Big Picture Big Sound

I always love writing my year-end round up for our site. It gives me a great space for reflection and celebration and hopefully a chance to introduce any readers to a movie that may have passed them by in a given year.

Over the past couple years I've used my Top 10 article to work out my complicated feelings about the state of affairs in terms of movies. If things in the film industry were disrupted in 2020, and seemed slow to recover in 2021, 2022 might feel the closest we've had to "normal" at the movies post-pandemic. How movies are viewed has been radically changed since the start of the pandemic and many films continue to bypass theaters and go to streaming, but there has been a slight emphasis this year on movies returning to the big screen, even for a short window. Outside of event titles, audiences have been slower to return than the movies themselves, but hopefully the theatrical market will continue to strengthen itself after a few years of hobbling along.

At year-end, the question always poses itself: Was it a good year for movies? I'm one of those people who will respond by saying yes, because it's always a good year for movies. Was it a stronger year than others? Not particularly, because a lot of big titles were met with a shrug and apathy from my end. But in 2022 the movies that were good were often great.

Selecting the 10 best movies of the year is one of my favorite challenges because I want to celebrate what I loved and encourage others to see movies they maybe didn't have a chance to or didn't think they would like. If one reader sees one movie listed below, I consider this article a win.

There are always tough cuts to be made when compiling the list, so some other movies that didn't make the top 10 but are still worth highlighting from 2022 are: "Athena," "God's Creatures," "Women Talking," "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio," "Living," and "Emergency." All worth seeking out!

The 10 best movies of 2022 are...

10. Cha Cha Real Smooth

It's easy to dismiss Cooper Raiff's sophomore feature "Cha Cha Real Smooth" as a quirky Sundance formula of a movie. To be fair, it absolutely is, but Raiff - at 25 years old - has now made two movies with grace and introspection. In his latest he stars as Andrew, who in his post-college confusion stumbles into the job as a party host for Bar Mitzvahs. He meets Domino (Dakota Johnson) at one of the parties and strikes up a friendship with her and her autistic daughter (Vanessa Burghardt). Through the film's quirkiness, there's honesty and truth in navigating the "now what?" chapter after college.

9. Bones & All

It's often said that director Luca Guadagnino makes movies that appeal to all the senses, which he proved with his 2017 opus "Call Me by Your Name." In "Bones & All," Guadagnino crafts another picturesque story about two young cannibals (played by Taylor Russell and his "Call Me by Your Name" star Timothée Chalamet), who are brought together by their shared experience. "Bones & All" features its share of gross-out effects, but this is a tender road trip story about two lost souls connecting simultaneously through happenstance and circumstance. Is their love genuine or by necessity? The film allows for different readings, but that doesn't take away from the magnetism of its young stars.

8. "Sr."

There's been a boom in cinema-as-memoir movies in the past few years. In 2022, Steven Spielberg recreated his childhood with "The Fabelmans" and James Gray examined his childhood in "Armageddon Time." Chris Smith's documentary "Sr." isn't an exact comparison to the aforementioned titles, but the director brings a passionate ode to Robert Downey Sr. to life with a great deal of input and help from his son Robert Downey Jr. In just 89 minutes, the documentary takes a look back at Sr.'s life, while Jr. copes with the idea of his father's life coming to an end. In a time when vanity projects are becoming a genre unto themselves, none have been as moving and thoughtful as "Sr."

7. EO

Everything about "EO" makes it sound like some film snob cliché, but the 86-minute odyssey from Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski is anything but that. The movie follows a donkey named EO, as he travels around Europe and interacts with a wide-range of people. So, you ask, what could be the appeal in watching that? Skolimowski plays with the boundaries of cinematic empathy by enticing his audience to care for a donkey and his perspective. The movie is surprising almost every step of the way and meticulously crafted from a technical perspective. "EO" is one of the great surprises of 2022.

6. Decision to Leave

Park Chan-wook's "Decision to Leave" wins the award for "most eager to revisit movie of 2022." No one does twisty melodrama better than Park. The director brings his signature style to his latest, which follows a detective (Park Hae-il) who is investigating a man's murder and becomes intertwined with the victim's late wife (Tang Wei). Park takes his time unraveling the mystery, but his hypnotic touch and the two lead performances will keep you engaged from start-to-finish.

5. Till

A lot of people didn't want to see the film "Till" when it was originally announced, and who could possibly blame them? The story of Emmett Till is well-written in the history books, and not wanting to experience his torture on screen was a valid reason to want to skip the movie. Director Chinonye Chukwu had a very specific vision in telling this story, and she does so with sympathy and attention to what an audience may want to endure. "Till" doesn't force you witness scenes of Emmett Till's death, but shows the devastating aftermath of his lynching. The movie is told from the perspective of his mother, Mamie, played by Daneille Deadwyler in one of the year's most astonishing performances. "Till" will undoubtedly anger you, but Chukwu and Deadwyler prove to be the best messengers of this story. It's a difficult film, but a thoughtfully made one.

4. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

A one-inch high mollusk arrived in theaters at just the right time. Around the midpoint of the year, when very few movies filled me with excitement, "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On" was the tiny, gentle reminder that movies introduce themselves to you when you need them most. This is the feature-length adaptation of Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate's original YouTube short. It's always a risk to stretch out something based on a short, but Fleischer-Camp does so beautifully, and Slate's voice performance of the title character will simultaneously break and fill your heart.

3. Watcher

Chloe Okuno's "Watcher" is so much better than my original three-star review indicates (one of the few downsides of seeing a movie early at a festival is writing the initial reaction review). Maika Monroe plays Julia, an American woman who moves to Bucharest with her husband and immediately feels something is wrong. When she insists that a neighbor is following her, people are quick to write her concerns off as having a hard time adjusting to her new home. Okuno lends a steady hand to this 1970s-inspired paranoid thriller and keeps the tension high, even in the movie's smallest moments. It's a stunning small-scale piece of filmmaking.

2. The Banshees of Inisherin

Who writes snappy, biting and cynical dialog better than Martin McDonagh? In the follow-up to his critically acclaimed and Internet controversial "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri," McDonagh reteams his "In Bruges" stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson for "The Banshees of Inisherin," a story about lifelong friends who find themselves at odds once Gleeson's character decides he can't take their friendship anymore. Like any of McDonagh's films, "The Banshees of Inisherin" is a little bit of everything: Funny, moving, dramatic, dark, and a touch twisted. Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan contribute to the year's best ensemble.

And the best movie of 2022 is...

1. TÁR

It's been a long 16 years since Todd Fields' last movie (2006's "Little Children") but it was worth waiting every second for it. "TÁR" is the rare type of movie where you know you are witnessing the best picture you will see in a given year while it's still happening. Every moment of Fields' miraculously crafted drama feels planned and concise, while making you feel like you are witnessing every day life unfold in real time. Cate Blanchett is rightfully regarded as one of our finest working actors, but her performance as Lydia Tár shows how she reinvents herself with every performance. The movie is set in the world of classical music, and Lydia is a celebrity conductor who is facing the risk of professional and personal fallout due to past behavior. The movie is so much richer and more dense than its label of being a "cancel culture" movie would suggest, though it does tackle questions that we ask of our artistic idols who behave badly. "TÁR" runs 158 minutes, but every second of Fields' film feels necessary and thrilling, introducing his audience to a world they might not know and making them feel a part of it. In a year when there were many great movies, but even more met with a shrug, "TÁR" is the movie that refused to leave my mind after seeing it and only becomes stronger with every nuance discovered upon a re-watch. It's a stunning - dare I say - masterpiece.

Thank you all for spending another year with us at BigPictureBigSound.com. Don't forget to tell us your favorite movie of 2022 in the comments below!