Beyond the blockbusters: The 10 best films of 2022

There were lots of movies to like in 2022, but the goodies were mostly to be found not in the Hollywood mainstream but on the outskirts. Maybe low-budget films, documentaries, and foreign language fare didn’t always take up the slack, but the best of them at least tried to be more venturesome than the usual ossified studio product.

One of the most promising developments has been the emergence or blossoming of a number of gifted female directors, some making their feature film debuts. Sarah Polley, in “Women Talking,” directed what is easily her most assured work. Nikyatu Jusu’s “Nanny,” about a Senegalese nanny in New York’s Upper East Side, is the year’s most evocative horror film. First-time Scottish director Charlotte Wells arrives on the scene with the uneven but affecting father-daughter study “Aftersun,” which also heralds the arrival of a major young actor, Frankie Corio.

I also admired two European filmmakers, Belgian Laura Wandel, who debuted with “Playground,” and Audrey Diwan, from France, who made the timely abortion drama “Happening,” based on a story by French Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux. Their films are both signal achievements and hopefully harbingers of what is to come.

Another burgeoning development this year was the preponderance of semi-autobiographical coming-of-age movies, most prominently James Gray’s “Armageddon Time” and Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.” Whatever their faults, both sensibly resisted the impulse to wallow in self-serving nostalgia.

There was also a plethora of movies that dumped on the venal rich, including “The Menu,” “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” and, easily the best of the bunch, “Triangle of Sadness.” In the documentary realm, the raw, imperfect “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” exposed profiteers of the opioid crisis, though that was not the film’s only focus. In a convoluted way, maybe this is how the issue of income equality gets a seat at the multiplex these days.

Good films, as well as bad, can come from anywhere. And terrific performances can often appear even in middling movies. You wouldn’t want to miss Jennifer Ehle and Samantha Morton in “She Said.” Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Kerry Condon invigorated “The Banshees of Inisherin.” So, too, did Emily Watson in “God’s Creatures,” Olivia Colman in “Empire of Light,” and Cate Blanchett in the otherwise overrated “Tár.”

If you craved popcorn movie action, you could be satisfyingly sated by “Top Gun: Maverick” or, much better, “Avatar: The Way of Water.” You didn’t have to settle for “Jurassic World Dominion” or “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” And if the Hollywood stuff didn’t grab you, you could glom onto “RRR,” S.S. Rajamouli’s phenomenally successful Raj-era Indian action epic that, for sheer boffo exuberance, outdid anything the studios churned out this year.

Why did this movie, which I enjoyed without joining the gaga conga line, have such global crossover appeal? I think it’s because audiences drawn back into the theaters still crave the same communal oomph the big Hollywood franchise movies are tasked to supply but so rarely do. And if that oomph comes from a Tarantino-esque mashup of Bollywood and spaghetti Westerns and the Mahabharata, so much the better.

Another surprise cult hit was “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” a multiverse maelstrom starring Michelle Yeoh. I found it exhausting, but I can see why it’s such a smash, and for much the same reason as “RRR.” It makes the familiar phantasmagoric. Why accept just a couple of multiverses in “Doctor Strange” when you can have dozens here? You say you don’t like this universe? Don’t worry, there’s plenty others you can escape to. It’s the perfect pandemic-era bliss-out. 

I prefer to bliss out over the best, and so, in alphabetical order, here are my Top 10 films of the year:

A Couple – Frederick Wiseman, our finest documentarian, makes a rare foray into staged drama with this filmed monologue starring the French actor Nathalie Boutefeu. It’s drawn mostly from the diaries and letters of Sophia Tolstoy, the long-suffering wife of the great novelist Leo Tolstoy. As she wanders alone the grounds of a spacious estate, she asks of her husband, “Do you see me as a person?” It’s an anguished plea and a major performance. (Not rated; French with English subtitles) 

A Hero – Asghar Farhadi’s best movie since his Oscar-winning “A Separation” is about a hapless debtor whose attempts at restitution become ever more comic and tragic. In the process, we get a bustling, comprehensive view of contemporary Iranian society. Do not be deterred from seeing this film because of the recent controversy over the unacknowledged contribution from one of Farhadi’s film students. (PG-13)

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood – Richard Linklater’s rotoscope animated ode to his NASA-obsessed Houston boyhood in the dawn of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon launch has the homegrown charm and lyricism that characterizes his best work. (PG-13)

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song – Dayna Goldfine and Daniel Geller’s documentary is not only about the genesis of Cohen’s famous song, but also a deep dive into how ferociously personal and even sacramental music making could be for him. (PG-13)

Nitram – Justin Kurzel’s slow burn dramatization of the wracked life of Australia’s most deadly mass shooter is a model of how to film incendiary material in a principled, nonexploitative way. Caleb Landry Jones, who won best actor at the Cannes Film Festival, heads a great supporting cast, including Judy Davis, Anthony LaPaglia, and Essie Davis. (Not rated)

Playground – No better movie has been made about the ramifications of schoolyard bullying than Laura Wandel’s extraordinary debut feature, shot almost entirely from the point of view of the little girl played by the precociously gifted Maya Vanderbeque. (Not rated; French with English subtitles)

Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical – For a change, a family movie that the whole family can actually enjoy. Emma Thompson as the evil headmistress is a hoot, and the spirited young cast, under Matthew Warchus’ direction, saves the day and then some. (PG)

The Good Nurse – True-crime dramas are a dime a dozen these days. This one, directed by Tobias Lindholm and featuring Eddie Redmayne as an anti-Florence Nightingale and Jessica Chastain as the fellow nurse and friend whose conscience led her to expose him, is exceptionally powerful. It is also an indictment of a hospital system that chooses to look the other way when one of its own goes rogue. (R) 

Thirteen Lives – Ron Howard’s nail-biter about the real-life rescue of Thai junior soccer players from a mountain cave system is a terrific example of how to meld action and empathy. We care about the rescue because we are made to care about the people. Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell give admirably unshowy star performances. (PG-13) 

Three Minutes: A Lengthening – Three minutes of rare color footage of a predominantly Jewish Polish town in 1938 is the forensic focus of this haunting documentary by Bianca Stigter. A metaphysical detective story, it is ultimately a movie about bearing witness. (PG)

Some other 2022 worthies in addition to those favorably cited in the opening section: “EO,” “The Automat,” “The Duke,” and “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.” 

Peter Rainer is the Monitor’s film critic.