Cinema – Best of 2022

1st January 2023 · 2020s, 2022, Film, Books
 
This was a year in which the broadsheet film reviewers doled out 5-star reviews like candy to kids on an almost weekly basis, creating high expectations for the year in cinema.
 

It was also a year in which the effects of the pandemic and lockdown meant a lot of films were made on smaller budgets, with fewer locations, and a consequent reduction in scale. My favourite of the year was made for just £400,000.
 
The critics’ favourites, which seemed to create a covert consensus among viewers, raised expectations and for once, for me, mostly disappointed.
 
The ones they loved most – Belfast, The Banshees Of Inisherin, Aftersun – left me nonplussed: they were fine but at the end I was a bit “Is that all there is?” Small films with big emotions, but not the greatest ambitions.
 
Two others were what I can only call stinkers: I had high hopes for Triangle Of Sadness but its satire was so broad it was like shooting dead fish in a barrel; and White Noise just bored me to death despite the ever watchable Adam Driver and his reassuring pot belly.
 
However there were gems, mostly of the unpolished variety, and in Elvis a highly polished one that defied my pessimistic expectations of Baz Luhrman, though the other big pop pic, Moonage Daydream, had less to it than met my eye (and ear).
 
Looking back, I doubt this year’s crop will be making their way into any all-time lists: the top two are the only ones I will remember and would recommend, for different reasons (and Blonde massively divided audiences with its awkard combination of #MeToo satire and voyeuristic eye). It worked for me.
 
Those top two produced by far the best lead performances of the year from Cosmo Jarvis and Ana De Armas too. Anyway, they’re not the best or worst films of the year – they’re just my favourites. You may disagree.
 
1.It Is In Us All
2.Blonde
3.Parallel Mothers
4.Boiling Point
5.Official Competition
6.Queen Of Glory
7.Nightmare Alley
8.Licorice Pizza
9.Bergman Island
10.Decision To Leave
 
11.Elvis
12.The Menu
13.Funny Pages
14.Aftersun
15.Belfast
16.Hit The Road
17.The Banshees Of Inisherin
18.Nightdrive
19.Nope
20.Moonage Daydream
 
21.Bodies Bodies Bodies
22.Triangle Of Sadness
23.See How They Run
24..Crimes Of The Future
25.White Noise