Movies

Published on January 10th, 2023 | by Craig Silliphant

Best Movies of 2022 – #26 through #11

Before you read Craig Silliphant’s Top 10 films of 2022, you can find out what movies that hit the number 11 to number 26 slots.

You can read Craig’s Top 10 films of 2022 in the next piece (or by clicking here), but these are some of the other movies worth checking out that came out last year. Enjoy!

26 – Emily the Criminal

Here’s my full review. Not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination — in fact, it had some major flaws. And I can tell that 26 films should definitely be the cut off for my list because this movie only marginally belongs on any ‘best of the year’ post. But all that aside, it was an interesting movie with Aubrey Plaza handing in a good performance.

25 – Speak No Evil

One of the cringiest horror movies I saw all year didn’t involve too much blood and guts, but more the uncomfortable social terror that you might normally see in a Michael Haneke or Reuben Östlund film. It’s unsettling as hell and very effective. My only complaint is that you have to let characters make stupid decisions sometimes or the movie falls apart, which makes it harder to suspend your disbelief after a while. Still worth a watch though.

24 – Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Probably a shorter idea stretched to feature-length, but an occasionally funny story about a little shell with eyes and shoes trying to find his way in the world. A movie so cute you want to pinch its cheeks, it also had some wonderful themes of loss of community and relationships. One of the smartest moments in the film was after Marcel goes viral on YouTube and thinks a community is forming that can help him — but nah — it’s just a bunch of narcissists that want to take selfies and do TikToks in front of his house.

23 – Men

The ending of Alex Garland’s latest is pretty weird and I can’t fault people for criticizing the film for trying to speak for women, or for being too on the nose (the title ruins it, really). But the movie itself looked amazing, felt creepy, and kept me guessing through a good chunk of it.

22 – Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

Honestly, Del Toro is a guy who’s aesthetic and influences I love, but I rarely love his movies. Even Shape of Water had nonsense plot holes like a fish aquarium filled with bullet holes (I do like the Hellboy movies, Pan’s Labyrinth, and to a lesser degree, Cronos). He co-directed this stop motion version of the wooden boy who wanted to be real with Mark Gustafson. Of the three Pinocchio movies released this year, this was the only one worth seeing. It was deep and human, with resonating themes, beautiful animation, and top-notch voice work. In fact, it may be the best version of this story I’ve ever seen.

21 – The Northman

I’ll watch anything Robert Eggers throws down. This one was epic and visually amazing with a powerhouse performance from Alexander Skarsgard. It would have ranked higher on the list if it hadn’t ultimately been a bit one note. It also had some lazy plot issues. But it’s a primal scream of Viking power.

20 – Bodies Bodies Bodies

This was a lot of fun. Riffing on 80s slashers like April Fool’s Day but poking harmless fun at Gen Z. Not particularly deep and I called the ending a quarter of the way in, but it was a well-paced and well-acted good time. More Rachel Sennott, please.

19 – Sick of Myself

Delicious black comedy, weird culture musings, and a masterclass in narcissism. Another film that reminded me of Östlund, but also marched to the beat of its own drummer.

18 – The Banshees of Inisharin

I loved the movie — and yet I wanted to love it more. It starts our incredibly strong, with a hilarious performance from Colin Farrell. It rides the razor-thin line between gushing laughter and profound sadness. But eventually, I found that the promise of the first half sort of fizzled out. And it really bothered me that Gleeson didn’t get a bandage for his hand, which I know is a stupid nitpick. But it took me out of the film. So, still a great movie — I mean, it’s on this best of list, isn’t it? I just didn’t quite get to the end as well as many other people did.

17 – Barbarian

I want to be careful not to give too much away. Go into this movie blind. But what I will say is that the first half was a brilliant study in tension and story questions. The payoff is fun, but we’ve seen it before and I wanted to know where that first movie was going. Barbarian’s amazing first half stuck with me a long time and would have been higher on the list had it been able to sustain that. That said, the second half still had plenty of excellent tension — it just felt like a different movie from the first half.

16 – Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

While I didn’t mind the first one, it didn’t blow me away. Glass Onion was stronger than the original, with a lot of Agatha Christie-style plotting and fun twists and turns. As is a hallmark of the whodunnit genre, it goes on a bit too long and ends up being convoluted. This one had a lot of laughs and a great cast that carry you through.

15 – Watcher

What a little sleeper hit this was! A serial killer stalks the city and a young woman notices a mysterious stranger watching her from across the street. While there’s nothing unique or original about the premise, the filmmaking is so great that you can let that go. What you get in return is a tight little thriller with some excellent tension and scream queen Maika Monroe (It Follows, The Guest) is great. While some movies on this list are too mainstream or too obscure for some, I think almost anyone that appreciates a good thriller should check this out. This is the kind of mostly missed sleeper we’d recommend in my video store days.

14 – The Fabelmans

Here’s my full review of Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical story about a boy discovering a passion for film while his family hits the rocks. It’s not as good as I had hoped, but still worth a watch for anyone seeking insight to one of our cinematic masters. It’s also not as whitewashed as you might expect in making a movie about his family — you see them, warts and all. And it’s worth it for the David Lynch cameo at the end. In fact, a whole movie about that would have been incredible.

13 – Nope

I like Jordan Peele but I haven’t ever really loved him. People hyped Get Out as something that had never been done before, but when I saw it, I liked it, but it was an update of The Stepford Wives. They said Us was brilliant, and while the first three quarters of it was, the final act was the dumbest piece of shit nonsense I’ve seen in years. And while I love that he’s injecting black stories into the mainstream, I just find that Donald Glover does it so much better with Atlanta (not that there’s not room for many different points of view telling these stories, of course there is. I just think we give Peele all the props that Glover deserves more of). But while it was too long, I had a lot of fun with Nope. The mystery was fun and often freaky. And I liked the payoff as well.

12 – Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

Alejandro González Iñárritu follows up a few hits (The Revenant, Birdman) with a more navel-gazing film about a Mexican director being honoured with an award — but success makes him feel like a phony. It’s too long and self-indulgent, but it’s also filled with deep sentiments and themes, many brilliant ideas and scenes, and kinetic, inspired camera work. Overall, a flawed, but triumphant exploration of the soul of a conflicted artist.

11 – Blonde

This was a tough one and a lot of people hated it. But I think many of those people entered into it thinking it was a biography of Marilyn Monroe. What they found instead was a three hour long, controversial, fictionalized imagining of her life (based on a book by Carol Joyce Oates). It was either the most feminist movie of the year — or the most misogynist. However, self-indulgent length aside, I read it as feminist. Blonde is not a movie about Marilyn Monroe. It’s about the lonely, lost, and abused. It’s about how childhood trauma shapes an adult’s view of the world. And it features some of the most high-wire, insane filmmaking and ideas put to the screen this year. Here’s my full review.

Click here to go to Craig Silliphant’s Top 10 Films of 2022!

Tags: #26 to #11, best movies of 2022, movies

About the Author

Craig Silliphant is a D-level celebrity with delusions of grandeur. A writer, critic, creative director, editor, broadcaster, and occasional filmmaker, his thoughts have appeared on radio, television, in print, and on the web. He is a juror on the Polaris Music Prize and the Juno Awards. He loves Saskatoon. He has horrible night terrors and apocalyptic dreams.