Best Films of 2022 [Poll][Dead]

[Hayden]

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Welcome!
I’ve come to the conclusion 2022 had one central cinematic theme— fingers.
Hotdog fingers. No fingers. Wooden fingers. Cat fingers.
Accordion fingers. Panda fingers. Middle fingers. Monkey fingers.
Cutting your fingers off. Cutting someone else’s fingers off.
Eating fingers.
Eating with your fingers.
Remembering what it was like to hold someone else’s.

Here's a thread where we can discuss/rec our favourite films and performances of the year, hopefully dishing out a couple recs to anyone who wants them. Was that film overrated? Underappreciated? Disappointing? Why did that Puss In Boots film go so hard? Why did that Weird Al film go so hard? What was going on in that Weird Al film? Was Weird Al in Everything Everywhere All At Once? If not, where is he? When do we get the Tar/Weird Al collab? Or the Colm/Weird Al collab? Wasn’t Weird Al working on a collab with EO? Where was Donkey in the Puss In Boots film? Wait. Oh no… oh no oh no oh no—


SUBCATAGORIES:

5 Best Male Performances
&
5 Best Female Performances
+
5 Best Music Scores

Which you may submit up to 10 each, but the final lists will be the top 5.

The gist/ rules:

BEA composes a list of our 50 favourite films of 2022.

All lists will be PMed to me or posted in this thread, maxing out at 50. The final list will be 50 films. I'll be accepting lists of any denotation up to 50. The size of your list determines its weight. Films must be longer than 40 minutes. Any film labelled 2022 on (1 or more of) IMDb, Letterboxd, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, or Wikipedia will be eligible. Due to the weird release market right now, eligibility will be lenient this year. Don’t worry.

Documentaries are allowed. Miniseries (i.e. The Dropout) are not.

Lists will also be accepted in IMDb and Letterboxd format. Deadline will be May 21st.

Eligible releases—
Werewolf By Night
Get Back: The Rooftop Concert

Ineligible releases—
Le Pupille
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
Moon Knight
Pam & Tommy
George & Tammy
Tammy & Tommy
George & Pam
Jim & Pam
Michael & Dwight

[CA Dreamin]

I haven't done one of these in a while so here it goes:

The Fabelmans, Empire of Light, and Clerks III - 2022 was a year where a few directors made a movie that was simultaneously personal to their past, as well as a "love letter to cinema." In Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg revisited his childhood through college years, tracing the roots of his cultural identity, his views, and his love and craft of film-making. I really dug the first 90 minutes, during his carefree years. It reminds us of Spielberg's fun imaginative side that has been missing from his filmography in recent years. However, I didn't care much for the melodramatic side that took over the last third of the film, as the family started to fall apart while he grappled with high school problems. The very ending scene was a nice finish though. In Empire of Light, Sam Mendes took us to the English coast in the early-80s, where a partially fictionalized version of his mother works at a movie theater. Olivia Colman is great here, but unfortunately that's about it. At its core, it's a love story hampered by mental illness, race, and a large age disparity. The homage to cinema elements didn't really mesh all that well, resulting in finished film that half-assed its objectives. As for Clerks III, Kevin Smith decided 'Hey, why don't I just re-shoot some scenes from Clerks and Clerks II, with the same actors except now they're 50?' It's a bit lazy when you think about it. I liked some of the behind-the-scenes material, hinting at what it was like to shoot Clerks in 1994, with next to no budget. However, when nearly all the jabs at humor are the recycled gags of previous films, they mostly fell flat and uninspired. I think I laughed twice.

(And these are the films that were both an homage to cinema and personal backstories of the director; it doesn't include Nope, Bardo, and Babylon which were only one of the two. Are movies about movies and/or director autobiographies getting tiring?)
_________________
on such a winter's day

[Hayden]

[Applerill]

A lot of my favorite movies of last year were short films and features from no-budget YouTubers, so I decided to leave them out so I could fit a lot that I love that didn't make the top 50 originally.

1. Framing Agnes (Joynt)
2. I Didn't See you There (Davenport)
3. Dinner in America (Rehmeier)
4. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Appel)
5. Turning Red (Shi)
6. Hit the Road (Panahi)
7. Ahed's Knee (Lapid)
8. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford)
9. Fire Island (Ahn)
10. Speak No Evil (Tafdrup)
11. Soft & Quiet (Arujo)
12. Glass Onion (Johnson)
13. Marcel the Shell (Fleischer)
14. Emergency (Williams)
15. Deep Water (Lyne)
16. On the Count of Three (Carmichael)
17. After Yang (Kogonada)
18. I Love My Dad (Morosini)
19. The Batman (Reeves)
20. Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me (Keshishian)
21. Kimi (Soderbergh)
22. Pearl (West)
23. Catherine Called Birdy (Dunham)
24. Triangle of Sadness (Ostlund)
25. Till (Chukwu)
26. Piggy (Pereda)
27. The African Desperate (Syms)
28. Bros (Stoller)
29. Funny Pages (Kline)
30. Barbarian (Cretter)
31. Mad God (Tippett)
32. Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniels)
33. Fresh (Cave)
34. Cha Cha Real Smooth (Raiff)
35. 18 1/2 (Mirvish)
36. The Menu (Mylod)
37. The Northman (Eggers)
38. Vortex (Noe)
39. Labyrinth Ion (Flight)
40. The Cathedral (D'Ambrose)
41. Terrifier 2 (Leone)
42. The Banshees of Inisherin (McDonough)
43. Hatching (Bergholm)
44. The Woman King (Bythewood)
45. Honk For Jesus, Save Your Soul (Ebo)
46. EO (Skolimowski)
47. Top Gun Maverick (Kosinski)
48. Elvis (Luhrmann)
49. The Fabelmans (Spielberg)
50. Blonde (Dominik)

[BozoTyrannus]

1. Morbius
2. Morbius II: The Morbening
3. Triangle of Morbness
4. Morbelmans
5. Morbatar: Way of Morbius
6. Morb: The Al Morbovic Story
7. Guillermo del Toro's Morbius
8. Morb Quiet on the Western Front
9. Morbything Morbywhere All at Morbs
10. Morbius Talking
11. Morbanshees of Inisherin
12. Aftermorb
13. To Morbius
14. Morblack Panther: Wakanda Forever
15. Morbius Onion: A Morbs Out Story
16. Morbassic World: Dominion
17. Morbius the Shellbius with the Shobius On
18. Morbius in Boots: The Last Wish
19. The Sea Morbeast
20. Morbius, 1985
21. The Quiet Morb
22. All the Beauty and Morbius
23. Morbage Daydream
24. A Morbius Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe Him
25. moRRRbius
26. Tell It Like a Morbius
27. The Morbius Moritchell Effect
28. The Boy, the Morbius, the Morbius and the Horse
29. My Year of Morbius
30. Le Morbille
31. Morbylon
32. Morbo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
33. Mrs Morbius Goes to Parbius
34. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Morbius
35. Morbius: The Rise of Gru
36. Morb: Love and Thunder
37. Moon Morb
38. All That Morbs
39. Morb Gun: Morbius
40. After Morb
41. Framing Morbius
42. Morbius' Knee
43. Honk for Morbius, Save Your Sorbius
44. The Morbman
45. Morbius of Sadness
46. Empire of Morb
47. The Morbius King
48. Morbius by Night
49. Get Back: The Morbius Concert
50. Morb Knight
_________________
I wanna take Sean Penn
And take Sean Bean
Put 'em in a blender
And make Sean Pean

[MadhattanJack]

You didn't like "Morbass Forever"?

[LedZep]

[Hayden]

Just some small recent-watches notes before I reply to MorbTyrannus—

Watched two remakes yesterday (coincidentally)— A Man Called Otto & Living— both of which were better than I figured. I think the concept for Ove was great, but I never really got into it all that much— wasn't even going to bother with the US remake, but it got some fair hype. Ended up enjoying it a bit. Never takes itself too seriously, and there's some solid laughs along with the punches. Nothing groundbreaking, but there's a chance I prefer it to the original.

Now, I was never going to like Living as much a Ikiru— well, odds were low anyway— but wow was it excellent. Beautifully crafted work. So soft. It's like a dusty Faberge pillow of a film. Nighy is brilliant— don't think I've seen him put in a better performance— and the screenplay is one of the year's best. Really delicate, finely-wound composition as a whole. Aimee Lou Wood and Alex Sharp have lovely supporting roles (not that a Tony-winning actor is an up-and-comer— well, he still kinda is— but I think the dude's screen time will escalate this decade). I hope this comes across the right way, but I loved how slow the film was. Gave it this vintage-cosiness to the space. Not sure where it'll rank on my list, but top 20 for sure.

Also rewatched Everything Everywhere All At Once last Friday night. First time seeing it in nearly a year (and only second time overall). My opinions haven't really swayed. I think it's a very good film— still a bit bonkers/high-octane for my taste— but it's unquestionably something special. I'm anticipating it to be our #1 for the poll.

[BozoTyrannus]

[EyeKanFly]

Thanks Hayden for putting this together again! Looking forward to adding my list. Before I contribute, I have a few more films on my watchlist (most of which I have available for streaming, so should be able to add in a week or so), but I mostly have a thought-out list.