The Best Movies of '22

By Roger Costa

It was a year of major disappointments, but also of great, surprisingly refreshing discoveries. I saw over 370 new films in ’22 including those at film festivals. Here is my personal best of the year selection, which reflects the most pleasurable hours I’ve spent inside the sacred dark room:

1- CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH

A party host gets entangled in the lives of an autistic girl and her mysteriously sad mother. As he tries to figure out his own post-college life, turns out he accidentally becomes a motivator to the people around him. While the world falls apart, Cooper Raiff’s sophomore film offers exactly what we need the most: a little hope for humankind. Winner of the top honors at Sundance, it’s a gentle, feel good, funny and touching look at human connection, respect and empathy that announces its director’s originality, honesty and remarkable sensibility.

2- CLOSE

Exploring the intense friendship of two pre-teen boys and the traumatic effects caused by a tragedy, this Belgian drama directed by Lukas Dhont addresses acceptance, tolerance and identity with incredible confidence and delicacy. It is a heartbreaking film that immerses you inside these kids’ unique connection and makes you a part of their experiences. It defines this generation’s dilemmas toward desire, reputation, freedom and romanticism.

3- TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

Ruben Ostlund’s Cannes Palme D’or winner invites us to a special cruise among the richest people in the globe, without warning us the ship may sink. A wonderfully bold storyteller who knows how to deliver urgent matters with irresistible, sophisticated humor and undeniable seduction, Ostlund crafts another relevant and horrifying mirror to modern society’s twisted values, anxieties, pleasures and prejudices. The result is a superb, hilarious moral satire to the rich, their lust, banality and exaggerated whims.

4- PETITE MAMAN

Celine Sciamma’s highly sensitive and contemplative mother/daughter surreal fantasy follows the reaction of a young girl coming to terms with family matters. To escape reality, the inevitable hurdles of life, she travels through her imagination, meeting up her mother when she was a child, developing a fabulous transgenerational connection while experiencing a journey of self-understanding. A rich tale about unconditional love, it grabs you by the heart from beginning to end, and stays with you for days to come, if not forever. A film that translates love at its strongest, purest form.

5- HIT THE ROAD + NO BEARS

Two films made in response to the Iranian Government’s authoritarian regime, these two road trip dark comedies are the best example of revolutionary, resistance cinema. First time director Panah Panahi and his father, the great, courageous Jafar Panahi created films about escaping their realities, but remaining truthful to their origins and principles. The first follows a family on a road trip to bring the elder son to the border; the second is Panahi’s latest clandestine film, where he questions the reasons for fleeing or staying put, while composing a powerful meditation on human justice, intolerance and artistic sacrifice.

6- GREAT FREEDOM

This poignant, harsh prison queer drama brings this year’s best male performance. As a man repeatedly incarcerated because of his homosexual condition in post-war Germany, Franz Rogowski gives a piercing, courageous and haunting performance, confirming his status as one of the most talented actors of his generation. A transfixing, controversial and heart-moving portrait on the absurdity of homophobia and the never-ending battle for freedom of love.

7- THE FABELMANS

Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical memoir is a marvel of a gem. An entertaining and beautifully crafted tribute to his dysfunctional family, the industry of cinema, and the effects of it, Spielberg opens up his diary using his unique ability to make us laugh, cry and thrill as he’s has always done. This time it is personal- and utterly universal.

8- MARS ONE

Brazil’s official entry for the Oscars didn’t win the Academy’s hearts but it will easily win yours. It is a tender, humble, authentic look at suburban life, through the perspective of a black family traversing different obstacles and challenges. Gabriel Martins’ touching sociopolitical drama reflects on Brazilian society’s clashes while reminding us how to put family first above all, the importance of acceptance and the necessary nurture of one’s dreams.

9- PLAYGROUND

An immersive, utterly tense and richly textured drama about the complexities and traumas experienced during childhood, Laura Wendel’s absorbing film brings this year’s best female performance: child rising star Maya Vanderbeque. As the newest kid in the turbulent prison-like school, the newcomer embodies fear, desperation, wit and compassion with nuance and confidence, making her an instant talent to watch.

10- GIRL PICTURE

A riveting portrait of Generation Z in search of love and identity, this lovely Finnish dramedy is an accomplished humanistic work that deeply and engagingly observes the emotions of three young women approaching womanhood and all of its responsibilities and insecurities, while facing their own traumas, dreams, sexual desires and risks. An essential film that displays this generation’s emotions with perfection.

And another set of +10:

11- The originality and twisty finale of BODIES BODIES BODIES
12- The inventive backwards Pandemic-era creative process of THE TSUGUA DIARIES
13- The energy and soulmate seeking of THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
14- American cinema at its best ELVIS
15- Female dilemmas and violent cleansing of MEDUSA + HOLY SPIDER
16- The seductive, mind bending puzzle mystery of DECISION TO LEAVE
17- Spanish comedies deliver incomparable amusement THE GOOD BOSS + OFFICIAL COMPETITION
18- A Korean auteur reinvents his formula IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE
19- The bravery of two unforgettable female royalties in CORSAGE + TAR
20- The timely portrait of dysfunctional family and political resistance in COSTA BRAVA LEBANON.

THE WORST FILMS OF ’22:

Cute but boring AFTERSUN
Disgusting, repetitive THE WHALE
Extremely gore and reckless BONES AND ALL
The ego crisis drug effect of BARDO
I just had no patient for THOR and anything alike
The confusing and ridiculous EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (I really don’t get all the fuss)
An auteur bored with the Pandemic in STARS AT NOON
The lifeless, lightless and dull EMPIRE OF LIGHT
A waste of talents and CGI in THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING
The chill-less of THE INVITATION
Only Ana de Armas is luminous but BLONDE sucks
The kid Chazelle gets too ambitious with hollow and reckless BABYLON
The non-sense sci-fi SPIDERHEAD
The overstuffed, disposable AMSTERDAM.