Jacob Mouradian’s Top 10 Films of 2022

5. Hypochondriac

This one’s for all the queer boys with mommy issues out there! 😉

In all seriousness, Addison Heimann’s confident directorial debut would make a good double feature with Attachment, as the horror here is also derived from what’s not said, but Heimann keeps the scope of it contained to a single family tree. The amplification of the big unknown causes Will’s (Zach Villa) confusion to reverberate within such a confined space, increasing the psychological damage he endures as his reality crumbles around him. It may be too blasé for some or too niche for others, but for those like me it hit just the right spot … and it hit it hard.

4. Nope

Jordan Peele‘s films are so incredibly layered that they give off lingering aftertastes which get stuck in your cranial craw for weeks afterwards. Only multiple viewings can bring out their rich complexity, and while my first watch of Nope didn’t hit me as hard as, say, Get Out or Us did, a recent rewatch revealed its inner workings and made it exponentially more profound. A mash-up of genres and a Rorschach test of meanings, symbols, and references, Peele’s third film is a meaty rumination on maintaining a legacy, exploiting your trauma for profit, the strength found in seeking personal independence, capitalism’s hubristic self-destruction, and the sheer spectacle – awesome and/or horrifying – that the analog world (like the craft of filmmaking itself) can provide.

Or it’s just a weird little sci-fi horror western with expert craftsmanship, made for your entertainment! Take your pick!

It’s a true miracle that the studio system can still push out singular, esoteric visions such as these.

3. God’s Time

Reductively, it’s the lighthearted version of Uncut Gems. More generously, it’s a manic NYC chase film whose non-stop kinetic energy hits you like a bolt of lightning. Daniel Antebi’s fourth-wall-breaking feature debut is about a bunch of losers pursuing all the wrong goals for all the wrong reasons, leaning into its own sense of voyeurism but never condoning it. It’s a colorful cross-town race against the clock that never eases up for a single one of its tightly-edited 83 minutes, and features two of the best performances of the year in newcomers Ben Groh and Liz Caribel Sierra.

You can read my full review of the film here.

2. Turning Red

Just when Pixar’s house style was getting too stale, Domee Shi comes along and injects it with an invigorating sense of new life. Fast-moving and frenetic but not without the studio’s staple sentimentality, Turning Red is an unabashed portrait of adolescent awkwardness – particularly, teenage girlhood – and the compounding of that with cultural assimilation, ancestral obligations, and adult anxieties. It’s funny, it’s loud, it’s rude, it’s sad … and it’s the best Pixar or Disney movie in quite a while.

1. After Yang

Kogonada is master at comfortable melancholy, and here he expands it beyond the trappings of modern-day small-town America to those of a tech-heavy future that’s deceptively dystopian. In After Yang, future America’s multiculturalism and diversity still hides the violence of class division and rampant xenophobia, something that inventions like fact-filled androids can’t seem to fix. You’d think in this future of mechanical conveniences and earth-colored palettes everyone would be happier, but they’re still penetrated by an indeterminate sadness. It’s only through reckoning with the abrupt mortality of something (or should I say, someone) who was expected to outlive them all do Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja regain an appreciation of their limited time together, and start to see the beauty of their life around them once again.

A great post-post-modernist tale. A near-masterpiece, if not one flat-out.

Honorable Mentions

2022 was also a great year for women-led genre films – particularly Black women, with Master, Nanny, and Sissy making waves at Sundance and SXSW. Raquel 1:1, Piano Piano, and Little Ones added more straightforward dramatic bravura to the mix, and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair reminded us of the feeling of being sad and alone online. Tommy Guns, Rounding, and Crimes of the Future gave us some audacious festival fare, while Bad Axe and DiamondHands documented just some of the craziness that was 2020 and 2021. And lastly, Rian Johnson provided a rousing follow-up to Knives Out with Glass Onion – a sequel that’s “so dumb, it’s brilliant!” and so, so fun.

Signing Off

And with that, I bid 2022 and FilmBook adieu. It’s been fun for the past three years, and I’m more than grateful for the opportunity this website gave me to engage with the art form that I truly, truly love, however it’s time for me to move on and try new ventures (change is healthy, or so I’m told). For now, if you want to keep up on my online whereabouts you can hit the links on my Author page.

Here’s to a great 2023 and beyond. I may be back sometime in the future, but until then I’ll see you at the movies.

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