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ENTRIES IN PART 1:


Antti Alanen

Film programmer (KAVI / National Audiovisual Institute, Helsinki)

Top tens in viewing order.

I

  • Madres paralelas (Parallel Mothers, Pedro Almodóvar, 2021)
  • Pahanhautoja  (Hatching, Hanna Bergholm, 2022)
  • Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021)
  • Babi Jar. Konteksty (Babi Yar. Context, Sergei Loznitsa, 2021)
  • Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, 2022)
  • On ne sait jamais (Victoria Schultz, 2022)
  • The Corridors of Power (Dror Moreh, 2022), my film of the year, greatly enhanced by being seen as a sequel to The U.S. and the Holocaust 1–3 (Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, Sarah Botstein, 2022)
  • Tár (Todd Field, 2022)
  • She Said (Maria Schrader, 2022)
  • Ankabut-e moqaddas (Holy Spider, Ali Abbasi, 2022)

 II

  • Kahdeksan surmanluotia (Eight Fatal Shots, Mikko Niskanen, 1972), 2022 restoration. Viewed at Midnight Sun Film Festival. I introduced the Bologna and Telluride screenings.
  • Protéa (Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset, 1913), 2013 restoration. Bologna.
  • À Vendredi, Robinson (See You Friday, Robinson, Mitra Farahani, 2022). Jean-Luc Godard and Ebrahim Golestan in long-distance dialogue). Bologna
  • The Raid (Hugo Fregonese, 1954). Bologna
  • Cheshmeh (The Spring, Arby Ovanessian, 1972). Bologna
  • Canoa: Memoriade un hecho vergonzoso (Canoa: A Shameful Memory, Felipe Cazals, 1976). Bologna
  • Black Tuesday (Hugo Fregonese, 1954). Bologna
  • Thampu (The Circus Tent, Govindan Aravindan, 1978). Bologna
  • Poznavaya belyi svet (Getting to Know the Big, Wide World, Kira Muratova, 1979). Telluride, introduced by Kira Kovalenko and Kantemir Balagov
  • Segundo de Chomón in Barcelona (Segundo de Chomón, 1912), 2021 restoration by Filmoteca de Catalunya. Pordenone.
  • Lumière Suisse: Lavanchy-Clarke (Société Lumière, 1896–1904). Curated by Roland Cosandey, Dominique Moustacchi and Hansmartin Siegrist. Pordenone.

III

2022 as a year is a candidate for the worst in film history. There were excellent films, but too few. There were big box office hits, but not enough. This is a year in which I rooted for Tom Cruise, the last film star in the sense of being the only one able to break a film everywhere (Top Gun: Maverick, Joseph Kosinski). The turmoil of the film industry, film transport and film culture continued. This year was the toughest in my working life. Add to that the climate crisis, the pandemic, Putin’s Feldzug against Ukraine, the energy crisis and the financial crisis. But I am an optimist in all counts.

Top Gun: Maverick

Hussain Al-Dubaisi

Cinephile, Qatif, Saudi Arabia

Best films released in 2022:

  1. Close (Lukas Dhont, 2022)
  2. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, 2022)
  3. Navalny (Daniel Roher, 2022)
  4. Watcher (Chloe Okuno, 2022)
  5. Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger, 2022)
  6. Argentina, 1985 (Santiago Mitre, 2022)
  7. Moonage Daydream (Brett Morgen, 2022)
  8. A Love Song (Max Walker-Silverman 2022)
  9. X (Ti West, 2022)
  10. Three Thousand Years of Longing (George Miller, 2022)

Best films watched for the first time in 2022:

  • L’âge d’Or (Age of Gold, Luis Buñuel, 1930)
  • For Sama (Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts, 2019)
  • Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog, Luis Buñuel, 1929)
  • Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid, 1943)
  • As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (Jonas Mekas, 2000)

Francisco Algarín Navarro

Spanish film critic and programmer. Co-founded Lumière Magazine, lives and works in Seville.

Films released for the first time in 2022:

  • ¿Se puede deletrear la hoja? (Valentina Alvarado, 2022)
  • Any Way (Eva Claus, 2022)
  • Being in a Place (Luke Fowler, 2022)
  • Bouquets 31-40 (Rose Lowder, 2014-2022)
  • Diorama (Álvaro Feldman, 2022)
  • Essais (Hannes Schüpbach, 2020)
  • For Dan (Luke Fowler, 2021)
  • ipsa (I watched the Moon around the House) (Blanca García, 2022)
  • Jane, Looking (Amy Halpern, 2020)
  • La Source de la Loire (Rose Lowder, 2019-2021)
  • Mar de coral (Elena Duque, 2021)
  • Renate (Ute Aurand, 2021)
  • Sea Series #23 (John Price, 2008-2022) 
  • The Demands of Ordinary Devotion (Eva Giolo, 2022)
  • This Day’s Madness Did Prepare Tomorrow’s Silence (David Gatten & Ashley West, 2021)
  • Tigre del carbón (Azucena Losana, 2022)
  • White Screen (for Amy Halpern) (Deneb Martos, Pablo Useros, 2022)
  • With The Tide, with the tide (Anna Kipervaser, 2022)

Films encountered for the first time (or when seeing them screened, as if it were the first time) in 2022: 

  • Remote… remote… (Valie Export 1973)
  • Syntagma (Valie Export, 1983)
  • Unsichtbare Gegner (Invisible Adversaries, Valerie Export, 1977)
  • 28035 (Patrice Kirchhofer, 1978)
  • Chromacité I (Patrice Kirchhofer, 1977)
  • Chromacité II (Patrice Kirchhofer, 1978)
  • A Desert of a Thousand Lines (Mani Kaul, 1986)
  • Ingreen (Nathaniel Dorsky, 1964)
  • Summerwind (Nathaniel Dorsky, 1965)
  • À la recherche des Amazones (Marcelle Thirache, 1986)
  • Éclats (Marcelle Thirache, 1990)
  • Hambourg (Marcelle Thirache, 1990)
  • Monet is Monet (Marcelle Thirache, 1986)
  • Monodie parsemée (Marcelle Thirache, 1988)
  • Mouvance exquise ou voyage intérieur (Marcelle Thirache, 1986)
  • Narcisse et lilas (Marcelle Thirache, 1988)
  • S……elle (Marcelle Thirache, 1990)
  • Trois fantaisies tragiques (Marcelle Thirache, 1992)
  • À plat couture (David Wharry, 1979)
  •  A Touch of Venus (David Wharry, 1980)
  • Dawn Patrol (David Wharry, 1978)
  • Freighters of Destiny (David Wharry, 1980) 
  • Phaeton (David Wharry, 1978)
  • Wishful Thinking (David Wharry, 1978)
  • Abbandono (Werner Nekes, 1970)
  • Diwan (Werner Nekes, 1974)
  • Photophtalmia (Werner Nekes, 1975)
  • Aleph (Robert E. Fulton, 1982)
  • Chant (Robert E. Fulton, 1973)
  • Kata (Robert E. Fulton, 1967)
  • Moonchild (Robert E. Fulton, 1971)
  • Running Shadow Part II (Robert E. Fulton, 1972)
  • Street Film Part IV (Robert E. Fulton, 1978)
  • Swimming Stone (Robert E. Fulton, 1969)
  • Water Film (Robert E. Fulton, 1972)
  • Algérie couleurs (Djouhra Abouda, Alain Bonnamy, 1970-1972)
  • Ali au pays des merveilles (Djouhra Abouda, Alain Bonnamy, 1975)
  • Ancient Parts/Foreign Parts (Marjorie Keller, 1979)
  • Daughters of Chaos (Marjorie Keller, 1980)
  • Objection (Marjorie Keller, 1974)
  • The Answering Furrow (Marjorie Keller, 1985)
  • Apache Drums (Hugo Fregonese, 1951)
  • Apple Summer (Holly Fisher, 1974)
  • Arisaig (Charles Ross, 1972)
  • Au commencement (Sarkis, 1997-1998)
  • Le voyage au Mexique (The Journey to Mexico, Teo Hernández, 1988)
  • Chutes de Feuilles d’été (Teo Hernández, 1983)
  • Mâya (Teo Hernández, 1978-1979)
  • Proménade (Teo Hernández, 1988)
  • Tables d’hiver (Teo Hernández, 1978-1979)
  • Voir Vienne (Teo Hernández, 1986)
  • Aus der alten Welt  (Klaus Telscher, 1984)
  • Eastmans Reisen (Klaus Telscher, 1981)
  • Entwicklungsstücke (Klaus Telscher, 1981)
  • Az iz (Betzy Bromberg, 1983) 
  • Ciao Bella (Betzy Bromberg, 1978)
  • Baroque Statues (Maria Lassnig, 1970-1974)
  • Couples (Maria Lassnig, 1972)
  • Selfportrait (Maria Lassnig, 1971)
  • Beat (Christopher Maclaine, 1958)
  • Scotch Hop (Christopher Maclaine, 1959)
  • The End (Christopher Maclaine, 1953)
  • The Man Who Invented Gold (Christopher Maclaine, 1957)
  • Beau temps mais orageux en fin de journée (Good Weather, But Stormy Late This Afternoon, Gérard Frot-Coutaz, 1986)
  • BildoblJYfe (HHK Schoenherr, 1969)
  • Das Portrait der Cordua (HHK Schoenherr, 1969)
  • Metermass Kaputt (HHK Schoenherr, Raphaela Schoenherr, 1969)
  • Play 2&3 (HHK Schoenherr, 1969)
  • Play 20 (HHK Schoenherr, 1973)
  • Birth of the Flag I & II (Claes Oldenburg, 1965-1974)
  • Blackbird Descending (Malcolm Le Grice, 1977) 
  • The Bladderwort Document (Janis Crystal Lipzin, 1978)
  • Flapping Things (Janis Crystal Lipzin, 1974)
  • L.A. Carwash (Janis Crystal Lipzin, 1975)
  • Periodic Vibrations in an Elastic Medium (Janis Crystal Lipzin, 1976)
  • The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (Janis Crystal Lipzin, 1976)
  • Visible Inventory Six: Motel Dissolve (Janis Crystal Lipzin, 1978)
  • Visible Inventory Nine: Pattern of Events (Janis Crystal Lipzin, 1981)
  • Blight (John Smith, 1994-1996)
  • Slow Glass (John Smith, 1988-1991)
  • The Black Tower (John Smith, 1985-1987)
  • Brussels Loops (Shirley Clarke, D.A. Pennebaker, 1957)
  • Canadian Pacific (David Rimmer, 1972)
  • Canadian Pacific II (David Rimmer, 1975)
  • Landscape (David Rimmer, 1969)
  • Real Italian Pizza (David Rimmer, 1971) 
  • Charbonnières (Charcoal Makers, Colette Piault, 1990)
  • Chassés-croisés (Jennifer Burford, 1985-1989)
  • Cortex (Jennifer Burford, 1988)
  • Droit de passage (Jennifer Burford, 1989)
  • Portraiture (Jennifer Burford, 1993)
  • Choke (David Crosswaite, 1971)
  • Film No. 1 (David Crosswaite, 1971)
  • Man With a Movie Camera (David Crosswaite, 1973)
  • De l’Argentine (About Argentina, Werner Schroeter, 1986)
  • Himmel hoch (Werner Schroeter, 1968)
  • La morte d’Isotta (Werner Schroeter, 1968)
  • Paula – Je reviens (Werner Schroeter, 1968)
  • Desert Cloud (Graham Stevens, 1974)
  • Die neue Wohnung (The New Apartment, Hans Richter, 1930)
  • Die Reise nach Lyon (Blind Spot, Claudia von Alemann, 1981)
  • Dionysus (Charles Boultenhouse, 1963)
  • Drift (Chris Welsby, 1994)
  • Fforest Bay II (Chris Welsby, 1973)
  • Park Film (Chris Welsby, 1973)
  • Running Film (Chris Welsby, 1973)
  • Sea/Shore (Chris Welsby, 1979)
  • Sky Light (Chris Welsby, 1988)
  • Stream Line (Chris Welsby, 1976)
  • Wind Vane (Chris Welsby, 1972)
  • Windmill III (Chris Welsby, 1974)
  • Winter and Summer (Chris Welsby, 1973)
  • East Side, West Side (Allan Dwan, 1927)
  • Epilogue (Peter Gidal, 1968)
  • Focus (Peter Gidal, 1971) 
  • Upside Down Feature (Peter Gidal, 1967)
  • Erzählen (Storytelling, Ingemo Engström, Harun Farocki, 1975)
  • Ether (Velu Viswanadhan, 2003)
  • Euclidean Illusions (Stan VanDerBeek, 1979)
  • European Diary ’78 (Howard Guttenplan, 1978)
  • New York City Diary ’74 (N.Y.C. Diary ’74, Howard Guttenplan, 1974)
  • San Francisco Diary ’79 (Howard Guttenplan, 1979) 
  • Europa (Stefan & Franciszka Themerson, 1932)
  • Falamos de Rio de Onor (António Campos, 1973)
  • Gente da Praia da Vieira (António Campos, 1976)
  • Histórias Selvagens (Wild Tales, António Campos, 1978)
  • Vilarinho das Furnas (António Campos, 1971)
  • Falling Lessons (Amy Halpern, 1993) 
  • Firefly (Coni Beeson, 1974)
  • Holding (Coni Beeson, 1971)
  • Lotus (Coni Beeson, 1979)
  • The Letter (Coni Beeson, 1980)
  • The Now (Coni Beeson, 1972)
  • Unfolding (Coni Beeson, 1970)
  • Women (Coni Beeson, 1974)
  • Five Artists: BillBobBillBillBob (Gunvor Nelson, Dorothy Wiley, 1971)
  • Fluchtweg nach Marseille (Escape Route to Marseilles, Ingemo Engström, Gerhard Theuring, 1977)
  • Forget Me Not (Unglee, 1979)
  • Hommage à la pelle à neige (Unglee, 1996)
  • Frame (Richard Serra, 1968)
  • Railroad Turnbridge (Richard Serra, 1975-1976)
  • Fugue, A Light’s Travelogue (Els van Riel, 2017)
  • Gently Down the Stream (Su Friedrich, 1981) 
  • Godovshchina revolyutsii (Anniversary of the Revolution, Dziga Vertov, 1918)
  • Kinoglaz (Kino Eye, Dziga Vertov, 1924)
  • Tri pesni o Lenine (Three Songs About Lenin, Dziga Vertov , 1934)
  • Home Movies – Rome/Florence/Venice/Greece (Taylor Mead, 1965)
  • Home Movies/N.Y.C. to San Diego (Taylor Mead, 1968)
  • My Home Movies (Taylor Mead, 1964)
  • Home Movies I-XXVI (Birgit Hein & Wilhelm Hein, 1971-1977)
  • Interférences (Andrée Dantu-Saïet, 1963) 
  • Johnny Minotaur (Charles Henri Ford, 1971)
  • Journaux 1983-1985 (Yann Beauvais, 1983-1985)
  • Kaldalon (Dore O., 1971)
  • Kirsa Nicholina (Gunvor Nelson, 1969)
  • Trollstenen (Gunvor Nelson, 1976)
  • Kleist (Martine Rousset, 1993)
  • Mer (Martine Rousset, 2003)
  • Mansfield K. (Martine Rousset, 1988)
  • L’Annonce fait à Marie (The Annunciation of Marie, Alain Cuny, 1991)
  • L.A. Plays Itself (Fred Halsted, 1972)
  • La Belle Nivernaise (The Beauty From Nivernaise, Jean Epstein, 1924)
  • Les berceaux (Jean Epstein, 1931)
  • La Campagne de Cicéron (Jacques Davila, 1990)
  • La Roue (The Wheel, Abel Gance, 1923)
  • Laughing Anne (Herbert Wilcox, 1953)
  • Le Champignon des Carpathes (Jean-Claude Biette, 1990) 
  • Lófotr (Peter Nestler, 1994)
  • Loose Corner (Anita Thacher, 1986)
  • Sea Travels (Anita Thacher, 1978)
  • Michael Brod’s Whoever — In Transit (William Moritz, 1974)
  • Rumanian Dance Rushes (William Moritz, 1976)
  • Star Trick (William Moritz, 1975)
  • Mirt Sost Shi Amit (Harvest: 3,000 Years, Haile Gerima, 1975)
  • Moana (Robert J. Flaherty, 1926)
  • My Mountain, Song 27 (Stan Brakhage, 1968)
  • New York Diary (Milena Gierke, 1995)
  • Notes for Jerome (Jonas Mekas, 1978)
  • Paradise Not Yet Lost, or Oona’s Third Year (Jonas Mekas,1980)
  • O Desejado ou As Montanhas da Lua (Mountains of the Moon, Paulo Rocha, 1987)
  • O Movimento das Coisas (Manuela Serra, 1985) 
  • O Panama (James Benning, 1985)
  • Hayachine no Fu (The Poem of Hayachine Valley, Sumiko Haneda, 1982) 
  • Ongedaan Gedaan (Deed Undone, Frans van de Staak, 1989)
  • ORG (Fernando Birri, 1978)
  • Our Daily Bread (King Vidor, 1934) 
  • Passagem ou A Meio Caminho (Jorge Silva Melo, 1980)
  • Presents (Michael Snow, 1981)
  • Relativity (Ed Emshwiller, 1966)
  • Rom 70/71 (Werner von Mutzenbecher, 1970-1971)
  • XXII/90 Wolf-Passerelle (Werner von Mutzenbecher, 1990)
  • Sans titre (Helmut Nickels, 1981)
  • Sans titre IV (Helmut Nickels, 1977-1978)
  • Sécan ciel (Version Longue) (Jean-Michel Bouhours, 1979)
  • Senseless (Ron Rice, 1962)
  • The Flower Thief (Ron Rice, 1960)
  • The Mexican Footage (Ron Rice, 1950)
  • The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man (Ron Rice, 1963-1981)
  • Still (Ernie Gehr, 1969-1971) 
  • Tappe-haye Marlik (The Hills of Marlik, Ebrahim Golestan, 1963)
  • The Camera: Je or La Camera: I (Babette Mangolte, 1977) 
  • The Lighted Field (Andrew Noren, 1987)
  • The Mysteries (Gregory J. Markopoulos, 1968) 
  • The Sky Socialist (Ken Jacobs, 1968)
  • The Sky Socialist: Environs and Outtakes (Ken Jacobs, 1964-1966/2019)
  • Window (Ken Jacobs, 1964)
  • Tih Minh (Louis Feuillade, 1918) 
  • Wind, Water, Wings (Barbara Klutinis, 1996)

Algitya Algi

Just another moviegoer from Indonesia who loves to see the world through movies

Here’s my favourites this year:

2022 releases (not in particular rank)

  1. Piggy (Carlota Martínez-Pereda, 2022)
  2. All My Friends Hate Me (Andrew Gaynord, 2021)
  3. Autobiography (Makbul Mubarak, 2022)
  4. Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Konsinski, 2022)
  5. Before, Now, &Then (Kamila Andini, 2022)
  6. Leila’s Brothers (Saeed Roustayi, 2022)
  7. Some Like it Rare (Fabrice Eboué, 2021)
  8. Jus Nanas Kue Lapis (A Sip and a Bite, Ariani Darmawan, 2022) from Season 1: Episode 10, Piknik Pesona Omnibus
  9. Ambulance (Michael Bay, 2022)
  10. The Myriad of Faces of The Future Challengers (Yuki Aditya & I Gde Mika, 2022)

Memorable Non-2022 Releases

  1. Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968)
  2. Bronco Bullfrog (Barney Platts-Mills, 1969)
  3. Just Another Girl On The I.R.T. (Leslie Harris, 1992)
  4. What Happened Was… (Tom Noonan, 1994)
  5. Radio On (Chris Petit, 1979)

Michael J. Anderson

President & CEO of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art (USA)

Films released for the first time in 2022 (in approximate order of preference)

  • Pacifiction (Albert Serra, 2022)
  • So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa (The Novelist’s Film, Hong Sang-soo, 2022) & Tab (Walk Up, Hong Sang-soo, 2022)
  • Il buco (The Hole, Michelangelo Frammartino, 2021)
  • Khers Nist, (No Bears, Jafar Panahi, 2022)
  • Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood (Richard Linklater, 2022)
  • Coma (Bertrand Bonello, 2022)
  • De humani corporis fabrica (The Fabric of the Human Body, Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, 2022)
  • Unrueh (Unrest, Cyril Schäublin, 2022)
  • The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin) (Anders Edström, C.W. Winter, 2020)
  • IO (EO, Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022)
  • Avec amour et acharnement (Both Sides of the Blade, Claire Denis, 2022)
  • Un couple (A Couple, Frederick Wiseman, 2022)

Of the Structure of the Human Body

Older films encountered for the first time in 2022 (alphabetical by director)

  • Un monde sans femmes (A World Without Women, Guillaume Brac, 2011)
  • Le clair de terre (Earth Light, Guy Gilles, 1970)
  • Entotsu no mieru basho (Where Chimneys are Seen, Gosho Heinosuke, 1953)
  • Fényes szelek (The Confrontation, Miklós Jancsó, 1969) & Sirokkó (Winter Wind, Miklós Jancsó, 1969)
  • Lebassi Baraye Arossi (A Wedding Suit, Abbas Kiarostami, 1976)
  • Gubijinsô (Poppy, Mizoguchi Kenji, 1935)
  • Magokoro (Sincerity, Naruse Mikio, 1939) & Ani imôto (Older Brother, Younger Sister, Naruse Mikio, 1953)
  • Gebo et l’ombre (Gebo and the Shadow, Manoel de Oliveira, 2012)
  • Johanna D’Arc of Mongolia (Joan of Arc of Mongolia, Ulrike Ottinger, 1989)
  • Dos disparos (Two Shots Fired, Martín Rejtman, 2014)

In this same poll in 2005, I made two lists, including one that featured fifteen “rarely-screened silent, classical and post-classical Japanese repertory” titles, following an incredible year of programming in New York. In 2022, I rediscovered this dormant passion in a cache of recently uploaded ‘golden age’ Japanese films on YouTube. Though the image quality was much closer to and no doubt parasitic on heavily degraded videocassettes, the pleasures of mining the ‘30s and ‘40s films of such all-time favorites as Mikio Naruse and Kenji Mizoguchi (who are represented above by my favorites among a number of new discoveries) was in no way diminished.

My other personal cinematic discovery came in the form of Abbas Kiarostami’s still photography for an exhibition I helped curate in Oklahoma. In the “Doors without Keys” portfolio, Kiarostami paired life-sized photo-real images with a soundtrack, while in “Regardez-moi,” he seamlessly combined multiple photographic images to produce new meanings. In both cases, we can see a master filmmaker reinventing another art in cinema’s image.

Martyn Bamber

Media localisation manager and contributor to Senses of Cinema

10 favourite new release films from 2022 in the UK, listed in alphabetical order

  • Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven, 2021)
  • Benediction (Terence Davies, 2021)
  • Bigbug (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2022)
  • Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg, 2022)
  • Eiga daisuki Pompo-san (Pompo: The Cinéphile (Takayuki Hirao, 2021)
  • Ghahreman (A Hero, Asghar Farhadi, 2021)
  • Gûzen to sôzô (Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021)
  • Iki Safak Arasinda (Between Two Dawns, Selman Nacar, 2021)
  • Nightmare Alley (Guillermo del Toro, 2021)
  • The Outfit (Graham Moore, 2022)

Jennifer Lynde Barker

Professor of Animation and Film History. Director of Film Studies Program at Bellarmine University, Louisville, USA.

Top 10 favorite films viewed in 2022, organized alphabetically as new and old. Older films viewed at Midnight Sun Film Festival, The Nitrate Picture Show, and Il Cinema Ritrovato. 

1.

  • IO (EO, Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022)
  • Herr Bachmann und seine Klasse (Mr. Bachmann and His Class, Maria Speth, 2021)
  • Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions, Xavier Giannoli, 2021)
  • Inu-Oh (Masaaki Yuasa, 2021)
  • Serre Moi Fort (Hold Me Tight, Mathieu Amalric, 2021)

EO

2.

  • Az én XX. századom (My Twentieth Century, Ildikó Enyedi, 1989)
  • Chemi bebia (My Grandmother, Kote Mikaberidze, 1929)
  • Ken (The Sword, Kenji Misumi, 1964)
  • Rainbow Dance (Len Lye, 1936)
  • Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Charles Reisner, Buster Keaton, 1928)

Kyle Barrowman

Media and Cinema Studies Lecturer in Chicago

Below are two lists of five films. The first list, my Honorable Mentions, are my picks for the five best films that I was fortunate enough to see this year. The second list, my Dishonorable Mentions, are my picks for the five worst films that I had the misfortune of seeing this year. 

Honorable Mentions

5) Hustle (Jeremiah Zagar, 2022)

I admit to being a sucker for a good sports movie. Even so, it was a pleasant surprise to see a new sports movie this good. Save for Queen Latifah’s performance, I had no complaints about this film, and I appreciated the savvy sidestepping of so many cliché landmines.

4) Don’t Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde, 2022)

As a fan of Olivia Wilde’s, I was disheartened by how bad her directorial debut Booksmart (2015) was, but I was doubly impressed by how good her sophomore effort Don’t Worry Darling was. Clearly designed to do for gender what Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) did for race, the clever ways that Wilde built on the genre foundation provided by The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes, 1975) makes this film a worthy addition to the new genre of horror that I am inclined to call Woke Horror. It also helped that the performances from the entire cast were so great, most notably from Harry Styles, whose performance was curiously criticized but which I thought was the best in the film.

3) Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, 2022)

Michelle Yeoh has been kicking ass and taking names since she led her first film (alongside the great Cynthia Rothrock) Yes, Madam! (Corey Yuen, 1985) nearly four decades ago, but it has taken until now for the whole world to sit up and take notice, and I am happy that she is being recognized for providing a dynamic performance in a very challenging role in a film that was so inventive, clever, heartfelt, and downright fun.

2) Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski, 2022)

Speaking of fun, Tom Cruise has officially taken the title of Craziest Action Star from Jackie Chan with his death-defying stunts, and this film is a rousing tribute to the history of action films, a look back on (and a conscious effort to one-up) his own movie star legacy, a tip of the hat to the pop culture phenomenon that was – and is – Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986), and most importantly an exciting new chapter in the career of a man who knows how to thrill audiences and who, thankfully for us fans, shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.

1) Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron, 2022)

Nobody does spectacle and adventure like James Cameron, and after more than a decade of waiting, he finally provided the (first) sequel to his groundbreaking Avatar (2009), and it was worth the wait. The film world (popular and academic) has shown a depressing indifference to, if not antipathy for, Cameron and his Avatar universe, but not me. Ever since The Terminator (1984), Cameron has delivered literally every time that he has stepped up to the directing plate, and after more than a decade away – in which time countless superhero films have come out, each one over time seeming hollower and duller than the last despite ever-growing budgets – this film is Cameron telling everyone to get off of his stage and that this is how blockbuster cinema is done.

Dishonorable Mentions

5) Barbarian (Zach Cregger, 2022)

When placed alongside such films as Don’t Worry Darling, Men (Alex Garland, 2022), and They/Them (John Logan, 2022), Barbarian conspicuously lacks the thematic coherence, structural integrity, and genre chops (no pun intended) of its peers.

4) Blonde (Andrew Dominik, 2022)

Simply put, this is not just the worst film of 2022 in my book, it is one of the worst films that I have seen in recent memory. 

3) Amsterdam (David O. Russell, 2022)

I have never been a fan of David O. Russell’s, but it takes a special brand of bad filmmaking to drop the ball with a cast this fantastic. Apparently unable to decide if he was trying to rip off Soderbergh, Tarantino, or the Coen brothers, Russell’s film was as unfunny as it was stupid and boring.

2) The Batman (Matt Reeves, 2022)

Though not the world’s biggest superhero fan, I do enjoy the genre and I have always loved Batman films. I even love the much-maligned Batman & Robin (Joel Schumacher, 1997). But Matt Reeves’ turn at the Batman wheel crashed and burned harder even than any of the terrible DC films with Ben Affleck in the Batsuit. Robert Pattinson was horribly miscast, and when he snapped at Andy Serkis’ Alfred, whining, “You’re not my father,” I realized that I was watching lowest common denominator emotionality. Add to this a terrible Catwoman who had no chemistry with Batman and a Penguin whose reason for being so-called is anybody’s guess and what is left is not just a terrible Batman film, but a terrible film.

1) Scream (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, 2022)

Admittedly, this final entry is not as offensively bad as the previous entries, but I was nevertheless gutted (again, no pun intended) by how terrible Scream was. For starters, I have to say it—it should have been called Scream 5 since there already is a Scream (Wes Craven, 1996), which should not have to share its title with such a dreadful film. Beyond this, in Scream 4 (Wes Craven, 2011), Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott tells her wannabe-famous slasher cousin, Jill (Emma Roberts), that she “forgot the first rule of remakes: Don’t fuck with the original.” Evidently, the brain trust on this new Scream also forgot this rule, only instead of them being punished for it, it was us, the fans, who were made to suffer.

Mike Bartlett

Mike Bartlett talks about film and TV on his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@michaelbartlettfilm/videos

Ten best new-ish films seen for the first time in 2022

  • Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg, 2022)
  • CzechMate: In Search of Jirí Menzel (Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, 2018)
  • First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2019)
  • A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick, 2019)
  • Inteurodeoksyeon (Introduction, Hong Sang-Soo, 2021)
  • Le jeune Ahmed (Young Ahmed, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, 2019) / Tori et Lokita (Tori and Lokita, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, 2022)
  • Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello, 2019)
  • Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)
  • The Northman (Robert Eggers, 2022)
  • Pacifiction (Albert Serra, 2022)
  • And I must mention the entertaining BBC TV series, The North Water (Andrew Haigh, 2021)

Most overrated balderdash of the year

  • The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion, 2021)

Disappointing Misfires from Good Directors

  • Benediction (Terence Davies, 2021)
  • The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg, 2022)

Nicolas Bartlett

Writer for Slash Film, Critical Popcorn, The Custard TV and All The Right Moves.

Decision to Leave

  1. Heojil gyeolsim (Decision To Leave, Park Chan-wook, 2022)
  2. Verdens Verste Menneske (The Worst Person In The World, Joachim Trier, 2021)
  3. The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022)
  4. Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert 2022)
  5. The Tragedy of Macbeth (Joel Coen, 2021)
  6. The Northman (Robert Eggers, 2022)
  7. Men (Alex Garland, 2022)
  8. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg, 2022)
  9. The Batman (Matt Reeves, 2022)
  10. Barbarian (Zach Cregger, 2022)
  11. Kimi (Steven Soderbergh, 2022)
  12. Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro, 2021)
  13. Nope (Jordan Peele, 2022)
  14. Petite Maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021)
  15. Red Rocket (Sean Baker, 2021)
  16. Three Thousand Years of Longing (George Miller, 2022)
  17. All My Friends Hate Me (Andrew Gaynord, 2021)
  18. Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2021)
  19. Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2021) 
  20. Prey (Dan Trachtenberg, 2022)

Older films I saw for the first time this year

  1. Sarinui Chueok (Memories Of Murder, Bong Joon-ho, 2003)
  2. Druk (Another Round, Thomas Vinterberg, 2020)
  3. Fat City (John Huston, 1972)
  4. The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015)
  5. Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937)
  6. Juste la fin du monde (It’s Only the End of the World, Xavier Dolan, 2016)
  7. The Silent Partner (Daryl Duke, 1978)
  8. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019)
  9. Doraibu mai kā (Drive My Car, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2021)
  10. Blue Collar (Paul Schrader, 1978)
  11. L’année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad, Alain Resnais, 1961)
  12. Viskningar och rop (Cries & Whispers, Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
  13. Silence (Martin Scorsese, 2016)
  14. Ōkami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki (Wolf Children, Mamoru Hosoda, 2012)
  15. Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Gray (Vampyr, Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)
  16. Āfēi Zhèngzhuàn (Days of Being Wild, Wong Kar-wai, 1990)
  17. Bakemono no Ko (The Boy and the Beast, Mamoru Hosoda, 2015)
  18. High Life (Claire Denis, 2018)
  19. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)
  20. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2019)

Arta Barzanji

Iranian cinéaste based in Philadelphia
  1. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg, 2022)
  2. So-seol-ga-ui Yeong-hwa (The Novelist’s Film, Hong Sang-soo, 2022)
  3. Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella, 2022)
  4. Pacifiction (Albert Serra, 2022)
  5. Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas, 2022)
  6. Incroyable mais vrai (Incredible But True, Quentin Dupieux, 2022)
  7. De humani corporis fabrica (The Fabric of the Human Body, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, 2022)
  8. Fogo-Fátuo (Will-o’-the-Wisp, João Pedro Rodrigues, 2022)
  9. Tab (Walk Up, Hong Sang-soo, 2022)
  10. The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022)
  11. Fabian oder der Gang vor die Hunde (Fabian: Going to the Dogs, Dominik Graf, 2021)
  12. IO (EO, Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022)
  13. Un beau matin (One Fine Morning, Mia Hansen-Løve, 2022)
  14. Human Flowers of Flesh (Helena Wittmann, 2022)
  15. Funny Pages (Owen Kline, 2022)
  16. À vendredi, Robinson (See You Friday, Robinson, Mitra Farahani, 2022)
  17. Benediction (Terence Davies, 2021)
  18. Viens je t’emmène (Nobody’s Hero, Alain Guiraudie, 2022)
  19. Tengo sueños eléctricos (I Have Electric Dreams, Valentina Maurel, 2022)
  20. Dead for a Dollar (Walter Hill, 2022)
  21. Fou de Bassan (Yann Gonzalez, 2021) and Hideous (Yann Gonzalez, 2022)
  22. Il Buco (The Hole, Michelangelo Frammartino, 2021)

The Hole

Raphaël Bassan

French Film critic for Bref, le magazine du court métrage and Europe, revue littéraire, and cofounder in 1971 of the “Collectif Jeune Cinéma” (the first French experimental filmmakers’ distribution cooperative).

In no particular order.

  • Tchaikovsky’s Wife (Kirill Serebrennikov, Russia, France/Russia, 2022)
  • The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022)
  • Akyn (Poet, Darezhan Omirbaev, 2021)
  • IO (EO, Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022) 
  • Pacifiction (Albert Serra, 2022)
  • Vortex (Gaspar Noé, 2021)
  • As Bestas (The Beasts, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, 2022)
  • Leila’s Brothers (Saeed Roustayi, 2022)
  • Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino, 2022)
  • Razzhimaya kulaki (Unclenching the Fists, Kira Kovalenko, 2021)
  • Saint Omer (Alice Diop, 2022)
  • Feathers (Omar El Zohairy, 2021)

Pacifiction

What is striking is that in many of the works I’ve chosen this year, even three films from different latitudes – Tchaikovsky’s Wife by Kirill Serebrennikov, The Banshees of Inisherin, by Martin McDonagh and The Beasts by Rodrigo Sorogoyen – the filmmakers make disenchantment their subject. Serebrennikov depicts the famous composer as an individual who feels an unbridled hatred for his wife. Due to the social context, he wants to hide his difficulties in creating, and his homosexuality. The only Russian film in competition at Cannes, Tchaikovsky’s Wife metaphorically expresses the discomfort of being a citizen of that country even today (the film was shot before the invasion of Ukraine, but the malaise was already there). His compatriot Kira Kovalenko depicts in, Unclenching the Fists, the suffocating state that reigns in a family where the father has sickly ties with his children: two boys and a girl. The resistance to patriarchal order is carried by the daughter, a double of the director. Unclenching the Fists gives a pulse of the deleterious climate that reigns there. One wonders what will become of filmmakers like Kovalenko, Serebrennikov or Kantemir Balagov in the future. 

In Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beasts, a French couple settled in Spain and who have succeeded with a farming business, provoke an unlimited and unjustified hatred of indigenous neighbours jealous of their success. While, and here we come to a category of hatred cultivated for its own sake, in The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh stages the progressive and limitless hatred that a friend begins to feel for his best pal, for seemingly no reason. These three films are not very encouraging in terms of solidarity of individuals with each other.

Saint Omer, Alice Diop’s first fiction film, paints, in a complex way, the feeling of an Afro-descendant woman who allows her newborn to die in order to force judges and the public to reflect on the case of her fellow human beings. The film is developed on two levels; An Afro-descendant intellectual follows the trial carefully to try to understand certain things about herself and, of course, Alice Diop develops her own feelings in this remarkable film.

A filmmaker I discovered in 2021 with Just 6.5, Iranian Saeed Roustayi returns this year with Leila’s Brothers, a family saga inspired by the films of his compatriot Asghar Farhadi, but that comes close to Unclenching the Fists. Like his elder, Roustayi tries to be cautious about evoking the various dysfunctions of his country, but he has had problems with censorship. Straddling politics and reflection, Albert Serra gives us Pacifiction, an almost metaphysical reflection on the probability of the resumption of nuclear tests by the French in Tahiti.

The last four films move away, apparently, from politics: Feathers, EO, Vortex, and Bones and All. Feathers uses, like the Algerian essayist Tariq Teguia, a mixture of Western avant-garde (surrealism here) and local legends to paint a striking portrait of a family. Skolimowski uses the metaphor of the donkey (like Robert Bresson in his time) to signify the infinite variations of the social malaise that reigns in the world today. Changing his style, Gaspar Noé describes, in Vortex, the end of life of an intellectual couple. The husband, a film critic, is played by the virtuoso of Italian fantasy cinema, Dario Argento, and his companion by Françoise Lebrun, who is notable as the interpreter of The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973). Fifty years later, Gaspar Noé claims that Eustache and Argento shaped various parts of the same modernity.

Finally, our last film, Bones and All by Luca Guadagnino – who directed a remarkable remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria in 2018 – returns with an astonishing fable about life and death: a filmmaker to follow!

Sean Bell

Sean Bell is a Pop Culture Blogger at Sex & the Eternal City

The Year in Film: 2022 

First Release – Cinema/Festival/Streaming  

  • Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, 2022)
    Visual story telling at its most subtle. Wells allows the viewer to draw on the cinematographic, editing and sound cues to fill in the gaps in this rumination on memory, grief and loss. The final shot joins all the dots to emotionally devastating effect.
  • Close (Lukas Dhont, 2022)
    Close was one of several films this year that dealt with how the end of a friendship can be as cruel and bitter as any marriage or love affair, whether it’s two teenage boys in Belgium or two men on a fictional Irish isle (as in The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh, 2022) . In Close, a terrible tragedy blindsides the viewer half-way through the film and, although we move towards a resolution of sorts, there is no catharsis. Close haunts you, just as the events of the film will haunt its protagonist for the rest of his young life.
  • Verdens verste menneske (The Worst Person in the World, Joachim Trier, 2021)
    The smartest script of any film this year, which lets you feel, rather than attempt to explain, the main character’s late-20s ennui. Julie (irresistibly played by Renate Reinsve) can’t wait for her life to begin but is also scared of the responsibility that comes with making a choice. If only time could stand still and absolve her of the consequences as imagined in the film’s most striking scene.
  • Heojil gyeolsim (Decision to Leave, Park Chan-wook, 2022)
    A complex romantic thriller that upends all your plot expectations at the half-way mark, Decision to Leave has been described as “Hitchcockian” but, while Park Hae-il’s compromised detective, Jang, may share some lines of DNA with James Stewart’s Scottie in Vertigo (1958), the film is never derivative and remains modern and original right up to its final twist. Decision to Leave is also, perhaps, the first thriller to make the smart use of smart phones integral to the plot.
  • Doraibu mai kâ (Drive My Car, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2021)
    Released at the beginning of the year, and straining under the weight of awards buzz and critical acclaim, Drive My Car, with its three-hour running time and Checkhovian references, could easily have been dismissed as indulgent and pretentious. But in charting the friendship between Yûsuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Misaki (Tôko Miura) we see the resilience of ordinary people navigating their way through life’s unexpected traumas and hardships.
  • Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2021) 
    Paul Thomas Anderson’s nostalgia-tinged ode to first love and teenage entrepreneurship is laugh out loud funny and charming. This is largely due to Alana Haim, who much like Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977), makes the love interest and her evolution the complicated heart of the film.
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, 2022)
    2022’s indie breakout hit and 2023’s Oscar frontrunner, EEAOO is a dazzling display of editing and Michel Gondry-like inventiveness but the crazy plot – The Matrix (The Wachowskis, 1999) meets generational family drama – wouldn’t work if it wasn’t grounded in very human performances from a uniformly excellent cast. All those parallel universes are, in the end, just a metaphor for the rather more mundane contemplation of the roads not taken in a moment of domestic crisis. At the centre is an extraordinarily versatile performance from Michelle Yeoh, who in a parallel universe known as Asian Cinema, is rightly the biggest star in the world.
  • The Humans (Stephen Karam, 2021)
    Like 2020’s The Father (Florian Zeller), The Humans overcomes its theatrical origins by making its setting a dominant character in the film. This ominous duplex has its own creepy presence as well as being representative of a housing market and economy that is destroying the middle class. The Humans is the first American film in ages where the characters’ living conditions actually matches their financial means and where money worries colour all the relationships. It is a blackly funny, painfully truthful family portrait.
  • Un beau matin (One Fine Morning, Mia Hansen-Løve, 2022)
    Léa Seydoux gives a luminous performance as Sandra, a widowed translator, whose own emotional needs are taking second and third place to caring for her daughter and elderly father. Hansen-Løve fills her films with the lived-in detail of real life such as navigating the aged care system when a loved one’s pension falls between public and private providers, or the quiet tragedy of packing up a flat they will never return to. Also, this year I re-watched Hansen-Løve’s Eden (2014) another film drawn from the honest family observation of creative individuals battling the compromises demanded by real life.
  • Moonage Daydream (Brett Morgen, 2022)
    Seeing Moonage Daydream on an IMAX screen was a thunderingly immersive and slightly vertiginous experience. This collage of sound and vision (the soundtrack features rare and live mixes of Bowie’s indelible discography) is the perfect medium for presenting its subject’s curiosity and creativity.  

Malik Berkati

Berlin-based Swiss journalist, film critic and political scientist

This year marked the return of the cultural sector to cultural venues. Unfortunately, in some sectors, including cinema, the public has not returned in large numbers to these places. In this respect, film critics have an important role to play in encouraging the public to return to watch films in theatres, especially auteur films – challenging and engaging movies – as the others have an armada of communicators and do not need the critic. That’s why, this year more than ever, my list only includes films seen on a big screen.

La Ligne (The Line, Ursula Meier, 2022), seen at the Berlinale. Like Home (Ursula Meier, 2008) or L’Enfant d’en haut (Sister, Ursula Meier, 2012) – which won a Silver Bear special jury mention at the Berlinale in 2012), the story that begins in The Line is nothing extraordinary, except for a small triggering element that pushes normality just enough towards the margins to catch our attention. Ursula Meier’s genius lies in her approach to her cinematographic object, and her writing, such as it sublimates universes and situations that are a priori banal. As time goes by, the audience goes from an observation point in front of the screen to a position of involvement in the narrated story. By what means, we don’t know! The director manages to provoke great emotions linked to intimacy, to the familiarity of the configurations, without ever trying to force the feeling or to overexplain intentions. We agree to her proposal, a little, in spite of ourselves; suddenly we realize that we are right in the middle of her characters, watching them evolve around us. Ursula Meier is quite simply a magician!

R.M.N. (Cristian Mungiu, 2022), seen at Cannes and Zurich Film Festival. Cristian Mungiu exposes, without taking any political correctness into account, the ordinary, everyday xenophobia that finds its equivalent in every society, but also the damage of a masculinist education, the absurdities of the European subsidy system, and the difficulty of living together. These aspects are found in a breathtaking fifteen-minute scene, shot like the entire film, in a sequence. This eloquent exploration of the nervous and cerebral system of our societies is accompanied by a phantasmagorical atmosphere, induced by the wild landscape of the Carpathian mountains.

Sigurno mjesto (Safe Place, Juraj Lerotić, 2022), seen at Locarno. The title of the film, which could be translated into English as “safe place”, has only the name of it, as we come out of this film stunned, even disoriented. The story, like its direction, is minimalist, ripping off the micro-sparks of skin that remain on its skeleton to deliver its substantive marrow: a suicide attempt by Damir creates a rift that feeds primally into the desperate race between his brother Bruno and his mother to get him to safety – attempts to understand the act remain in the background. How do you save your loved one from Thanatos? Can you protect someone from their death impulses? These are the questions that the protagonists are confronted with, as their timeline accelerates and they struggle in a universe that is slightly out of sync with that of others.

Unrueh (Unrest, Cyril Schäublin, 2022), seen at the Berlinale. Based on the historical events that made the watchmaking valley of Saint-Imier (Switzerland) the political epicentre of the growing international anarchist movement in the second half of the 19th century, the film reconstructs the events of the 1870s. It also tells the story of the encounter between Josephine Gräbli (Clara Gostynski), a worker who makes the wheel that oscillates the heart of the mechanical watch and regulates the famous balance wheel, and Pyotr Kropotkin (Alexei Evstratov), a Russian traveler and cartographer. The character Pyotr is inspired by the real Pyotr Kropotkin (1842 – 1921). 

Nelly & Nadine (Magnus Gertten, 2022), seen at the Berlinale and Festival du Film et Forum International sur les Droits Humains (FIFDH, Geneva). The documentary filmmaker plunges into archival footage taken at the port of Malmö on April 28, 1945. Women and children smile, and wave, the filmmaker lingers on these movements in slow motion, when we finally discover who he wants to introduce us to: Nadine Hwang. This starting point leads the way to an extraordinary story, that of a love born in a concentration camp that will last until the end of the life of one of two lovers, in a time when homosexual couples lived in discretion, not to say hidden. 

Klondike (Maryna Er Gorbach, 2022), seen at Sundance and Festival International de Films de Fribourg. While Maryna Er Gorbach sets her story in 2014, at the time of the tragedy of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shot down by a missile in the Donbas on 17 July 2014, she vividly echoes the events that Ukrainians have been experiencing since 24 February 2022. Or rather, it reminds us that this war in Ukraine is the result of continuity. For the last eight years, we have considered this conflict as a mini cold war, as the Ukrainian director shows us, with a narrative intelligence that relies on the finesse of the off-screen, that it was nothing of the sort.

Pacifiction (Albert Serra, 2022), seen at Cannes and Filmfest München. Hypnotic cinema and an actor who improves with time like a great wine – Benoît Magimel is masterly!

IO (EO, Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022), seen on release in Europe. The acerbic misanthropic vision of a film veteran through the eyes of a donkey. A final shock that leaves no one indifferent!

Huda’s Salon (Hany Abu-Assad, 2021), seen at Palestine Filmer C’est Exister – Rencontres cinématographiques (PFC’E). We find, in Huda’s Salon, under another mode, the same double theme as in Rana’s Wedding (Hany Abu-Assad, 2002): a double oppression, that of the occupation by a foreign entity and that of a patriarchal society, whose springs are blocked by traditions that convey a deleterious authoritarianism. Smart!

Seire (Kang Park, 2021), seen at Zurich Film Festival. For his first feature film, the Korean filmmaker takes on genre cinema – somewhere between fantasy and horror – to depict the disorientation of a father after the birth of his son, in a most naturalistic setting. Brilliant!

Hannu Björkbacka

Film critic for Keskipohjanmaa newspaper in Finland

I thought 2022 was a great year for world cinema.

This is my list of best films for me in 2022 (I have only included films on that release year, because some of the greatest films released in Finland were from last year, like Drive My Car, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy and Introduction)

  1. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2022)

Simply astonishing as a sci-fi dream. Tilda Swinton, who sometimes wants to hide behind masks, seems to now be without makeup, and is all the more beautiful for it. A great performance by the director and his muse.

  1. Klondike (Maryna Er Gorbach, 2022) 

This year’s most important film, it opens up the roots of Russia’s merciless attack on innocent people caught in the turmoil of 2014 in Donetsk, Ukraine. There is also great acting by all the main characters here.

  1. Benediction (Terence Davies, 2022)

Terence Davies keeps offering brilliant films and the world doesn’t seem to care. Exceptional and humane filmmaking.

  1. Berdreymi (Beautiful Beings, Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson, 2022)

Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson shows tough love in his coming-of-age films, of which this is already the sixth (counting four shorts and two features). Set in 2000, the boy code is merciless on the outskirts of Reykjavík. But there is release in the end: “Thank you for being my friend”, says the bullied Balli after many ordeals. Dreams are important for Icelanders and their influence is something new in the director’s oeuvre. There is a great ensemble of youngsters in the lead roles. In my review, I cited Niobe Way’s non-fiction book Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection (2011). Little did I know there is another 2022 film which specifically has Deep Secrets as its inspiration, Lukas Dhont’s Close (2022) which I haven’t yet seen.

  1. Nope (Jordan Peele, 2022)

Jordan Peele has risen to the frontline of American directors with his brand of horror: always different, always wonderful.

  1. Kupla (Bubble, Aleksi Salmenperä, 2022)

There were many fine films from Finland this year, but this was the most “audience friendly” and satisfying for me. It also features young acting talent: newcomer Stella Leppikorpi in the lead role and “young veteran” Amos Brotherus alongside the best of the Finnish acting talent in the grown-up roles.

Of the older films I saw for the first time, the best was Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975) and totally worthy of its place at the top of Sight & Sound’s poll. The greatest film art imaginable.

The festivals I attended this year were Sodankylä Midnight Sun Film Festival (with Mathieu Amalric and Karim Aïnouz as guests) and Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy, both were xgreat as always.

Emmanuel Bonin

Head of School, Cinephile

Ten memorable films seen for the first time in 2022 either in Shanghai, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, Lyon, or Hong Kong, and that I will hopefully see again thereafter. A year of reconnecting with cinema after too long a long hiatus. 

In reverse chronological order:

  • Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg, 2022)
  • Nope (Jordan Peele, 2022)
  • Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasetakhul, 2021)
  • Vortex (Gaspar Noé, 2021)
  • France (Bruno Dumont, 2021)
  • Mandibles (Quentin Dupieux, 2020)
  • Kamera o Tomeru na! (One Cut of the Dead, Shin’ichirō Ueda)
  • Vampire’s Kiss (Robert Bierman, 1988)
  • Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (John McNaughton, 1986)
  • Appunti per un’Orestiade Africana (Notes Towards an African Orestes, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1970)

Dr. Nandana Bose

Film scholar, author and educator based in India.

New (in no particular order)

  • The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022)
  • Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, 2022)

In theatres (finally!):

  • A Hero (Asghar Farhadi, 2021)
  • Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1 (Mani Ratnam, 2022) in the Tamil language from India
  • Kantara (Mystical Forest, Rishab Shetty, 2022) – the last ten minutes is a powerful, near-divine, heady cinematic experience with extraordinary immersive cinematography (leaving the filmmaker with broken shoulders), and a rousing, complex sound design. In the Kannada language from India.
  • Aloners (Hong Sung-eun, 2021) on MUBI India
  • Heojil gyeolsim (Decision to Leave, Park Chan-wook, 2022)
  • Bisang Seoneon (Emergency Declaration, Han Jae-rim, 2021)
  • Petite Maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) on MUBI India
  • The Elephant Whisperers (Kartiki Gonsalves, 2022), a Netflix documentary, nominated in the Academy Awards’ Short Documentary category
  • House Arrest (Aleksey German Jr., 2021) via Pune International Film Festival 2022, virtual film festival. This felt uncomfortably close to home. 
  • Cow (Andrea Arnold, 2021) on MUBI India

Honourable Mentions (Jio-MAMI Mumbai Online Film Festival 2022):

  • Shoebox (Faraz Ali, 2021)
  • Dhuin (Mist, Achal Mishra, 2022) in the rare Maithili language from India
  • Ek Tha Gaon (Once Upon a Village, Srishti Lakhera, 2022)
  • Dostojee (Two Friends, Prasun Chatterjee, 2021) seen in theatres, in the Bangla language from India 

Old (in no particular order)

In theatres thanks to the terrific initiative of the Mumbai-based Film Heritage Foundation:

  • Namak Halaal (Loyalty, Prakash Mehra, 1982) starring India’s greatest superstar Amitabh Bachchan to commemorate his 80th birthday
  • Sight and Sound Top 100 Poll 2022 inspired binge (in chronological order):
  • The Earrings of Madame de (Max Ophüls, 1953)
  • The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
  • The Spirit of the Beehive (Víctor Erice, 1973)
  • Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
  • Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1978)
  • Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
  • Beau travail (Claire Denis, 1999)

Eagerly awaiting the critically acclaimed, much-feted Academy Award-nominated documentary All that Breathes (Shaunak Sen, 2022) in 2023.

Collin Brinkmann

Wisconsin cinephile & writer

 New

  1.     The Souvenir: Part II (Joanna Hogg, 2021)
  2.     Armageddon Time (James Gray, 2022)
  3.     Ambulance (Michael Bay, 2022)
  4.     Doraibu mai kâ (Drive My Car, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2021)
  5.     Thirteen Lives (Ron Howard, 2022)
  6.     Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2021)
  7.     Fabian oder Der Gang vor die Hunde (Fabian: Going to the Dogs, Dominik Graf, 2021)
  8.     Babylon (Damien Chazelle, 2022)
  9.     The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022)
  10. So-seol-ga-ui Yeong-hwa (The Novelist’s Film, Hong Sang-soo, 2022)
  11. Dangsin-eolgul-apeseo (In Front of Your Face, Hong Sang-soo, 2021)
  12. Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski, 2022)
  13. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg, 2022)
  14. Stars at Noon (Claire Denis, 2022)
  15. Dead for a Dollar (Walter Hill, 2022)
  16. Three Thousand Years of Longing (George Miller, 2022)
  17. TÁR (Todd Field, 2022)
  18. Cow (Andrea Arnold, 2021)
  19. She Said (Maria Schrader, 2022)
  20. Inteurodeoksyeon (Introduction, Hong Sang-soo, 2021)
  21. Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2021)
  22. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg, 2022)
  23. White Noise (Noah Baumbach, 2022)
  24. Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, 2022)
  25. Benediction (Terence Davies, 2021)

 Old

  1.     I’d Climb the Highest Mountain (Henry King, 1951)
  2.     Pride & Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005)
  3.     Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001)
  4.     Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry (R.J. Cutler, 2021)
  5.     Lorenzo’s Oil (George Miller, 1992)
  6.     Tea and Sympathy (Vincente Minnelli, 1956)
  7.     Pilgrimage (John Ford, 1933)
  8.     Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
  9.     Deja Vu (Tony Scott, 2006)
  10. Canyon Passage (Jacques Tourneur, 1946)
  11. The Empty Man (David Prior, 2020)
  12. Mountains of the Moon (Bob Rafelson, 1990)
  13. At Long Last Love (Peter Bogdanovich, 1975)
  14. Atonement (Joe Wright, 2007)
  15. Titanic (James Cameron, 1997)
  16. Man on Fire (Tony Scott, 2004)
  17. A Time for Dying (Budd Boetticher, 1969)
  18. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Peter Jackson, 2003)
  19. Biutiful (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, 2010)
  20. The Bravados (Henry King, 1958)
  21. The Talented Mr. Ripley (Anthony Minghella, 1999)
  22. Winchester ’73 (Anthony Mann, 1950)
  23. The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (Ian Samuels, 2021)
  24. Colorado Territory (Raoul Walsh, 1949)
  25. Socrates (Roberto Rossellini, 1971)

Lisa K. Broad

Head of Film Programming at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art

Films released for the first time in 2022 (alphabetical by director)

  • Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg, 2022)
  • Il buco (The Hole, Michelangelo Frammartino, 2021)
  • Dos Estaciones (Juan Pablo González, 2022)
  • So-seol-ga-ui Yeong-hwa (The Novelist’s Film, Hong Sang-soo, 2022) & tab (Walk Up, Hong Sang-soo, 2022)
  • Queens of the Qing Dynasty (Ashley McKenzie, 2022)
  • Vanskabte land (Godland, Hlynur Pálmason, 2022)
  • De humani corporis fabrica (The Fabric of the Human Body, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel)
  • El sembrador de estrellas (The Sower of Stars, Lois Patiño, 2022)
  • Pacifiction (Albert Serra, 2022)

The Novelist’s Film

 After a few years of watching movies almost exclusively at home, I was lucky enough to see most of these in the theatre – either at a festival or in OKC. It was a true pleasure, and perhaps part of the reason why my attempts at a ranked, top-ten list felt ad hoc and unhelpful. I was struck more than usual by the difficulty of untangling the filmmakers’ work from my own enamoured experience of them.

 If the films on this list have anything in common, I think it is a sense of expansiveness – a vastness of vision, thought, feeling and sensation that reaches out past the cinema/computer screen, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside. My year in cinema was defined by expressive landscapes (Il buco, Dos Estaciones, Godland, Pacifiction, The Sower of Stars) exploding inner worlds (Crimes of the Future, De humani corporis fabrica, Queens of the Qing Dynasty); and the ever-expanding fictional universe of Hong Sang-soo (The Novelist’s Film, Walk Up).    

 Older films encountered for the first time in 2022 (alphabetical by director)

  • Wasp (Andrea Arnold, 2003)
  • One More Time With Feeling (Andrew Dominik, 2016)
  • Take Me Home (Abbas Kiarostami, 2016)
  • Tales from the Gimli Hospital (Guy Maddin, 1988)
  • Johanna d’Arc da Mongolia (Joan of Arc of Mongolia, Ulrike Ottinger, 1989)
  • Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) on 35mm!
  • Onna no mizûmi (Woman of the Lake, Yoshishige Yoshida, 1966)

Professor Samantha Broadhead

Head of Research at Leeds Arts University, UK. Interested in the fabric of film.

On reflection, I have chosen ten films that seem to have some reoccurring themes. For example, nostalgia (whether for the 1950s or 1980s) is revealed in some of the plots as a means of hiding underlying grief, trauma and crisis. It is also interesting to see how often female protagonists demonstrate bodily endurance without relying on the superhero construct. The fetishization of taste, style and design is another strand that can be seen in this selection, sometimes to evoke horror and sometimes humour. The films are arranged according to my judgment in a descending order, the first being in my opinion the best!  

  • Daughters of Darkness (Harry Kümel, 1971). Beautiful and stylish, where horror motifs are translated into haute couture fashion, such as a batwing cape.  It was shown at Leeds International Film Festival’s (3-17 November 2022) Queer Fear, (which aims to chart queer communities’ lasting association with the horror genre).  After the screening, Kümel shared how technical effects such as a scarf filtering red light could only be achieved during the much later remastering. 
  • Flux Gourmet (Peter Strickland, 2022) is a funny, stylish ‘film within a film’ comprising aspects that are reminiscent of Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy (2014).  A group of egotistical, competitive artists are portrayed as visceral, repulsive and absurd. Formal devises such as repeated sequences, sub-titles and voice overs in different languages tell the story of a fictitious documentary filmmaker. His gluten intolerance is realised as performance art.  
  • The Menu (Mark Mylod, 2022) is another film alluding to the connection between food and art. Simultaneously shocking and funny, Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) gives a loud clap that punctuates and controls the swathe of courses served to an elite group of foodies. As the dishes become more horrific, a tale of revenge on pretentious food critics and self-proclaimed gourmets unfolds. 
  • Infinite Storm (Małgorzata Szumowska, Michał Englert, 2022) – Naomi Watts’ performance is a study of professionalism, expertise and wisdom in her preparedness to meet the dangers of nature. In a similar way to The Desperate Hour (Phillip Noyce, 2021), Watts creates a characterisation of an older woman whose physical resilience drives the film’s dramatic narrative.
  • Choose or Die (Toby Meakins, 2022) contains some gruesome scenes that can be hard to watch as people are put in extreme jeopardy due to the cruel nature of a 1980s’ survival horror game. Starring Iola Evans, Asa Butterfield and Robert Englund’s voice, the story plays with the horror trope of malevolent technology. 
  • Don’t Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde, 2022) appears to be set in the 1950s and has initial overtones of The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes, 1975). The costumes, interiors and automobiles are all seductive eye candy and create the happy glow of retro-escapism. However, all is not well in this domestic utopia and the narrative culminates with a dark and unsettling denouement. 
  • Monstrous (Chris Sivertson, 2022) starring Christina Ricci provides the audience with an alternative escape to the 1950s. The art direction celebrates mid-century-Modern Design, but on a smaller scale than Don’t Worry Darling. In some ways the structure of the plot is very similar where the carefully crafted simulacra is proved to be a veneer that conceals tragic truths we do not want to see. 
  • Fall (Scott Mann, 2022) is a suspenseful action thriller where two friends, Becky and Hunter, decide to climb an abandoned 2,000-foot B67 TV tower in the middle of the desert. The only problem is they cannot climb back down. Much like Infinite storm, the film is sustained by the physical prowess of the women, which leaves the audience anxiously holding their breath. 
  • Smile (Parker Finn, 2022) is based on the unsettling notion that a smile is a signifier of sinister intent. As a psychological horror, Smile is effective, but could have exploited the concept even more to disorientate the audience’s reading of the characters.  
  • Men (Alex Garland, 2022) can be described as a British folk horror film. A widowed woman travels to a countryside village where she is stalked by a series of creepy male characters all played by Rory Kinnea, which adds to the disquieting tone. Men builds to a crescendo of body horror towards the end, that seems to comment on the fragility of masculinity. 

Nicholas Buccheri

Current film-watcher

Top 10 New-Releases (a loose order)

  1. So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa (The Novelist’s Film, Hong Sang-soo, 2022)
  2. Heojil gyeolsim (Decision to Leave, Park Chan-wook, 2022)
  3. Ambulance (Michael Bay, 2022)
  4. San taam daai zin (Detective vs. Sleuths, Wai Ka-fai, 2022)
  5. Kimi (Steven Soderbergh, 2022)
  6. The United States of America (James Benning, 2022)
  7. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (Kodama Tetsuro, 2022)
  8. Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski, 2022)
  9. Watcher (Chloe Okuno, 2022)
  10. Nope (Jordan Peele, 2022)

I have not yet been able to access a few select films that would probably make this list.

Buñuel in Mexico

A two-headed, four-handed, single-minded beast of an entity provided with sheer critical wit and relentlessness with which it hunts upon its doomed prey
  • Arvéd (Vojtěch Mašek, 2022)
  • Cerdita (Piggy, Carlota Pereda, 2022)
  • Earwig (Lucile Hadžihalilović, 2021)
  • Flux Gourmet (Peter Strickland, 2022)
  • Hrana zlomu (Repulse, Emil Křižka, 2021)
  • Serre moi fort (Hold Me Tight, Matthieu Amalric, 2021)

Honourable mention:

  • Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story (Nicola Marsh, Giovanni Reda, 2022)

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