2022 Best Films

[dave jenkins]

I couldn't find 10 feature films I liked this year, so you'll have to settle for my favorite nine. In descending order of preference:

Banshees
DTL
TG: M
Elvis
The Batman
Bardo
The Menu
TAR
Emily the Criminal

[PowerRR]

But wait, didn't you 10 TG:M and Elvis and only 8 Banshees? Is Banshees now a 10 or did those two get lower?

My 2 favorites of the year are pretty vanilla: The Fabelmans and Banshees. Really really liked both. Linklater's Apollo 10 1/2 is also one of my favorites and I thought Del Toro's Pinocchio was great.

[noodles_leone]

Where is Avatar 2? Where is Black Panther: Wakanda Forever? WHERE THE HELL IS BIGBUD?

I haven't thought hard about this and I'm not even sure I saw 10 2022 movies, but:

Enqu?te sur un scandale d'?tat and Pacifiction are at least in the top 3
Licorice Pizza is a 2022 film in France so it probably takes the top spot.

Other entries include:
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Bardo (maybe)

Not worthy of an offical top 10 title but interesing to note:
As Bestas
Nope (maybe)

Biggest bummer of the year:
The Northman (despite a couple of terrific scenes, it made me reconsider my love for his first 2 movies)

Haven't seen the Fabelmans or Banshees.

[dave jenkins]

But wait, didn't you 10 TG:M and Elvis and only 8 Banshees? Is Banshees now a 10 or did those two get lower?

You actually went back and checked my scores? Dude, get a life.

So, yeah, I guess Banshees is now a "10." (Blu in da haus!)

[PowerRR]

Hahah. I remember being so BAFFLED that you gave Elvis a 10 (a movie I can barely sit through 5 minutes of, though somehow finished) that I got confused by its ranking on your list and had to check what you gave Banshees.

[dave jenkins]

BAFFLED that you gave Elvis a 10

It was the only 2022 film I saw that had me tearing up at the end. In my book, that makes it a "10."

[noodles_leone]

Wow, things are getting real here.
Arnaud Desplechin raved about Elvis too when I interviewed him earlier this year but he was all about the first hour (and he still likes Moulin Rouge better).

[dave jenkins]

Yeah, the first hour is probably the best part; part 2 spends too much time on the come-back TV special, and things start to drag. But the ending really rocks. A lot of bio films these days do a trick where they leave the actor and show images of the actual subject at the end of the film. This one does that, but in a way that packs an emotional wallop. Elvis has died and we see Austin whats-his-name doing an encore of "Unchained Melody;" suddenly, it's file footage of the real Elvis. And it's just him at the piano. And we're told this is the last performance he ever gave. And it's a very impassioned renditioned.

Cue DJ's lump in the throat.