The best films of 2022, accord ing to our writers, plus a look at the most underrated releases of the year.

Films of 2022: Memory, Desire and Fanny Packs

A Scottish film tops The Skinny’s films of the year for the first time, but Charlotte Wells’ wonderful Aftersun required no home team advantage. Elsewhere our writers have been delighted by inventive works from Korea, Iran, Ireland, the USA and Norway

#1 Aftersun

Dir. Charlotte Wells There is a sense throughout Aftersun of reaching and reaching, of brushing something vital with your fingertips only to have it slip away. In her masterful autofictive debut, Charlotte Wells transforms a simple story about a young woman looking back on a childhood holiday with her father into a devastating investigation into the ache of subjectivity, into how sun-bleached memories can collapse and coagulate and doggedly continue into a haunted present. Like souvenir snow globes that hold entire worlds in fragile bubbles, Aftersun invites us into a grief that seems hardly articulable, that tips and whirls and beats against crystalline walls. [Anahit Behrooz]

#2 Decision to Leave

Dir. Park Chan-wook Decision to Leave understands that the most compelling thing about a detective movie has nothing to do with closing the case: rather, it’s about how the chase demands getting so physically and psychologically close to a suspect that the act of watching them through a pair of binoculars or putting them in handcuffs becomes deliriously charged with forbidden intimacy. Park Chan-wook, the veritable GOAT of sexy twisted obsessions, is on excellent form with this darkly humorous, lush and heart-stubborn tale of a detective who’s got it so bad that he sends a murder suspect a “you up?” text. It’s extremely romantic. [Xuanlin Tham]

#3 Everything Everywhere All at Once

Dir. Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert “If less is more, just think of how much more more will be!” The immortal words of Dr Frasier Crane could easily have been the mission statement for the Daniels’ dimension-hopping, generation-spanning, butt plug-cramming Everything Everywhere All at Once. It’s a touching family drama and a ludicrous sci-fi romp. It’s a hilarious slapstick comedy and a howling existential crisis. It builds exhilarating fight scenes around fanny packs and depicts tender romance with hotdog fingers. You could argue about whether Everything Everywhere All at Once was the best film of 2022, but there’s absolutely no denying that it was the most film. [Ross McIndoe]

#4 Memoria

Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul Apichatpong Weerasethakul can hardly do any wrong and when it was revealed he would be teaming up with Tilda Swinton for his first Englishlanguage feature, hearts were sent aflutter. Rightly so. Despite relocating from his native Thailand to Colombia, Memoria retains much of the woozy lyricism and time-collapsing otherworldliness that has beguiled his audiences for the past two decades. Here, with Swinton haunted by a strange unnatural thudding sound that nobody else can hear, Weerasethakul seems to be leaning into the enigmatic nature of his work but playfully building out an actual investigation of a mystery. That said, those expecting easy answers have perhaps misunderstood the assignment. [Ben Nicholson]

#5 Nope

Dir. Jordan Peele Jordan Peele’s third feature is part sci-fi, part Western, part horror, and all a satisfying rebuttal to cinematic sentimentalisation of non-human life – this is easily the horse film of the year, if not the decade. As three characters born of Hollywood’s past seek the perfect shot, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema finds beauty and irony in dusty vistas and nocturnal shadows. Johnnie Burn’s sound design elicits chills from simple, slightly unnatural rhythms. Daniel Kaluuya’s stoic grace and Keke Palmer’s manic optimism balance the Haywood siblings’ dance between hunter and hunted. Despite Nope’s cynical messaging, it is impossible to look away from such craftsmanship. [Carmen Paddock]

#6 The Banshees of Inisherin

Dir. Martin McDonagh Following two unpleasantly tart American comedies, Martin McDonagh rights the ship with this existential drama set on a fictional windswept island off the coast of Ireland. It’s 1923 and civil war is raging on the mainland but it’s a falling out between two friends – one a cheery farmer, the other a curmudgeonly fiddler with one eye on the sands of time – that takes centre stage. The film begins in the world of Blarney but slowly shifts to something closer to Beckett, with McDonagh’s firecracker script delivering laugh-out-loud moments without shying away from the loneliness of lives lived in communities so isolated that they might as well be on the edge of the world. [Jamie Dunn]

#7 Hit The Road

Dir. Panah Panahi Panah Panahi’s richly humanistic and often hilarious road movie would be a must-watch in any year, but in the context of the unjust imprisonment of Panahi’s father (Jafar Panahi) and the ongoing horrors being committed by the Iranian regime in the face of mass protests, Hit the Road is absolutely vital viewing in 2022. Many critics dubbed this the Iranian Little Miss Sunshine but those comparisons don’t do justice to the sharpness of Panahi’s filmmaking, where the sight gags and raucous performances are cut through with shards of melancholy, with this lovable family of misfits becoming almost mythic in their search for freedom on the open road. [Jamie Dunn]

#8 Happening

Dir. Audrey Diwan A work of colossal empathy and venom, Audrey Diwan’s film of unwanted pregnancy in 60s France, when abortion is illegal, has a profoundly upsetting effect. As university student Annie (the film adapts Annie Ernaux’s memoir of the same name) pursues every available way out of her situation, the misogyny of men, girlfriends and institutions bears oppressively on her, and Diwan’s rigidly focused camera captures every moment of internal panic coursing through Annie’s mind. As time starts running out, the film takes on a paralysing tension that’s difficult to shake as it breaks the taboos even the most intense abortion dramas don’t approach. [Rory Doherty]

#9 The Worst Person in The World

Dir. Joachim Trier Both early press and the marketing campaign for Joachim Trier’s film pushed an idea of it as ‘a Norwegian Frances Ha’ – made easy when the main publicity still was star Renate Reinsve running down a city street. But while the film is indeed a tale of an impulsive late-twentysomething navigating love and purpose, that comparison is ultimately superficial, doing a disservice to the slippery nature of Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt’s perceptive, novelistic and legitimately haunting portrait of the fear of never being enough; a fear of death but also that you’ve never quite lived, with a chance you may never. [Josh Slater-Williams]

#10 Licorice Pizza

Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson The two characters at the centre of Licorice Pizza are constantly running, and it feels like the whole movie is charged by their uncontainable youthful energy. Paul Thomas Anderson struck gold when he rolled the dice on the untested Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman, whose tangible chemistry gives this romance its beating heart, but who also skilfully navigate the messy emotional territory their characters wander into. Their authentic work is leavened by marvellously scenery-chomping cameos from Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper, with the latter’s appearance sparking the sequence of the year. Licorice Pizza already feels like a modern classic, densely packed with pleasures and endlessly rewatchable. [Phil Concannon]

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Hit the Road

Memoria

Happening

Nope

The Worst Person in the World

The Banshees of Inisherin

The Underrated, Overlooked and Misunderstood

Critical praise is all well and good, but what about the weirdo films that got ignored by audiences or the blockbusters that were dismissed by critics? Below you’ll find some of the films our writers reckon didn’t get the attention they deserved in 2022

Ambulance

Dir. Michael Bay Once derided as the exemplar of all that was coarse and dumb in American cinema, Michael Bay’s high-octane style now feels like a breath of fresh air in the barren landscape of American blockbuster filmmaking. In Ambulance, he gives us cacophonous action, broad comedy, insanely dynamic drone camerawork, and a gleefully unhinged Jake Gyllenhaal performance. It’s pure Bayhem, and it’s a blast. Streaming on Now. [Philip Concannon]

All Light Everywhere

Dir. Theo Anthony Theo Anthony’s ambitious and pressing essay doc traces the relationship between cameras and policing, throwing out multiple well-researched threads around power, watching and oppression. From the developments of 19th-century photography and weapons technology to a discomforting look inside one of today’s largest body cam manufacturers, the film undeniably speaks to recent histories while retaining an emphasis on the ambiguity of perception and truth. [Sanne Jehoul]

The Batman

Dir. Matt Reeves There’s just something about a boy wearing eyeliner. Matt Reeves’ The Batman leans into the deeply emo – and deeply sexy – implications of the black smudge that always lingers around Bruce Wayne’s eyes, crafting a superhero film that is volatile with regret and repressed desire, in which forces of light and dark wrestle with brutish chiaroscuro across the screen. [Anahit Behrooz]

Brian and Charles

Dir. Jim Archer Some of cinema’s most compelling ruminations on loneliness employ the artificial to reflect on the human (think Jonze’s Her or Spielberg’s A.I.). This is true of Jim Archer’s Brian and Charles, a delightfully endearing comedy that sees a clunky sevenfoot-tall robot made out of a washing machine rescue a hermit through the loving gift of friendship. [Rafaela Sales Ross]

Cyrano

Dir. Joe Wright Wright’s best film in a decade was lost in a bungled release. New songs by Bryce and Aaron Dessner amp up the yearning of Edmond Rostand’s 18th-century classic, with its well-intentioned yet flawed romantics brought to life with unselfconscious naturalism. This paean to love as ruin and salvation is also worth recommending for a career-best performance by Peter Dinklage. Streaming on Prime Video. [Carmen Paddock]

Elvis

Dir. Baz Luhrmann Lurhmann’s whirling style frames a soulful star turn, with Austin Butler capturing a talented soul isolated in his own American rock iconography. Elvis treads familiar biopic ground, but panache and heart elevate the work. What emerges is a deeply sad portrait of an artist and young man used, abused, and lost. [Carmen Paddock]

Jackass Forever

Dir. Jeff Tremaine There are few reassuring constants in life, but the juvenile hilarity of a bunch of friends getting punched, tossed around and kicked in the nuts is eternal. The Jackass crew revive the franchise with new blood without sacrificing the wince-worthy pleasures of the stunts these lovable goofballs pull off. Streaming on Paramount+ and Now. [Iana Murray]

Kimi

Dir. Steven Soderbergh You won’t believe this, but Steven Soderbergh made a new film, and it’s really low budget. Blow Out with Alexa is a reductive way to describe this surgically constructed tech thriller about an agoraphobic who stumbles on to a crime, as it niftily plays with shared anxieties of the pandemic and technology. Streaming on Now. [Rory Doherty]

Mad God

Dir. Phil Tippett A stop-motion dystopia conjured by special effects warlock Phil Tippet, Mad God is a descent through realms of Harryhausen-style monstrosities and junkyard food chains. Driven by themes of nihilism and suffering, the unhinged auteur builds war machines and torture devices, only to make viewers cringe and cower with maximum, gut-churning effect. Streaming on Shudder. [Lewis Robertson]

Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle Dir. Arthur Harari

Onoda portrays Japan’s famous WWII holdout Hiroo Onoda, who held fort in a Philippines jungle for 29 years. A deeply sad portrait of lives lost to drilled-in doctrines and absurd rationalising of beliefs despite all evidence to the contrary, it’s a film concerned with the ravages of time but this epic adventure-drama zips by. [Josh Slater-Williams]