A return trip to Pandora and the soaring long-awaited sequel to Top Gun made the cut and earned spots on my Top 10 Films of 2022 list. So did the story of young adult cannibals finding love in Bones and All, and the twisted tale of a friendship gone south in writer/director Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin. Austin Butler’s extraordinary work channeling the King of Rock and Roll in Elvis deserved a spot, as did the powerful retelling of the murder of Emmett Till by white supremacists in director Chinonye Chukwu’s Till.
Everything Everywhere All at Once had everything necessary to make it into the top 10 of 2022 including sci-fi, action, comedy, drama, and a fabulous cast led by Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. You couldn’t ask for a more entertaining murder mystery than what Rian Johnson and his talented ensemble served up in Glass Onion. 2022 also found Steven Spielberg delivering his most personal film to date with The Fabelmans, a movie that allowed audiences a peek behind the curtain into his lifelong love of the cinema. And actor/director Sarah Polley’s compelling drama Women Talking is simply filmmaking at its finest.
The following are my personal favorite films and performances of 2022. Given that it’s all just a matter of taste, I won’t hold it against you if you disagree with any or all of my picks. It was an incredibly difficult year to narrow any category down to just 10 that fit. I spent more time than I’m willing to admit deleting, adding, deleting again, re-adding, and engaging in lengthy internal debates before landing on the final selections for each of my lists – except the animated films and breakthrough performances lists. Those were, thankfully, relatively easy.
The Best of 2022 in Films – All of the lists are in alphabetical order
Top 10 Films
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Bones and All
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Till
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking
(Runners-up: The Whale, Bodies Bodies Bodies, The Menu, The Woman King, Triangle of Sadness, A Man Called Otto, Aftersun, and White Noise)
Top 10 Male Actors
Austin Butler, Elvis
Timothee Chalamet, Bones and All
Adam Driver, White Noise
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser, The Whale
Tom Hanks, A Man Called Otto
Daniel Kaluuya, Nope
Felix Kammerer, All Quiet on the Western Front
Gabriel LaBelle, The Fabelmans
Bill Nighy, Living
Top 10 Supporting Male Actors
Don Cheadle, White Noise
Paul Dano, The Fabelmans
Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
Jalyn Hall, Till
Rory Kinnear, Men
Edward Norton, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Brad Pitt, Babylon
Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Mark Rylance, Bones and All
Ben Whishaw, Women Talking
Top 10 Female Actors
Cate Blanchett, Tar
Viola Davis, The Woman King
Danielle Deadwyler, Till
Mia Goth, Pearl
Rooney Mara, Women Talking
Florence Pugh, Don’t Worry, Darling
Margot Robbie, Babylon
Taylor Russell, Bones and All
Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Top 10 Supporting Female Actors
Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Jessie Buckley, Women Talking
Hong Chau, The Whale
Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Dolly De Leon, Triangle of Sadness
Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Janelle Monae, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Carey Mulligan, She Said
Keke Palmer, Nope
Mariana Trevino, A Man Called Otto
Top 10 International Films
All Quiet on the Western Front
Argentina, 1985
Bardo
Close
Decision to Leave
EO
Holy Spider
The Quiet Girl
RRR
Saint Omer
Top 10 Documentary Films
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
All That Breathes
Bad Axe
Descendant
Fire of Love
Good Night Oppy
Retrograde
The Janes
The Territory
Wildcat
Top 5 Animated Features
Apollo 10 ½
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
Turning Red
Wendell & Wild
Top 10 Directors
James Cameron, Avatar: The Way of Water
Edward Berger, All Quiet on the Western Front
Chinonye Chukwu, Till
Rian Johnson, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Baz Luhrmann, Elvis
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
Sarah Polley, Women Talking
S.S. Rajamouli, RRR
Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
Top 10 Breakthrough Performances
Austin Butler, Elvis
Frankie Corio, Aftersun
Danielle Deadwyler, Till
Mia Goth, X and Pearl
Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Gabriel LaBelle, The Fabelmans
Paul Mescal, Aftersun
Amber Midthunder, Prey
Cooper Raiff, Director and star of Cha Cha Real Smooth
Taylor Russell, Bones and All
Top 10 Ensemble Casts
Babylon
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
The Menu
Thirteen Lives
Triangle of Sadness
The Woman King
Women Talking
White Noise
Top 10 Disappointments
Amsterdam
Blonde
Death on the Nile
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness
Halloween Ends
Jurassic World Dominion
Me Time
Morbius
Strange World
The 355
