The 30 best films of 2022

Movies, now more than ever! As anoth­er year draws to a close, it’s time to reflect on the films that stayed with us long after we left the cin­e­ma. We con­sid­ered UK cin­e­ma and VOD releas­es from Jan­u­ary 2022 until Jan­u­ary 2023, so there might be a cou­ple you’re yet to see, but rest assured every film here is a cer­ti­fied mas­ter­piece. Look­ing for Licorice Piz­za, Memo­ria, and a few oth­er ear­ly 2022 releas­es? Check the 2021 list! Did your film of the year make the cut? Tweet us your favourites of 2022 @lwlies.

Only the sec­ond fea­ture from pro­lif­ic South Kore­an auteur Hong Sang-soo to receive a UK release, In Front of Your Face is one of the director’s more approach­able char­ac­ter pieces, but one that doesn’t hold back when it comes to explor­ing his delec­tably obscure pre­oc­cu­pa­tions with love, sex, fam­i­ly, God and social per­for­mance (par­tic­u­lar­ly when soused). And in actor Lee Hye-young, Hong has found one of his most for­mi­da­ble col­lab­o­ra­tors who is very clear­ly oper­at­ing on his some­times obscure wave­length. David Jenk­ins

As mas­sive fans of Gina Prince-Bythewood’s 2020 action epic The Old Guard (and, well, all her oth­er movies too), we were very excit­ed to see what the direc­tor would do next. The barn­storm­ing The Woman King seam­less­ly melds action spec­ta­cle, his­tor­i­cal dra­ma and an all-timer Vio­la Davis per­for­mance to deliv­er this chron­i­cle of a tribe of West-African female war­riors tasked with defend­ing their king­dom. DJ

Robert Pat­tin­son wore the icon­ic cowl and scowl with rel­ish. An equal­ly ful­ly leather-clad Zoë Kravitz purred along­side him. And, against all odds, direc­tor Matt Reeves brought sexy back to the Hol­ly­wood block­buster (is any­one seri­ous­ly crav­ing a return to the CG-smoothed chaste­ness of the MCU after this?). Speak­ing of get­ting hot under the col­lar, a quick word on Col­in Farrell’s fat-suit­ed sup­port­ing turn as Oswald Cob­ble­pot. We’ve heard of scene steal­ing, but Farrell’s Pen­guin prac­ti­cal­ly hijacks the whole damn pic­ture. ​“No habla español, fel­las?” Adam Wood­ward

Good luck get­ting The Nut­ty Squir­rels’ ​‘Uh Oh’ out of your head after watch­ing Owen Kline’s direc­to­r­i­al debut, about a young com­ic obses­sive in search of authen­tic­i­ty. After the sud­den death of his influ­en­tial art teacher, high school­er Robert Ble­ich­n­er (Daniel Zol­ghadri) con­vinces his par­ents to let him move out of their sub­ur­ban home into a dank apart­ment with two grown men so he can pur­sue his artis­tic aspi­ra­tions. A run-in with unsta­ble cur­mud­geon Wal­lace (Matthew Maher) ensures future calami­ty. It’s a grub­by, cringe-induc­ing, wicked­ly fun­ny lit­tle film, zip­ping by at 86 min­utes long, and hope­ful­ly a sign of great things to come from Kline. Han­nah Strong

I’m not going to spend too much time wor­ry­ing why, but we were mer­ci­ful­ly spared anoth­er round of the great Film Vs. TV clas­si­fi­ca­tion debate with the release of a third sea­son for Lars Von Trier’s demon­ic sit­com ini­tial­ly broad­cast on Dan­ish small screens. Every­one was prob­a­bly too busy laugh­ing or think­ing about death, the two oppos­ing forces unsta­bly com­min­gling in the absurd, deeply cursed Rigshos­pi­talet, where an ensem­ble of doo­fus­es and man­i­fes­ta­tions of pure evil make schtick out of a banal malev­o­lence hov­er­ing some­where between the UK Office and Twin Peaks: The Return. Patients can check out any time they like, but they can nev­er leave. Charles Bramesco

By all accounts, Empress Elis­a­beth of Aus­tria (1837−1889) was a bit of a loon­bag, but that’s not the tack Marie Kreuzer takes with her impres­sion­is­tic biopic of the flighty monarch. Vicky Krieps – mak­ing her first appear­ance on this year’s list, but not her last – is suit­ably sul­try and enig­mat­ic as the moth­er and wife who’s react­ing strange­ly but not sur­pris­ing­ly to the rav­ages of mid-life. Her exis­ten­tial trau­ma is exac­er­bat­ed by the tri­als, tribu­la­tions and pet­ty diplo­ma­cy of life at court, and the film offers a tragi­com­ic and relat­able exam­i­na­tion of aris­to­crat­ic malaise. DJ

In UK Cin­e­mas 26 Decem­ber 2022

Pay­al Kapa­dia casts a noc­tur­nal spell over her polit­i­cal­ly vibrant fea­ture debut about the anx­i­eties of stu­dent-led protest against heinous police bru­tal­i­ty, Hin­du nation­al­ism and casteism in Naren­dra Modi’s India. A Night of Know­ing Noth­ing is an excel­lent, self-reflex­ive film with vis­cer­al sound design that evokes traces of Chan­tal Akerman’s Je Tu Il Elle in its use of aut­ofic­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in a love let­ter to cin­e­ma as a means of enact­ing polit­i­cal change. Mari­na Ashioti

Miryam Charles rejects the nar­row, sen­sa­tion­al frame­work of true crime to bring forth an earnest, unique and thor­ough­ly the­atri­cal vision of spec­u­la­tive poet­ics in her assured fea­ture debut, which takes the sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances of her teenage cousin’s death to imag­i­na­tive­ly recon­struct her mem­o­ry. A ghost sto­ry that touch­es upon per­son­al trau­ma, bereave­ment, gen­der vio­lence, dias­poric mem­o­ry and dis­place­ment, deft­ly bring­ing com­plex cul­tur­al issues into its dream­like con­struc­tion. MA

The film that made spelunk­ing cool again. Fol­low­ing a James Cameron-esque absence from film­mak­ing, the indus­tri­ous Ital­ian direc­tor Michelan­ge­lo Fram­marti­no returns tri­umphant­ly with this metic­u­lous­ly filmed chron­i­cle of a cave div­ing expe­di­tion in the rugged wilds of rur­al Cal­abria dur­ing the 1960s. Not only are you forced to hold your breath as peo­ple low­er them­selves into an abyss with lengths of old rope, but you also share in their pri­vate won­der as they expe­ri­ence for the first time the sub­lime won­ders of the deep. DJ

French mem­oirist Annie Erneaux won the Nobel Prize for Lit­er­a­ture in 2022, and that hon­our fol­lowed hot on the heels of a deserved Gold­en Lion win at the 2021 Venice Film Fes­ti­val for Audrey Diwan’s sear­ing adap­ta­tion of her 2000 nov­el of the same name. A fear­less per­for­mance by Ana­maria Var­tolomei, essay­ing the school-age Erneaux in the ear­ly 1960s, look­ing for an abor­tion dur­ing a time when such pro­ce­dures were ille­gal. A vital piece of social­ly-con­scious dra­ma that nev­er once feels like a crass mes­sage movie. DJ

All respect due to the very real Lydia Tár, but if you’re going to watch one work of stylised sto­icism about a haughty, sex­u­al­ly con­trol­ling woman using her author­i­ty in the music world to run her lit­tle cor­ner of it with a ruth­less tyran­ny this year, it should be Peter Strickland’s fart-scent­ed satire. At the Son­ic Cater­ing Insti­tute, an exper­i­men­tal trio mak­ing avant-garde music from sundry food­stuffs bris­tles under the patron­age of the dom­i­neer­ing Jan Stevens (a name that even­tu­al­ly ripens into a ter­rif­ic run­ning joke), their per­son­al­i­ties clash­ing in a piquant stew of ego, anx­i­ety, fetishism, and resent­ment. It’s a rare del­i­ca­cy in both sens­es, uncom­mon in its off-kil­ter sen­si­bil­i­ty, and raw enough in its unguard­ed vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty for juices to drip down the chin. CB

Hor­ror and the ennui that stems from being a depressed teen grow­ing up online con­verge in Jane Schoenbrun’s fea­ture debut that takes us on a trip down creep­y­pas­ta lane. For the unini­ti­at­ed, creep­y­pas­tas – a port­man­teau of the words ​‘creepy’, ​‘copy’ and ​‘paste’ – are hor­ror-relat­ed leg­ends shared online, inspired by folk­lore, urban leg­ends, and chain mail. Sharp, auda­cious and thor­ough­ly dis­tinct, this is a film that skil­ful­ly demon­strates the ways in which the inter­net can be a gen­uine­ly ter­ri­fy­ing, unknown ter­rain, and hits the nail right on the head in por­tray­ing the neb­u­lous con­cept of Being Online. MA

Though Robert Eggers’ Viking action epic is set clos­er to the advent of the wheel than most big-bud­get spec­ta­cles, he’s not rein­vent­ing it; a guy wants to avenge his father’s mur­der, a set­up already used most famous­ly for Ham­let, Shakespeare’s inde­ci­sive wus­si­fi­ca­tion of the snarling berserk­er Amleth played here by Alexan­der Skars­gård. Eggers’ dev­il­ish genius hides instead in the details, how he sit­u­ates this pri­mal nar­ra­tive in a long-lost civil­i­sa­tion with bru­tal cus­toms alien to our present. And yet for all its his­tor­i­cal stu­dious­ness, this is still Hol­ly­wood enter­tain­ment of the first order, harken­ing back to a time not so long ago when block­busters took pride in such sim­ple plea­sures as sex, prac­ti­cal effects, and unadul­ter­at­ed blood­lust. CB

Char­lotte Wells’ debut fea­ture was the toast of Cannes after it appeared in the Critic’s Week side­bar, and it’s been a run­away suc­cess ever since, which is rich­ly deserved. Paul Mescal and first-timer Frankie Corio deliv­er the joint per­for­mance of the year as father and daugh­ter Cal­lum and Sophie, as this evoca­tive dra­ma weaves togeth­er DV footage with rich, grainy cin­e­matog­ra­phy to cap­ture the spir­it of a mid-90s pack­age hol­i­day. With peri­od details on point and an acute under­stand­ing of the hazy, flu­id nature of mem­o­ry, Wells has announced her­self in a tru­ly impres­sive fash­ion, and cre­at­ed a film that is sure to go down as a mod­ern British clas­sic. HS

Joachim Tri­er sees out his Oslo tril­o­gy with a deeply fun­ny, deeply sad romance, star­ring the rev­e­la­to­ry Renate Reinsve as Julie, a direc­tion­less thir­tysome­thing who fits through life from one job to the next, des­per­ate­ly in search of her pur­pose. It’s per­haps a lit­tle lighter in tone than Trier’s Reprise or Oslo August 31^st, but this effort­less­ly charm­ing roman­tic dram­e­dy man­ages to cap­ture the uncer­tain­ty that comes with becom­ing an adult when you still feel kind of like a kid. HS

It’s some­what aston­ish­ing that Amer­i­can cinema’s quin­tes­sen­tial Good Boy, Rian John­son, turned around this storm­ing, fran­chise-extend­ing who­dun­nit in just two years, and with a pan­dem­ic rag­ing in the back­drop. And yet here we are with 2022’s most blithe­ly intel­li­gent and tricksi­ly struc­tured enter­tain­ment, boast­ing an ensem­ble of dreams (Ed Nor­ton! Kate Hud­son! Dave Bautista! Janelle Monáe! More!) led by Daniel Craig as cra­vat-sport­ing dandy sleuth, Benoit Blanc. For­get Bond – this is who Craig’s going to be remem­bered for. DJ

The lack of fan­fare for this new Richard Lin­klater gem was deaf­en­ing when it dropped onto Net­flix dur­ing a post-award slow peri­od. Which is a shame as it’s a nos­tal­gic gem which very much sees the Tex­an tor­na­do work­ing with­in his reflec­tive and emo­tive com­fort zone. It’s an effu­sive­ly charm­ing roto­scoped mem­o­ry patch­work detail­ing life in sub­ur­ban Hous­ton for a boy who ends up man­ning the apoc­ryphal space mis­sion of the title. DJ

It took 13 long years to get the band back togeth­er, but John­ny Knoxville, Steve‑O, Wee Man and co man­aged to pull it off and then some. The wel­come addi­tion of some fresh meat pays div­i­dends, with the likes of Poop­ies and Dark Shark game­ly indulging in some all-new puerile pranks and prat­falls, but it’s Ehren ​‘Dan­ger’ McGe­herey who’s worth his weight in gold, endur­ing balls to his balls, a bear attack, and count­less oth­er on-screen indig­ni­ties with lit­tle more than a world-weary grin. Going into Jack­ass For­ev­er you might be tempt­ed to think the long gap would dull the impact, but despite the pas­sage of time, a flac­cid penis will always be fun­ny to a cer­tain sub­set of sick­os among us. But real­ly? It’s always been the heart that makes Jack­ass what it is, and see­ing this group of bozos back togeth­er is chick­en noo­dle soup for the soul. HS

Ear­ly box-office fig­ures haven’t been encour­ag­ing, but wouldn’t it be some­thing if Steven Spiel­berg was able to spin a main­stream hit out of his bleak­est, most tor­ment­ed per­spec­tive on mem­o­ry, fam­i­ly, and imper­ma­nence since Schindler’s List? He and screen­writ­ing part­ner Tony Kush­n­er had the good sense to hide these con­flict­ed feel­ings inside an out­ward­ly nos­tal­gic dash down a junior cineaste’s poster-plas­tered mem­o­ry lane, ​“the biggest Amer­i­can direc­tor who ever lived gets per­son­al” being an eas­i­er sell than the ugly truth. It’s only once we’re seat­ed that we realise Sam­my Fabelman’s ear­ly dab­blings in the cin­e­mat­ic form serve as an escape from the domes­tic night­mare in the mar­gins of his life, as his par­ents’ mar­riage cracks and shat­ters, leav­ing him with decades of guilt pos­si­bly dis­pelled by this home­spun exor­cism. CB

In UK cin­e­mas 27 Jan­u­ary 2023

Ter­ence Davies’ aching­ly sad biog­ra­phy of the dec­o­rat­ed First World War poet Siegfried Sas­soon con­tains one of the most dis­arm­ing­ly poignant shots of any film from this year. Dur­ing his forced con­va­les­cence at a mil­i­tary psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal, Sas­soon (Jack Low­den) con­fides in a doc­tor that he is gay and has fall­en in love with one of the oth­er res­i­dents, who is due to return to the trench­es. From this heart-rend­ing con­fes­sion Davies cuts to an emp­ty rain-soaked ten­nis court sit­u­at­ed in the grounds of the hos­pi­tal; in a sin­gle motion the cam­era slow­ly turns to meet one end of the net, where­upon it glides mourn­ful­ly along the top tape. I still haven’t got­ten over it. AW

It’s hard to think of a bet­ter film about the process of cre­at­ing art from a point­ed­ly female per­spec­tive than Mia Hansen-Løve’s gen­tly reflex­ive won­der, Bergman Island. Vicky Krieps – fast ris­ing as one of the ear­marks of moviemak­ing qual­i­ty – stars as a loose MHL avatar tak­ing a writ­ing retreat to the island of Fårö – a spar­tan idyll that Ing­mar Bergman called home dur­ing his lat­er life. It’s a work that exudes con­fi­dence and poet­ic insight from its every pre­cise­ly-cal­cu­lat­ed frame. DJ

Lau­ra Poitras offers a ram­bunc­tious trea­tise on art, pol­i­tics, pow­er and com­mu­ni­ty in her por­trait of renowned pho­tog­ra­ph­er and activist Nan Goldin, which made his­to­ry at the 2022 Venice Film Fes­ti­val as the sec­ond doc­u­men­tary title to ever claim the Gold­en Lion. The film takes on an intri­cate, pro­found approach to the opi­oid epi­dem­ic that takes Poitras’ body of work to a bril­liant new plateau, the tex­tures of its mixed-media con­struc­tion coa­lesc­ing in an art­ful and direct con­fronta­tion of glob­al arts insti­tu­tions’ com­plic­i­ty in the crimes of their bil­lion­aire donors. MA

In UK cin­e­mas 27 Jan­u­ary 2023

He did it. That crazy son of a bitch did it! Who would have guessed that one of the biggest box office smash­es of 2022 would be a sequel to a slight­ly ham­my ​’80s action­er, best remem­bered for a series of pep­py one-lin­ers? Tom Cruise was deter­mined to make his long-await­ed Top Gun sequel soar, and com­bin­ing high-octane stunt work with decep­tive­ly sim­ple sto­ry­telling and a win­ning cast result­ed in one of the most sat­is­fy­ing cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ences of the year. Con­clu­sive proof that block­busters can still look like actu­al movies instead of flat green screen, Cruise might be a mani­ac, but there’s no doubt that he still cares about the cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ence. HS

That stop-motion vir­tu­oso Phil Tippett’s mag­num opus took thir­ty years to com­plete has dom­i­nat­ed much of its cov­er­age (now includ­ing this!), but this plea­sure cruise through the glop­pi­est depths of Hell looks like it was forged through dark spells and hideous sutur­ing across untold mil­len­nia. An air of the mys­ti­cal per­me­ates a min­i­mal­ly-plot­ted, dia­logue-free cat­a­logu­ing of sub­ter­ranean hor­rors, its ancient cul­tures and lost codes hint­ed at by crea­tures locked in sense­less rit­u­als and Sisyphean tasks. But the great­est won­ders here are man­made, the rot­ted fruit of a psy­chot­i­cal­ly dri­ven man’s quixot­ic labours; just as the com­put­erised per­fec­tion of a new Avatar film makes us won­der how this could all be fake, the metic­u­lous­ly tex­tured pro­duc­tion design com­mands an inverse respect. Peo­ple made this. It all exist­ed. CB

An admis­sion: we came late to SS Rajamouli’s RRR (aka Rise Roar Revolt), the Telegu-lan­guage epic which was the only film in 2022 to thread the nee­dle between Sin­gin’ in the Rain, The Matrix and the peak canon of any cin­e­mat­ic bud­dy com­e­dy you care to men­tion. Like Nigel Tuffell’s cus­tom-made amp, this is a film that can go up to 11, and the glo­ri­ous thing about it is that it some­how stats at that vol­ume and main­tains its insane momen­tum across three train-crash­ing, tiger-punch­ing, fortress-pen­e­trat­ing, tap-danc­ing hours. A pure shot of cine-adren­a­line. DJ

James Gray is no stranger to bring­ing aspects of his fam­i­ly his­to­ry to the big screen, but Armaged­don Time rep­re­sents his most per­son­al under­tak­ing, focus­ing on a tran­si­tion­al peri­od in his pre-teen years, when Gray moved from pub­lic to pri­vate school. Star­ring live­ly new­com­er Banks Repe­ta as a stand-in for Gray, this snap­shot of life in Regan’s Amer­i­ca man­ages to be wry, sin­cere and sur­pris­ing­ly unsen­ti­men­tal, with Gray tak­ing great pains to acknowl­edge that he was kind of a brat in his younger years. It’s a mov­ing por­trait of child­hood lone­li­ness and the lim­its of mem­o­ry, and a wel­come addi­tion to the wider por­trait of Gray as an Artist. HS

Not a sin­gle sec­ond is wast­ed in Park Chan-wook’s much-antic­i­pat­ed fol­low-up to The Hand­maid­en. Deci­sion to Leave sees the direc­tor switch­ing gears, strip­ping away his trade­mark vio­lent excess to give us one of the most roman­tic films of the year, earn­ing him the Best Direc­tor prize at Cannes. The film’s metic­u­lous, oper­at­ic arrange­ment is paired with sexy cam­er­a­work, phe­nom­e­nal shot com­po­si­tion, inno­v­a­tive edit­ing and stel­lar per­for­mances by Tang Wei and by Park Hye-il. Tense, thrilling, ten­der, and intox­i­cat­ing­ly enter­tain­ing. MA

Far­rell. Glee­son. Con­don. Keoghan. Jen­ny the Don­key. The finest ensem­ble of the year? Quite pos­si­bly. Mar­tin McDonagh’s fourth fea­ture is arguably his most ground­ed, and it’s all the bet­ter for it. A qui­et­ly dev­as­tat­ing break-up film about the dis­so­lu­tion of a long friend­ship (and also about the Irish Civ­il War), Ban­shees is as bit­ing­ly fun­ny as it is melan­choly – not an easy bal­ance to strike, but by har­ness­ing the exquis­ite eye­brow act­ing of Col­in Far­rell and the breath­tak­ing, aus­tere beau­ty of the rur­al Irish coast, McDon­agh makes it work. HS

The return of the king. There were reports ahead of the 2022 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val that the long-await­ed return of Canada’s David Cro­nen­berg would have patrons hurl­ing into the aisles. And while Crimes of the Future very much did not deliv­er on those terms, what it did give us was one of the most melan­cholic and tan­ta­lis­ing­ly por­ten­tous stud­ies of human evo­lu­tion out there. Fun­ny, ter­ri­fy­ing and, ulti­mate­ly, very, very beau­ti­ful. DJ

Yep! It’s been a very sol­id year for Jor­dan Peele, with his debut fea­ture Get Out hav­ing recent­ly been vot­ed into Sight & Sound’s recent top 100 great­est films of all time poll, and all that on the back of his slam-dunk sci-fi opus, Nope. 2022 was not a vin­tage year for block­buster cin­e­ma, so praise be for this eccen­tric, enthralling, effects-dri­ven odd­i­ty that chan­nels a Twi­light Zone-style alien inva­sion thriller into a para­ble about the ethics of image-mak­ing in the 21^st Cen­tu­ry. DJ