2022’s Cinematic Highlights
As regular readers will know, I don’t rush into choosing my favourite films of any given year until a few months into the next one – partly because a film’s staying power is a key factor for me when picking my favourites, and partly because there are still some films left to catch up on. But that said, as we’re now entering Hollywood’s awards season, I do like to mark the New Year with a look back at the last year to hand out a few light-hearted prizes of my own!
So without further ado, here are some of my highlights from 2022’s cinematic releases.
Best Belated Sequel of 2022 – Prey. While Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick are close runners-up, Prey was the belated sequel that no one saw coming. This Predator prequel took the franchise back to its roots, restoring a sense of tension and suspense to the extra-terrestrial hunter and giving us the best film in the last 30 years of the series and a star-making performance from Amber Midthunder, who arguably deserves the award for Best Breakthrough Performance of 2022.
Best “Re-quel” of 2022 – Scream. You could argue it’s cheating to invent a term (a character in the film explains that a ‘re-quel’ is part ‘reboot’ part ‘sequel’) just so you can win a prize for being best at it, but this legacy sequel offered a winning combination of brutal horror, character-based nostalgia, and meta-commentary on the horror genre. It’s clear that the writers/directors have a lot of affection for the series, and I’m very excited to see where they go with 2023’s Scream VI.
Guilty Pleasure of 2022 – Uncharted. Although it got quite mixed reviews generally (and it remains to be seen whether it made enough money to justify a sequel), for what it was I really enjoyed this globe-trotting action-adventure film. While it may not feel like the most original film you’ve ever seen, I thought it was a lot of fun thanks to its slick action sequences, its cast’s chemistry, its treasure-hunting shenanigans, and its playful sense of humour – perhaps the very definition of a ‘guilty pleasure’.
Best Visual Effects of 2022 – Avatar: The Way of Water. At the time of writing this, James Cameron’s sci-fi sequel has made over $1.75 billion and is already (after only about four weeks in cinemas) the seventh highest grossing film of all time – so I think it’s fair to say that I wasn’t the only one who liked it. Just as he did with the original film, James Cameron has pushed the boundaries of what’s possible with performance capture and VFX, and I’m already excited to see what he has in store for us with the third instalment, current due to arrive at the end of 2024.
Best Christmas Movie of 2022 – Violent Night. New production company 87North’s third film (after this year’s Bullet Train and last year’s Nobody) is both a hilariously funny send-up of action and Christmas movie tropes, and at the same time is also a hugely enjoyable entry into both genres. This violent action comedy had the whole cinema laughing out loud, and it’s destined to be on rotation in my house every Christmas from now on.
Best Score of 2022 – The Batman. After missing out on my award last year (to Tom Holkenborg for the score to Zack Snyder’s Justice League), Michael Giacchino came back strong with his fantastically atmospheric score for The Batman. Deceptively simple yet infinitely detailed, his various musical themes are an integral part of setting the film’s tone, and his score during the opening sequence of Batman’s introduction was a runner-up for my Favourite Cinematic Moment of 2022.
Best “Original” Film of 2022 – Everything Everywhere All At Once. This was an incredibly close category this year, with Nope and The Woman King both vying for the top spot, alongside Glass Onion (which is sort of an “original” film, even though it’s technically a sequel to Knives Out...). But Everything Everywhere All At Once deserves the win because it’s just so original, I’ve literally never seen anything quite like it in my life. Combining absurdist humour, mind-bending sci-fi concepts, heartfelt emotional moments, and philosophical questions about the nature of existence, with martial arts action scenes involving sex toys and bum-bags, it’s responsible for three of my runner-up Favourite Cinematic Moments of 2022.
Best Live Action Visuals/Stunts of 2022 – Top Gun: Maverick. I don’t even know what you call the aerial photography in this film – is it “stunts”, is it “action sequences”, or is it something else entirely? Whatever you call it, the aerial sequences in this movie were unlike anything that’s been seen on screen before. The footage from the in-cockpit IMAX cameras put audiences in the planes with the characters for every impossible manoeuvre and dogfight engagement, which only served to heighten the character-driven elements rather than detract from them. Alongside Avatar: The Way of Water, this was game-changing cinema.
Best Soundtrack of 2022 – Thor: Love and Thunder. There were a couple of real contenders in this category, with Top Gun: Maverick and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever both including some great tunes in their respective soundtracks, but for viewers of a certain age, the inclusion of classic Guns ‘N Roses songs in the Thor sequel (especially the November Rain needle drop) was enough to take the prize this year.
Biggest Surprise of 2022 – Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. There were other films in 2022 that were better than I was expecting (such as Everything Everywhere All At Once), but no other film was quite as much of a completely unexpected delight as this insanely inventive spoof of musical biopics. On paper, you could be forgiven for wondering whether there was enough material to stretch the joke premise over an entire movie, but there’s non-stop laughs throughout – a future cult-classic for sure.
Hidden Gem(s) of 2022 – Confess, Fletch. This is perhaps the perfect example of a hidden gem, as I genuinely know of hardly anyone who’s even aware of this very enjoyable (and satisfyingly twisty) comedic neo-noir crime mystery. I highly recommend tracking it down. Other arguably overlooked gems from 2022 include Ambulance, the excellent claustrophobic action thriller from Michael Bay, and Do Revenge, which takes the niche award for Best High School Black Comedy of 2022.
Most Nostalgic Film of 2022 – Clerks III. This is a film that is unlikely to make any real impression on viewers who have not followed the friendship of Dante and Randall over the last 28 years, but if like me you grew up alongside these characters for the last three decades, the conclusion of this trilogy may be more emotionally impactful than you were expecting.
Family Film of 2022 – Jurassic World: Dominion. For families with slightly older children, I’d say that the thrills and spectacle (and not to mention the nostalgia of seeing the onscreen reunion of Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm after 29 years) provided by the conclusion of the Jurassic World trilogy was enough to take the prize in this category. For families with younger viewers, my runners-up were Turning Red (which was more heartfelt and charming than I was expecting) and Sing 2 (which I thought was genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, despite really not being a fan of the first Sing film).
Biggest Disappointment of 2022 – The 355. As usual, I want to make it clear that I’m not suggesting that The 355 was the worst film of 2022 … but with a cast as amazing as this one (Chastain, Nyong'o, Kruger, Cruz and Bingbing) it was a huge disappointment that they were completely let down by an uninspired and predictable script. The close runner up in this category was Amsterdam, which also squandered an amazing cast with a tonally disjointed and overstuffed plot.
Comedy of 2022 – The Lost City. We were spoilt for great comedies in 2022 (I’ve already mentioned Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Violent Night, Glass Onion, Thor: Love and Thunder, Confess, Fletch, Do Revenge and Clerks III, which were all very funny), but I wanted to take a moment to recognise the unexpectedly hilarious action-adventure The Lost City. Successfully pulling off an old-school adventure rom-com is easier said than done, but the chemistry and charisma of the great cast means that this still had me laughing out loud on my fourth viewing, which is always a seal of approval for a comedy. A close runner-up in this category was the intentionally ridiculous The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which takes the sub-category prize for Best Meta-Comedy of 2022.
Best Villain of 2022 – Chris Evans in The Gray Man. I was a big fan of the Russo Brothers’ darkly comic action thriller, but the standout performance for me was Chris Evans’ slightly larger-than-life portrayal of the sociopathic Lloyd Hansen. Evans looks like he’s having a whale of a time, and the character is an absolute joy to watch every time he’s onscreen. Evans is responsible for most of the laugh-out-loud moments in the film, and he’s one of the most fun movie villains to spend time with since Alan Rickman’s Sherriff of Nottingham. Runners-up in this category included the breakthrough performance of Tenoch Huerta Mejía as conflicted antagonist Namor in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and a three-way-tie between Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry and Joey King as “Tangerine”, “Lemon” and “The Prince” in Bullet Train (which also takes the award for Best Cameo(s) of 2022).
Person of the Year 2022 – Daniel Radcliffe for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story and The Lost City. No one seemed to be having more fun in 2022 than Daniel Radcliffe, who continued his excellent post-Harry-Potter career with revelatory comedic performances in these two movies. It’s always hard for an actor to avoid being typecast after having played a movie character as iconic as Harry Potter, but Daniel Radcliffe’s smart choices and varied roles mean that he’s not found himself pigeonholed, and 2022 was the year that it felt like he really just got to let his hair down and have some fun with his films (not that 2021’s Guns Akimbo wasn’t also fun, but that was a lot less mainstream!).
Favourite Cinematic Moment of 2022 – Top Gun: Maverick. This was a really close run category this year: Batman’s introduction in The Batman was a real contender for my favourite cinematic moment of the year, and Everything Everywhere All At Once had three standout moments in completely different genres – the bum-bag/fanny-pack scene (action), the butt plug scene (comedy) and the rocks scene (drama). But arguable nothing quite matched the old-school adrenaline rush of being in the cockpit with Maverick when he attempts the training run in Top Gun: Maverick – visceral, immersive and filmed practically, this was cinema at its best.
These aren’t necessarily all of my favourite films from 2022, but they are some of the highlights!
Watch this space for my Top Ten of 2022 in a couple of months, but for now, you might want to check out some of the above highlights if you’ve not seen them already.
