Photograph: Universal Pictures 10. Nope Film Horror While the rest of us were mastering sourdough, Jordan Peele spent the pandemic fusing s...
10. Nope
While the rest of us were mastering sourdough, Jordan Peele spent the pandemic fusing sci-fi, horror and westerns to create a whole new kind of monster movie. The result – with no disrespect to any our baking efforts – was even better: an unnervy, unsettling and frequently funny third Peele effort, lit up by Keke Palmer’s livewire performance, a killer score and terrifying sound design. It’s easy to over-lionise the filmmaker as the savour of horror – as one poor tweeter discovered – and Nope isn’t without flaws. But it’s a blockbuster that’d unafraid to be depart radically from the norm, securing a likely spot in the midnight movie pantheon in the process.
9. Hit the Road
It’s been a bittersweet 2022 for Iranian filmmaker Panah Panahi: his dad, legendary auteur Jafar (The White Balloon), was sentenced to six years in prison by the country’s oppressive regime; but it’s also been the year his debut film, a beguiling but quietly tumultuous family drama set on the dusty highways of Iran, met its public. And what a debut it is – filled with wry wit and barbed social comment about modern life in the country, and with an outstanding performance from six-year-old Rayan Sarlak as the rascally youngster in the back seat of his family’s SUV. The Little Miss Sunshine comparisons are unavoidable, but Hit the Road’s destination is altogether more impactful.
8. Brian and Charles
Ridiculously charming, playful and touching, this bittersweet British comedy is the year’s surprise package. An oddly-shaped package, sure, what with its titular robot, Charles Petrescu, being built from an expressionless mannequin’s head plonked on top of an old washing machine. But through a much-harder-than-it-looks feat of physical comedy, off-beat dialogue and pure heart, his – ‘its’ doesn’t feel right – bond with lonely inventor Brian Gittins (David Earl) sparks into a magical bromance that delves deeply into what is it to be human – and half-washing machine.
Somewhere out there is a small but fanatical posse that holds Swiss Army Man on their shoulders as an unheralded classic. For the rest of us, this high-concept multiversal sci-fi is the first proper showcase of what directing duo the Daniels could do. With Michelle Yeoh launching from laundromat owner going through marital strife – basically a Mike Leigh character – to action star and back again, and then into a multitude of other adventures, Everything Everywhere All At Once does exactly what the titles implies and sends you spinning through time and space in exhilarating style.
What we said: ‘The Daniels juggle silly gags and weird visuals like cackling Dadaists.’
6. Happening
In a year in which the US Supreme Court put Roe v Wade in its crosshairs, Audrey Diwan’s tumultous, hard-hitting drama arrives to show the realities of illegal abortions. It’s not for the faint hearted – it goes further than Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake in depicting this bleak world – but it’s a gripping story of a pregnant student who risks prison in ’60s France, and Anamaria Vartolomei makes a luminous heroine full of gritty determination.
What we said: ‘An atmospheric, gripping drama full of poignant contemporary relevance.’
5. The Worst Person in the World
Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve is the heart and soul of this touching and inventive account of one millennial life that unfolds over several years in Oslo. Very much not the worst person in the world, her medical student-turned-writer is a perfect avatar for the uncertainties and confusions of young adulthood: a whole mess of conflicting desires, moments of directionless and emotional rawness that feels endlessly relatable. And her showstopping run through a freeze-framed city is possibly the movie moment of the year so far.
What we said: ‘Any film that can combine questions of mortality with funny, fully alive scenes of sex, social awkwardness, professional screw-ups and throwaway fun is a rich one.’
4. Parallel Mothers
Pedro Almodóvar gets serious with this poignant investigation of Spain’s buried Civil War trauma, although without ever sacrificing his light touch and delight in giddying melodrama. Penélope Cruz lights it all up like a starburst, with her performance as a new mum caught up in a case of mistaken identity in the maternity ward a career high, even by her own lofty standards. In a just world, she would have picked up her second Oscar for it.
What we said: ‘Entering Almodóvar’s world is a pleasure, even when we’re faced with pain and tough lessons.’
3. The Northman
‘A widescreen rallying cry for cinema in the age of streaming’. So read Time Out’s admittedly fairly breathless appraisal of Robert Eggers’ brilliant, blood-soaked Viking epic when it landed in (smashed into? Ransacked?) cinemas in April. But the sentiment stands, because in an age increasingly dominated by streaming sites, The Northman is a useful reminder that the place to witness the grandest, boldest cinematic visions is on the biggest screen possible – and unless you live in an IMAX, that won’t be in your front room.
What we said: ‘Thank Odin for Robert Eggers and his mad, brilliant, violent, hypnotic, trippy Viking opus.’
2. Top Gun: Maverick
Okay, hands up who saw this practically flawless blockbuster coming? A few people probably did – this long-in-the-making Top Gun sequel was originally due out two years ago – but that enforced delay detracts not one iota from the purest widescreen thrill ride of the year so far. Tom Cruise’s ace pilot provides heart, soul and some fighter jet manoeuvres that we’re pretty sure defy every law of physics in the book. Mind you, the book gets binned early (and literally) in this one, to reinvent the so-called ‘legacy sequel’ into something that soars way above hollow Hollywood cash-ins.
What we said: ‘Tom Cruise owns a crowd-thrilling sequel that easily surpasses the original.’
1. Licorice Pizza
Paul Thomas Anderson delivered his sunniest film with this ‘70s nostalgia trip to the San Fernando Valley about a cocksure teenager trying to win the heart of a drifting twentysomething. Somehow that teenage-gaze premise never comes over remotely Porky’s, helped by two breakout lead performances from Cooper ‘son of Philip Seymour’ Hoffman and Alana Haim, some A-list turns (Bradley Cooper as Hollywood producer-stroke-total-maniac Jon Peters), and PTA’s usual godlike touch behind the camera.
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