Jacob Mouradian’s Top 10 Films of 2022

Jacob Mouradian’s Top 10 Films of 2022

2022 was … a lot.

It’s safe to say that this past year was the cherry on top of the past few, and just like everyone and everything else the film industry – from presentation to production – is still shaking off the late COVID aftershock.

Streamers have ebbed and flowed, taking bigger creative swings to accommodate at-home viewership while simultaneously throwing creators under the bus for opportunistic tax write-offs. Big tentpoles both clean up house and flop spectacularly as studio bigwigs still can’t sociologically nail down our tepid trepidations to the multiplex. And, of course, there’s still nothing that can undermine the power of word-of-mouth and festival buzz.

So, despite the metaphorical boat being rocked, we’ve still managed to maintain a continuous stream of media and other projects ready to be enjoyed (or derided) at our leisure. All that’s to say that the status quo has only been shaken, not stirred – the core of the cinematic medium remains steadfast despite an increasingly fluid exterior. Anyone who tries to tell you it’s dead is a fool who doesn’t know a reboot from a remake.

I had a hard time narrowing down this list as there was such an eclectic body to choose from – especially when there was so much festival fare I was privy to, thanks to FilmBook (and attending Sundance [digitally, of course] for the first time ever was quite the experience!). That being said, these 10 films are a good and mostly accurate mix of what 2022 had to offer, and they exhibit which titles had the staying power to keep me ruminating on them a week into the new year. As always, canon is garbage and taste is ephemeral, so this is not a be-all-end-all and more of a right-now, in-the-moment timestamp.

10. The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic

A small creative exercise in transposing the anxieties and hardships caused by a disability onto the viewers, director Teemu Nikki’s mouthful of a title steers clears of both moralizing and misery porn to create a powerful piece on personal autonomy, vulnerability, and determination. Petri Poikolainen’s lead performance, Sari Aaltonen’s cinematography, and both Sami Kiiski and Heikki Kossi’s sound design are the trifecta that propel the film through its cold narrative waters.

You can read my full review of the film here.

9. 2nd Chance

My first Bahrani (and his first documentary, oddly enough), 2nd Chance offers a prime example of the disjointed American psyche and the larger-than-life characters it fosters due to its capitalistic opportunism. The doc’s subject of body armor tycoon Richard Davis is funny but also terrifying. Ramin Bahrani lets him lay out his ideological contradictions in an unhindered fashion, proving that the most damning narratives about ourselves usually aren’t the ones others tell about us but the ones we allow ourselves to tell. An enjoyably infuriating watch.

You can read my full review of the film here.

8. Attachment

A slow-burn family horror about that which is lost in translation, and how what’s left unsaid can be as dangerous and hurtful as what we say out loud. Gabriel Bier Gislason’s feature debut navigates the rough terrain of cultural gaps, assumed prejudices, and unknown histories in ways that keep you much like Josephine Park’s lead character – in the dark, until it all comes breaking out.

You can read my full review of the film here.

7. Blaze

Interdisciplinary artist Del Kathryn Barton’s feature debut contains her trademark visual maximalism and extends that to the story as well, as she posits a coming-of-age drama next to a survivor’s-revenge one to create one of the prickliest bildungsroman of modern memory. The inner turmoil of Blaze’s titular heroine – portrayed with stunning tenacity by Julia Savage – is the film’s core, and Barton does not shy away from presenting it in its messy, contradictory, and overwhelming form. It’s less a story about seeking revenge against someone else than it is learning to forgive yourself and finding your own voice along the way, and Barton displays it all with an ingenious eye.

You can read my full review of the film here.

6. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

It’s hard to pass up a comedic sex romp with Emma Thompson – much less an introspective, sex-positive one at that! Sophie Hyde’s tender direction of Katy Brand’s hefty screenplay lends the film a theatrical sense of intimacy, and Thompson and Daryl McCormack’s burgeoning chemistry allows it to go down all the more smoothly. One of the year’s most pleasant surprises.

You can read my full review of the film here.

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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