As per usual with years past, all my SunBreak co-conspirators saw a lot more new movies than I did this year, but that didn’t stop me from heartily enjoying a lot of what I saw.
I caught six of my ten faves in the hallowed confines of a movie theater, and I’d have loved to see the rest there, too. As for some sort of overarching theme threading through my best-of list, damned if I can find one, aside from the fact that everything here delighted, surprised, thrilled, and moved me in ways I often didn’t see coming. And in the end, that’s all you can ask for.
10. The Menu (Mark Mylod)
Luis Bunuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeosie and Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover get filtered through a hearty dose of jet-black humor, with some bracing social commentary that never gets in the way of the nerve-rattling fun.
(The Menu is currently in theaters.)
9. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson)
The latest installment in what looks to be an ongoing franchise is an effervescent, clever, and sharply witty grown-up entertainment that really shoulda had more than a week in theaters before being served up on Netflix. The kind of lushly appointed, star-studded lark that Hollywood used to do really damned well, shined up something sweet for a 21st-century audience. Janelle Monae handily strides away with a movie already rife with choice movie-star turns.
(Glass Onion is streaming on Netflix.)
8. The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
Equal parts dreamily transportive, tersely comic, and probingly honest, Martin McDonagh’s study of a fragmenting friendship between two residents of a small Irish island serves as a surprisingly universal fable with myriad allegorical pathways embedded in its placidly lovely surface. Colin Farrell’s wounded puppy-dog countenance has seldom found a more perfect showcase.
(The Banshees of Inisherin is now streaming on HBO Max as well as on VOD.)
7. Emily the Criminal (John Patton Ford)
Great as John Patton Ford’s scruffy, timely, rough-edged noir flick in indie movie clothing is in general, it’s Aubrey Plaza’s absorbing, badassed, utterly natural performance at the center of it that really makes it sing.
(Emily the Criminal is streaming on Netflix.)
6. The Northman (Robert Eggers)
Maybe in the end, Robert Eggers’ stripped-to-the-primal-bone Hamlet in viking gear was neither fish nor fowl—not quiiite idiosyncratic enough for Eggers’ more esoteric-leaning fan base, yet still way too weird for a mainstream audience. That said, it feels less like Eggers compromising his idiosyncrasies and more like him taking a more conventional narrative and Eggers’ing it up to the (broadsword’s) hilt. It’s a bloody shame it didn’t take off in theaters.
(The Northman is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.)
5. Sr. (Chris Smith)
In a year where a lot of great documentaries surfaced (and no, I didn’t get to see them all), this tribute to playfully rabble-rousing auteur Robert Downey Sr., delivered with love and clear-eyed wisdom by his movie-star son, took me on one of the most absorbing emotional journeys I’ve had with a movie all year. Sr. celebrates Downey Sr.’s unique artistic eye, his activist’s spirit, and his wry wit, while still acknowledging the penchant for excess that uncomfortably conjoined father and son, and the forward creative thrust that provided both men a way out of addiction.
(Sr. is streaming on Netflix.)
4. Flux Gourmet (Peter Strickland)
With all due respect to the other great food-fixated dark comedy of 2022, Peter Strickland’s latest represented some of the most devastating (and howlingly funny) satire I saw all year: Dr. Strangelove on a performance art foodie bender. More here.
(Flux Gourmet is streaming on Shudder, and is also available On Demand.)
3. Pinocchio (Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson)
The 21st-century’s inarguable master of the cinematic dark fairy tale applies his auteur’s stamp to the venerable Carlo Collodi story about a wooden boy’s path to humanity amidst his fraught relationship with his creator/father, Geppetto. As befits Del Toro’s ongoing fascination with how injustice and political brutality affect the innocent and the corruptible alike, this Pinocchio plays out against the very dark backdrop of Mussolini’s dictatorship, and it’s as much about the collateral damage wrought by fascism as it is about coming of age. Happily, it’s also an enchantingly beautiful animated fantasy, bathed in warm natural hues and imbued with a sense of ravishing craft and detail. I’ll bet it looks astonishing on a big screen.
(Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is streaming on Netflix.)
2. Pearl (Ti West)
Ti West delivered a major one-two genre punch this year, with his shockers X and Pearl seeing release within a few months of each other. Great as both of them are (for very different reasons), Pearl felt like the most artistically accomplished—an operatically pitched, lushly shot American Gothic prequel, centered around Mia Goth’s full-throttle, poignant, and disturbing performance in the title role. My dark-fairy tale movie crush of 2022, hands down. More here.
(Pearl is streaming On Demand.)
1. Everything Everywhere All at Once (DANIELS, Kwan and Scheinert)
Something this sprawling, hyperkinetically paced, and fraught with so many whiplash-dizzying tonal shifts shouldn’t work. It’s almost mathematically formulated not to. The fact that it does work thoroughly (on me and a significant portion of the populace, at least) is little short of a frickin’ miracle. The Daniels haven’t so much crafted a complete unprecedented game-changer as they have carefully, cannily combined sensory-overload flash and dazzle with genuinely affecting emotional pull, and characters you care about. That synthesis isn’t earthshaking in theory, but when it’s done well in practice (and that’s the case here), it feels like—and resolutely is—something special.
(Everything Everywhere All at Once is streaming on Showtime.)
All of the Sunbreak’s Year-end lists: Josh | Morgen | Chris | Tony