton Ford’s fea­ture debut – a high­light from this year’s Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val. Look­ing for a way out of her dire sit­u­a­tion, the tit­u­lar Emi­ly becomes embroiled in a cred­it card scam, but soon finds her­self in over her head. It’s a styl­ish thriller and some­thing we haven’t seen from Plaza, but the film also makes some salient points about the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and con­cept of a vic­tim­less crime. HS

35. Close

Lukas Dhont’s sec­ond fea­ture was a Cannes dar­ling and took home the Grand Prix prize, as well as a Mubi dis­tri­b­u­tion deal for the UK and A24 rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the USA. It’s the sto­ry of two young boys, whose close friend­ship is cut short after a trag­ic inci­dent – you’ll want to emo­tion­al­ly pre­pare your­self for this one, which left nary a dry eye in the house at Cannes dur­ing its pre­mière. A ten­der, close­ly-observed por­trait of child­hood rela­tion­ships and grief, it’s a film with a pierc­ing approach to dif­fi­cult sub­ject mat­ter that pulls no punch­es, and fea­tures mag­nif­i­cent per­for­mances from its young stars, Eden Dambrine and Gus­tav de Waele. HS

36. The Wonder

Author Emma Donohue’s nov­el Room was adapt­ed to great suc­cess back in 2015, earn­ing a Best Pic­ture nom­i­na­tion and a win for actress Brie Lar­son – this is the sec­ond of her books to make it to the big screen, this time with Sebas­t­ian Lelio at the helm. Flo­rence Pugh plays a nurse who is called to a small Irish town to watch over an 11-year-old girl, who is report­ed to have gone months with­out eat­ing and has become a local celebri­ty as a result. Her faith in sci­ence is test­ed as a result, though she also forms a con­nec­tion with a local jour­nal­ist report­ing on the curi­ous case. Pugh’s joined by Niamh Algar, Cia­ran Hinds, Toby Jones, Elaine Cas­sidy and Tom Burke, and with Ari Weg­n­er on cin­e­matog­ra­phy duties, you know it’s going to look beau­ti­ful if noth­ing else. HS

37. Killers of the Flower Moon 

It’s a new film by Mar­tin Scors­ese! Fine, for those of you who require more than sev­en words of con­vinc­ing: Jesse Ple­mons plays an ol’-fashioned law­man come to 1920s Okla­homa to suss out the varmint respon­si­ble for the string of mur­ders per­pe­trat­ed in the local Osage tribe, his inves­ti­ga­tion backed by a young J. Edgar Hoover in the last days before the ​‘Bureau’ would be rebrand­ed the FBI. Could the cul­prit be local cat­tle mag­nate William Hale (Robert De Niro), his crimes pos­si­bly moti­vat­ed by a dis­taste for his nephew (Leonar­do DiCaprio) and his deci­sion to mar­ry an Osage woman (Lil­ly Glad­stone)? Any way you slice it, the mas­ter director’s first prop­er dal­liance with the West­ern will be a capital‑E Event, unmiss­able for devo­tees of the Amer­i­can cin­e­ma. CB

38. Women Talking

It’s not as if Sarah Pol­ley has spent the last decade sit­ting on her hands — she’s made a short, done a bit of exec-pro­duc­ing for her fel­low Cana­di­an tal­ents, writ­ten some TV and direct­ed some more. But it’s still heart­en­ing to see a film­mak­er of such skill back in the director’s chair on a prop­er fea­ture project for the first time in about a decade, and tack­ling such a del­i­cate top­ic in her grand return. Her dra­ma con­venes a group of eight Men­non­ite women (Frances McDor­mand, Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, and Jessie Buck­ley among their num­ber) in a secret hay-loft quo­rum so that they can deter­mine what to do about the cul­ture of nor­malised rape in their com­mu­ni­ty. What­ev­er their choice, Polley’s pet themes of female suf­fer­ing and resilience will be front and cen­tre. CB

39. Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

Adamma Ebo’s debut fea­ture (adapt­ed from her 2018 short of the same name) stars Regi­na Hall and Ster­ling K. Brown as a megachurch pow­er cou­ple, attempt­ing to rebuild their con­gre­ga­tion fol­low­ing a scan­dal. They’ve hired a doc­u­men­tary team to film their jour­ney, but with rival preach­ers wait­ing to fill their shoes, the jour­ney to sal­va­tion is a dif­fi­cult one for Trini­tie and Lee-Cur­tis Childs. Ebo (along with her pro­duc­er sis­ter Adanne) has been tapped to work on the Don­ald Glover Mr. and Mrs. Smith tele­vi­sion series over at Ama­zon next, so they’re about to be megas­tars – best get in on the ground floor and check out this dark com­e­dy, which was a high­light from Sun­dance ear­li­er this year. HS

40. Nope 

With a cou­ple of trail­ers now online, we know a bit more about Jor­dan Peele’s next hor­ror­show than we did at the year’s out­set. Daniel Kalu­uya and Keke Palmer play horse-train­ers at an inland ranch ser­vic­ing the film indus­try out in LA, a pair shocked to find their family’s par­cel of land fre­quent­ed by alien vis­i­tors in B‑movie fly­ing saucers. They fig­ure that cap­tur­ing the extrater­res­tri­als on video could be their tick­et to instant star­dom, and set out to make a movie them­selves instead of just assist­ing from afar. With Peele, there’s always a deep­er game of sub­text at play beneath the genre exte­ri­or — per­haps a com­men­tary on the roles Black pro­fes­sion­als have played in Amer­i­can enter­tain­ment, fil­tered through lit­tle-green-men para­noia? CB

41. The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future

Cows are so hot in cin­e­ma right now – First Cow, Cow, and now The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future. Chilean film­mak­er Fran­cis­ca Alegria’s mag­i­cal real­ism dra­ma cen­ters on a dys­func­tion­al fam­i­ly deeply impact­ed by a sui­cide years pre­vi­ous, who expe­ri­ence the sud­den return of a loved one which for­ev­er changes their lives. Ale­gria pre­vi­ous­ly won a jury prize at Sun­dance for her short ​‘And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye’ so she clear­ly has some strong feel­ings about our bovine friends. HS

42. Show­ing Up

A long­time pro­fes­sor at Bard, Kel­ly Reichardt inti­mate­ly under­stands the pet­ty indig­ni­ties of bal­anc­ing a career in the arts with the col­le­giate BS nec­es­sary to keep the bills paid, a ten­sion trans­lat­ed into gen­tle lev­i­ty with this low-key, low-stakes com­e­dy. Michelle Williams returns to the steely, exas­per­at­ed mode only accessed in her Reichardt col­lab­o­ra­tions as a lit­tle-known Ore­gon­ian sculp­tor with more dis­trac­tions than tal­ent, jug­gling a dys­func­tion­al fam­i­ly and irk­some col­leagues while prep­ping for the exhi­bi­tion that prob­a­bly won’t be the big break she’s hop­ing for. Hum­ble in its ambi­tions, annoyed yet affec­tion­ate in its lam­poon­ing of scene pol­i­tics, it’s anoth­er sub­lime work from a film­mak­er who can do no wrong. CB

43. Tri­an­gle of Sadness 

Ruben Ostlund’s lat­est arrives anoint­ed as the 2022 Palme d’Or win­ner, so make of that what you will. Har­ris Dickinson’s per­for­mance as a male mod­el whose hol­i­day with his influ­encer girl­friend goes awry was one of the festival’s high­lights, and regard­less of where you land on Ostlund more gen­er­al­ly, it can’t be denied that the man always swings for the fences. Set on a lux­u­ry cruise ship beset by a series of unfor­tu­nate events (includ­ing a vis­cer­al out­break of food poi­son­ing) the pas­sen­gers soon see their social hier­ar­chy upend­ed when every­thing goes to pot. Toi­let humour and class cri­tique abound, as well as Woody Har­rel­son as the ship’s alco­holic Marx­ist cap­tain. All aboard! HS

44. Tues­day

Not too much is known about the debut fea­ture from the Croa­t­ian Daina O. Pusić, or for that mat­ter about her, seen here with a mous­tache and cov­ered in blood. She’s only got a hand­ful of shorts to her name, but she’s got sig­nif­i­cant back­ing from both the BBC, the BFI, and A24 for the ​“moth­er-daugh­ter fairy tale” expect­ed to land a fes­ti­val berth this fall. And she’s got a bona fide star in lead Julia Louis-Drey­fus, osten­si­bly the moth­er appear­ing along­side Lola Pet­ti­crew (last seen as a human under the impres­sion they’re a par­rot in the odd­ball Wolf) as her daugh­ter. Wher­ev­er the sto­ry goes from there, Pusić has earned a lot of good faith from a lot of indus­try play­ers, and art­house audi­ences will be curi­ous to see what they saw. CB

45. Eure­ka

It’s been eight long years since the last fea­ture from Argentina’s Lisan­dro Alon­so, but stu­dents of his work are used to wait­ing a long time for things to hap­pen. The slow cin­e­ma trail­blaz­er brings his dis­ori­ent­ing, styl­ized meth­ods back to the wilds of his home nation for a West­ern, of a sort; Vig­go Mortensen plays a hard-bit­ten rough rid­er on the hunt for his miss­ing daugh­ter and the no-good suhm­bitch (Iran­ian-British film­mak­er Rafi Pitts) what done took her. Sounds like a down-the-mid­dle John Ford homage, but when it comes to the cere­bral and unpre­dictable Alon­so, a plot syn­op­sis can only do so much to cap­ture what he’s real­ly doing. CB

46. Bar­do (or False Chron­i­cle of a Hand­ful of Truths)

Ale­jan­dro González Iñár­ritu has been away for a while – it’s sev­en years, to be exact, since his bleak bear-heavy The Revenant was released and final­ly won Leonar­do DiCaprio his Oscar. He’s back with anoth­er long-titled film co-writ­ten by Nicolás Gia­cobone, this time set and filmed in his native Mex­i­co and star­ring Daniel Giménez Cacho. Report­ed­ly Bar­do sees ​“a renowned Mex­i­can jour­nal­ist and doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er, returns to his native coun­try fac­ing his iden­ti­ty, famil­ial rela­tion­ships, the fol­ly of his mem­o­ries as well as the past and new real­i­ty of his coun­try” It’s also the sec­ond film Dar­ius Khond­ji has shot in 2022 – the oth­er being James Gray’s Armaged­don Time. As Net­flix has dis­tri­b­u­tion rights, Venice feels like a like­ly pre­mière spot for this one (21 Grams and Bird­man also opened there). HS

47. Deci­sion to Leave 

Park Chan-wook’s sul­try neo-noir about a detec­tive who becomes embroiled with the wife of a dead man pre­miered at Cannes, and is a flag­ship glob­al release for the good folk over at Mubi. It’s an icy dra­ma about con­nec­tion and lone­li­ness, with stand-out work from Tang Wei. Folks hop­ing for some­thing more akin to Chan-wook’s Old­boy or Vengeance films might be dis­ap­point­ed, but the change of pace is quite nov­el, and the jux­ta­po­si­tion between the coastal and moun­tain­ous regions of South Korea is used to great effect. Do you love to yearn? Then this is tru­ly the film for you. HS

48. Empire of Light

Sam Mendes’ wild­ly suc­cess­ful war epic 1917 was high­ly thought of by both crit­ics and audi­ences, so the pres­sure is on for his next film, set in an Eng­lish coastal cin­e­ma dur­ing the 1980s. He’s opt­ed for a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent genre this time – Empire of Light is a romance, with a plum cast of Brit tal­ent in Olivia Col­man, Col­in Firth, Toby Jones and Michael Ward. Writ­ten dur­ing lock­down, Mendes has said this is an ​“extreme­ly per­son­al sto­ry” about cin­e­ma and find­ing love in unlike­ly places. One thing’s for sure: your mum is prob­a­bly going to love it. HS

49. De Humani Cor­poris Fabrica

In a year that’s already giv­en us a new film by David Cro­nen­berg, the most shock­ing, stom­ach-turn­ing, ulti­mate­ly mirac­u­lous explo­ration of the human body instead comes from the Har­vard Sen­so­ry Ethnog­ra­phy Lab. The avant-garde doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ing team (led here by Véré­na Par­avel and Lucien Cas­taing-Tay­lor, of the deep-sea fish­ing freak­out Leviathan) fed new­ly devel­oped micro-cam­eras into the deep­est recess­es of patients at a hand­ful of French hos­pi­tals, break­ing up the intense pas­sages of prostate-drain­ing and eye­ball-scrap­ing with glimpses of the goings-on at these large, com­plex insti­tu­tions. Their coop­er­a­tive func­tion­ing isn’t so dif­fer­ent from that of the organ sys­tems we see with more clar­i­ty than ever, as beau­ti­ful in their har­mo­nious design as they are ghast­ly. CB

50. Blonde

Word has it that Net­flix has got­ten gun-shy about releas­ing their hot-tick­et Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe qua­si-biopic, fea­tur­ing sex bomb Ana de Armas as a fic­tion­al­ized take on one of the most glam­orous screen idols to have ever lived — maybe it has some­thing to do with the rumored NC-17 rat­ing for pas­sages of intense­ly graph­ic sex­u­al­i­ty, or direc­tor Andrew Dominik’s stat­ed refusal to budge one inch on recut­ting or cen­sor­ship. In any case, he’s stat­ed his hope that the long-await­ed char­ac­ter por­trait gets a pre­mière at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val lat­er this fall, and Net­flix main­tains that it’ll be out for the pub­lic by the year’s end. CB