📽️ Rob Christopher
ANIARA (Pella KĂĄgerman & Hugo Lilja, 2018)
CONFESS, FLETCH (Greg Mottola, 2022)
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE [David Cronenberg, 2022)
DRIVE MY CAR (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021)
EO (Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022)
GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (Rian Johnson, 2022)
GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE (Sophie Hyde, 2022)
THE LOST DAUGHTER (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)
PETIT MAMAN (CĂ©line Sciamma, 2021)
PROGNOSIS: NOTES ON LIVING (Debra Chasnoff, 2021)
RELATIVE (Michael Glover Smith, 2022)
WOMEN TALKING (Sarah Polley, 2022
📽️ Maxwell Courtright
1. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
2. LAKE FOREST PARK (Kersti Jan Werdal)
3. REWIND & PLAY (Alain Gomis)
4. AFTERSUN (Charlotte Wells)
5. THE EXHAUSTED (Justin Jinsoo Kim)
6. THE AFRICAN DESPERATE (Martine Syms)
7. DECISION TO LEAVE (Park Chan-Wook)
8. BENEDICTION (Terence Davies)
9. RIOTSVILLE, USA (Sierra Pettengill)
10. TRUE PLACES (Gloria Chung)
11. FIRE OF LOVE (Sara Dosa)
12. LIFE ON THE CAPS (Meriem Bennani)
13. NOPE (Jordan Peele)
14. CONSTANT (Sasha Litvintseva, Beny Wagner)
15. HERON 1954-2002 (Alexis McCrimmon)
16. THE VIOLET PROMO (William Strobek)
17. THE CATHEDRAL (Ricky D’Ambrose)
18. WHITE WALL (Jim Greco)
19. CHELSEA 5124 (Kevin Jerome Everson)
20. MURINA (Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic)
📽️ John Dickson
1. THE FABELMANS (Steven Spielberg)
2. PACIFICTION (Albert Serra)
3. STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis)
4. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
5. AMBULANCE (Michael Bay)
6. DEAD FOR A DOLLAR (Walter Hill)
7. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
8. DE HUMANI CORPORIS FABRICA (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel)
9. THE REHEARSAL (Nathan Fielder)
10. DETECTIVE VS SLEUTHS (Wai Ka-fai)
📽️ Steve Erickson
New Releases:
ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (Laura Poitras)
THE CATHEDRAL (Ricky D’Ambrose)
THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER (Joanna Hogg)
FEAST (Tim Leyendekker)
JACKASS FOREVER (Jeff Termaine)
NEPTUNE FROST (Anisia Uzeyman & Saul Williams)
RESURRECTION (Andrew Semans)
SAINT OMER (Alice Diop)
SOMETHING IN THE DIRT (Justin Benson & Aaron Moorehead)
WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR (Jane Schoenbrun)
Best First Viewings:
THE BEDROOM (Hisayasu Sato)
BLUE (Derek Jarman)
BOUND FOR THE FIELDS, THE MOUNTAINS AND THE SEACOAST (Nobuhiko Obayashi)
BRAIN DAMAGE (Frank Henenlotter)
A CAMEL (Ibrahim Shaddad)
THE CARPATHIAN MUSHROOM (Jean-Claude Biette)
COMMUNION (Philippe Mora)
DEEP COVER (Bill Duke)
THE END (Christopher Maclaine)
FREAK ORLANDO (Ulrike Ottinger)
LIBERA ME (Alain Cavalier)
THE LONG GRAY LINE (John Ford)
MELODY FOR A STREET ORGAN (Kira Muratova)
MORNING PATROL (Nikos Nikolaidis)
NEIGE (Juliet Berto & Jean-Henri Roger)
ORDER (Sohrab Shahid Saless)
RAPE (Yoko Ono & John Lennon)
SADA (Nobuhiko Obayashi)
TRAPS (Vera Chytilova)
WEST INDIES (Med Hondo)
📽️ Marilyn Ferdinand
Favorite new releases:
1. SKIES OF LEBANON (Chloé Mazlo)
2. RRR (S.S. Rajamouli)
3. KING OF KINGS: CHASING EDWARD JONES (Harriet Marin Jones/doc/film festival)
4. THE CONDUCTOR (Bernadette Wegenstein/doc)
5. ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (Laura Poitras/doc)
6. MATEÍNA (Pablo Abdala, Joaquin Peñagaricano/film festival)
7. HIDDEN LETTERS (Violet Du Feng, Qing Zhao/doc)
8. HOLD ME TIGHT (Mathieu Amalric, 2021)
9. MONA LISA AND THE BLOOD MOON (Ana Lily Amirpour)
10. BACK OF THE MOON: SOPHIATOWN 1958 (Angus Gibson)
Honorable mentions (alphabetical): THE BATMAN (Matt Reeves), BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (Ryan Coogler), GARDENIA PERFUME (Macha CĂłlon/film festival), THE HATER (Joey Ally), THE JANES (Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes/doc), JOSEP (Aurel/film festival/animated), RICKSHAW GIRL (Amitabh Reza Chowdhury), SIDNEY (Reginald Hudlin/doc)
Favorite films new to me in 2022 (chronological):
THE OTHER WOMAN’S STORY (B. F. Stanley, 1925)
THE STREET OF FORGOTTEN MEN (Herbert Brenon, 1925)
PREM SANYAS (Franz Osten, Himansu Rai, 1926)
A SISTER OF SIX (Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius, 1926)
DANS LA NUIT (Charles Vanel, 1930)
RAW DEAL (Anthony Mann, 1948)
NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES (John Farrow, 1948)
STELLA (Michael Cacoyannis, 1955)
BLAST OF SILENCE (Allen Baron, 1961)
THE OLIVE TREES OF JUSTICE (James Blue, 1962)\
THE GREEN YEARS (Paulo Rocha, 1963)
LA NOVIA DE CUBA (Kazuo Kuroki, 1969)
SHEBA, BABY (William Girdler, 1975)
TWIN PEAKS (Al Wong, 1977)
GARLIC IS AS GOOD AS TEN MOTHERS (Les Blank, 1980)
THE WILLMAR 8 (Lee Grant, 1981)
THIEF (Michael Mann 1981)
CENTER STAGE (Stanley Kwan, 1991)
ALMA’S RAINBOW (Ayoka Chenzira, 1994)
THE SILENCES OF THE PALACE (Moufida Tlatli, 1994)
PUBLIC HOUSING (Frederick Wiseman, 1997)
THE BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA (Takashi Miike, 1998)
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000)
BLACK DYNAMITE (Scott Sanders, 2009)
DHOBI GHAT (Kiran Rao, 2010)
EVERYBODY IN OUR FAMILY (Radu Jude, 2012)
REASON (Anand Patwardhan, 2018)
Hall of Fame
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival for a uniformly stellar line-up in 2022 at what may have been their last festival at the Castro Theatre
📽️ Jonathan Leithold-Patt
01. NOPE (Jordan Peele)
02. ARMAGEDDON TIME (James Gray)
03. CLOSE (Lukas Dhont)
04. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (Daniels)
05. ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (Laura Poitras)06. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
07. SAINT OMER (Alice Diop)
08. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
09. BABYLON (Damien Chazelle)
10. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (Martin McDonagh)
Runners-up: MOONAGE DAYDREAM (Brett Morgen); APOLLO 10 1/2: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD (Richard Linklater); DECISION TO LEAVE (Park Chan-wook)
Performances of the year: The cast of ARMAGEDDON TIME; Danielle Deadwyler, TILL
Opening shot of the year: The astonishing 11-minute sequence shot that begins ATHENA, a virtuosic feat of choreography and physics-defying movement (marvel as the camera soars through the doors of a speeding van)!
Closing shot of the year: A tie between THE FABELMANS and BENEDICTION. About as diametrically opposed in tone as possible—one jubilant and the other devastating—they succinctly encapsulate the attitudes of their respective auteurs via surrogate protagonists.
📽️ Josh B. Mabe
1. 3 MINUTE HELLS (Amy Halpern, 2012), 16mm at Filmmaker's Co-op, New York
2. INERTIA (Tony Phillips, 1974) & LAST SUPPER/SECOND COMING (Tony Phillips, 1976) & THRESHOLD OF DOUBT (Tony Phillips, 1976) & HEAD FOR SHELTER (Tony Phillips, 1978), 16mm at 2311 N Keystone, Chicago
3. DR. BROADWAY (Anthony Mann, 1942), 35mm at Noir City/Music Box, Chicago
4. CARICATURANA (Radu Jude, 2021), digital at Film Studies Center, Chicago
5. HOW A SPRIG OF FIR WOULD REPLACE A FEATHER (Anna Kipervaser, 2019), 16mm at Chicago Film Society/Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago
6. NEVER REST/UNREST (Tiffany Sia, 2020), digital at Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago
7. LONESOME COWBOY (Toney Merritt, 1979) & THREE MASKED PIECES (Toney Merritt, 1979) & EF (Toney Merritt, 1979), digital at Film Studies Center, Chicago
8. SPAWN OF THE NORTH (Henry Hathaway, 1938), 35mm at Chicago Film Society/Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago
9. YOU BE MOTHER (Sarah Pucill, 1990), digital at Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation/Block Museum, Evanston
10. BLACK STAR: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CLOSE FRIEND (Tom Joslin, 1976), digital at Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago
📽️ Scott Pfeiffer
The 22 most memorable pictures I watched for the first time in 2022:
THE PALM BEACH STORY (Preston Sturges, 1944)
TOBY DAMMIT (Federico Fellini, 1968)
THE ICEMAN COMETH (John Frankenheimer, 1973)
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (Sam Peckinpah, 1962)
RELATIVE (Michael Glover Smith, 2022)
PROVIDENCE (Alain Resnais, 1977)
STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR aka CRONACA DI UN AMORE (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1950)
THE LADY WITHOUT CAMELIAS aka LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1953)
THE PASSENGER (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975)
DINNER AT EIGHT (George Cukor, 1933)
SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN (Fei Mu, 1948)
THE DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (Jean Renoir, 1946)
THE FABELMANS (Steven Spielberg, 2022)
L’AMOUR FOU (Jacques Rivette, 1969)
DECISION TO LEAVE (Park Chan-wook, 2022)
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell, 1946)
THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER (Joanna Hogg, 2022)
UNRELATED (Joanna Hogg, 2007)
CARMEN JONES (Otto Preminger, 1954)
MAUVAIS SANG (LĂ©os Carax, 1986)
BEAU TRAVAIL (Claire Denis, 1999)
NOUVELLE VAGUE (Jean-Luc Godard, 1990)
📽️ Ben Sachs
Favorite New Films of 2022 (in order of preference)
Note: All films originally released in 2022 except where noted
1. THE FABELMANS (Steven Spielberg)
2. Tie: CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg), DECEPTION (Arnaud Desplechin, 2021), FRANCE (Bruno Dumont, 2021), ONE FINE MORNING (Mia Hansen-Løve), and THE STORY OF MY WIFE (Ildikó Enyedi, 2021)
Note: One of the most satisfying cinematic trends of recent years has been LĂ©a Seydoux's development into one of the best actors in the world. I may prefer some of these films more than others, but I can't imagine any of them without Seydoux. Taken together, they comprise a rich collection of films on the subjects of womanhood, performance, and fidelity.
3. VENGEANCE IS MINE (Michael Roemer, 1984)
Note: My profound gratitude to The Film Desk for striking a new print of this forgotten masterpiece and to the Chicago Film Society for showing it. I've never seen another psychological drama quite like this, which marries Cassavetes' understanding of complex, even contradictory emotions with the formal rigor of someone like Dreyer.
4. STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis)
5. BENEDICTION (Terence Davies, 2021)
6. RRR (S.S. Rajamouli)
7. SUGAR CANE MALICE (Juan A. Zapata, 2021)
Note: This is one of the rare political documentaries that develops a sophisticated cinematographic language worthy of the subject matter. A shocking and eye-opening film about modern-day slavery in the Dominican Republic, it develops over the course of its short runtime to an expansive (and damning) social portrait.
8. EARTHEARTHEARTH (DaĂŻchi SaĂŻto, 2021)
9. THE SILENT TWINS (Agnieszka Smoczynska)
10. HOLD ME TIGHT (Mathieu Amalric, 2021)
Runners-up (in alphabetical order)
AMBULANCE (Michael Bay), APOLLO 10 1/2: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD (Richard Linklater), BROKER (Hirokazu Kore-eda), A COUPLE (Frederick Wiseman), EO (Jerzy Skolimowski), INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE (Quentin Dupieux), PACIFICTION (Albert Serra), SAINT OMER (Alice Diop), SATURDAY FICTION (Lou Ye, 2019), THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING (George Miller)
📽️ Dmitry Samarov
For many of us who watch too many movies the challenge of a best-of list is just to remember what we saw and when we saw it. My only criterion for this year is recent movies that keep coming to mind. These are the ones that I’m still thinking about
STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis): Margaret Qualley’s Trish is bad decisions personified; a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong dreams. The creeping dread Denis imbues every scene with is not unlike the stifling humidity of her present-day-but-out-of-time Nicaraguan setting. In this environment everyone is a liar and no good outcome is possible and yet, as hopeless as it all is, I couldn’t look away. I will always remember this star-crossed movie because I had to bike 22 miles from home to see it in a movie theater. It’s as if the studio that released it wanted to replicate the fate of the characters for the movie itself. Seeing it also prompted me to reread a bunch of Denis Johnson, for which I’ll always be grateful.
PLAYGROUND (Laura Wandel): The camera never strays far from Nora as she goes through her first days of school. No film in recent memory has brought me back to the horror and helplessness of childhood like this one did. The schoolyard is a battleground as the other kids are enemies and allies who switch sides day to day. Navigating this minefield we watch Nora grow before our eyes, changing from guileless to cunning and cynical. It’s heartbreaking and 100% true to life.
PETITE MAMAN (Céline Sciamma): I’m not usually one for magic realism but the simple fairytale premise of a little girl making friends with her mother in the woods as a girl her own age has stayed with me ever since I saw it early in the year. What could have been a maudlin exploration of intergenerational family trauma remains buoyant by sticking to a child’s perceptions. The enchanted tone makes the real-life revelations land that much harder.
VORTEX (Gaspar Noé): Known for pushing boundaries with extreme violence and sensory overload in his previous films, Noé has finally landed on a subject that can be neither cheated nor outraged and the result is perhaps his most restrained but deepest effort to date. I’m not generally a fan of split-screen but Noé makes it a vital part of showing the diverging perceptions of two minds that once functioned in synchrony. Dario Argento and Francoise LeBrun seemto bring all their decades of lived experience to bear as a couple forced to part before they’re ready to.
IRMA VEP (Olivier Assayas): Is it a movie? Who knows or cares. It’s certainly not a TV show in any traditional sense and it addresses the past, present, and future of filmed media with more humor and intelligence than anything else I’ve seen or read on the subject recently. With clips of Feuillade’s Les Vampires and his own 1996 film functioning like flashbacks, Assayas is thinking out loud about where the art he’s dedicated his life to might go next. It’s somehow nostalgic, worried, and hopeful in equal proportion.
📽️ Michael Glover Smith
My 20 Favorite Films of 2022
1. IRMA VEP (Assayas)
2. EO (Skolimowski)
3. A COUPLE (Wiseman)
4. DECISION TO LEAVE (Park)
5. (tie) BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE / STARS AT NOON
6. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (Cronenberg)
7. SAINT OMER (Diop)
8. THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER (ZĂĽrcher/ZĂĽrcher)
9. APOLLO 10 1/2: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD (Linklater)
10. BENEDICTION (Davies)
11. RELATIVE (Smith)
12. (tie) THE NOVELIST'S FILM / INTRODUCTION (Hong)
13. THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER (Hogg)
14. PEARL (West)
15. THE CATHEDRAL (D’Ambrose)
16. RRR (Rajamouli)
17. KIMI (Soderbergh)
18. ARMAGEDDON TIME (Gray)
19. HOLD ME TIGHT (Amalric)
20. NEPTUNE FROST (Williams/Uzeyman)
📽️ Drew Van Weelden
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (James Cameron)
THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (Martin McDonagh)
THE BATMAN (Matt Reeves)
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan)
THE FABELMANS (Steven Spielberg)
GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (Rian Johnson)
GODLAND (Hlynur Pálmason)
HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE (Daniel Goldhaber)
INU-OH (Masaaki Yuasa)
POMPO THE CINEPHILE (Takayuki Hirao)
Other Notable New Watches:
A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
DAY FOR NIGHT (François Truffaut, 1973)
DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD (Kirsten Johnson, 2020)
EVIL DEAD II (Sam Raimi, 1987)
MARIGHELLA (Wagner Moura, 2019)
MATEWAN (John Sayles, 1987)
PIERROT LE FOU (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
THE FORBIDDEN ROOM (Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, 2015)
THE PIANO TEACHER (Michael Haneke, 2001)
THE TASK (Leigh Ledare, 2017)
Other mentions: Opening montage in BANDE À PART, IMAX Dolby 3D, midnight movies, and film festivals
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