Best Movies of 2022

TGC (The Gospel Coaltion, U.S. edition) ^ | December 27, 2022 | Brett McCracken

[sphinx]

Are movies still relevant? ... Even as Hollywood rebounds a bit at the box office (up 21 percent in 2022), critics rightly observe that innovation is suffering. Sequels, reboots, and franchises rule the day and artsy “prestige films” can’t find audiences. Part of the problem: audiences have a growing (and justifiable) sense that Hollywood is increasingly less interested in entertaining them than in force-feeding them progressive ideals.

As I put together my list, I focused on films that didn’t pit entertainment against artistry or confuse the difference between having something to say and telling audiences what to think. The best movies captivate audiences because they’re artistically excellent. And the best movies provoke audiences to wrestle with ideas rather than be bludgeoned with arguments.

As a reminder, don’t take my commendations as wholesale endorsements of the content. Just because I loved a film doesn’t mean I loved everything in it, and a “best” movie doesn’t mean an appropriate movie for all audiences. Though the films highlighted below are all in some way edifying—depicting goodness, truth, or beauty in ways Christian viewers can celebrate—a few are rated R and should especially be viewed with caution and discernment.

[x]

I didn't like Bullet Train. Maybe if I saw it in a theater or if it were in a foreign language or if it were the Movie of the Week and there were only 3 television channels to choose from I might have liked it better, but it just seemed like life is too short to bother with stuff like that.

Elvis was certainly worth seeing, though I don't know if the Gospel Coalition would agree. The only other nominated picture I saw all the way through was Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (costume design). It was sweet and maybe even the Gospel Coalition might like it.

[leaning conservative]

I read all creatures when I was a young girl, so not remembering a lot. I like the adaptation because I find it super charming. To me it’s like a mug of hot tea on a cold gray day. I love the characters & the Christmas show was so beautiful and enchanting.

[leaning conservative]

I only read the first book when I was a young girl, so I can’t answer. I love it!

[leaning conservative]

I just read your post. You paint a real picture with your words. A very touching & excellent post.

I still want to see “Terrifier 2.”

[red-dawg]

I was on a tin can. My rack was right under the gun mount and next to the autoloader
that went from the gun mount down to the magazine 1 deck down.
You could tell when they pulled the trigger by the sound of the autoloader going CLACK-CLACK-CLACK bringing the round up to the gun, and then BOOM!!
The air pressure would spike for a millisecond and your ears would ring for a minute or two.
I actually got used to it and "almost" slept through it.

And George Lucas should sue the Producers of Top Gun Maverick for plagiarism.

[David Moser]

Is Hollywood still there ? I wasn’t aware of it .

[Georgia Girl 2]

I watched “Blonde” on Netflix Thursday night. The actress that played Marilyn Monroe gave a great performance but the whole movie was depressing from beginning to end. It was not what I look for in entertainment.

[DCBryan1]

Honestly the Oscars need to be like the Olympics, every 4 years or so and pick 1. Movies are so bad now, even the Oscar winners are “meh”.

[Albion Wilde]

if they were any more Irish, the film would have needed subtitles.

LOLs!

I first became aware of Colin Farrell when he was in his early 20s, in Ballykissangel.

Have you been to Ireland? Lovely place.

[Albion Wilde]

it had a huge gay poison pill added. It annoys me to no end that Hollyweird packs their slime into an otherwise entertaining movie.

They have to now. The Academy passed some kind of DEI resolution that every movie has to have race, sex, gender, freakazoid "equity." That's why you get stupid plotlines, like in the recent Sopranos prequel that was a massively badly written, uber-violent, unfunny bomb, having Tony Soprano's uncle deal with a civil-rights-era black gangster who, of course, had sex with an Italian moll, causing terminal strife. It stunk on ice. Sorry I paid to see it in the theater. I had a pleasant conversation with an older black couple as we exited—the woman didn't like it, either; but she said her husband wanted to see the 1950s & 60s cars. So at least he liked that.

[Albion Wilde]

"tinny speakers..."

The plane was shaking due to turbulence during the air combat scenes. Top that.

LOL!

[sphinx]

I’ve not seen Blonde, and at this point, if I did watch it, it would be in the spirit of opposition research. The reviews have been pretty savage; both audience and critics’ scores are bad. So: your assessment is widely shared. People praise a couple of individual performances, but most think the movie misses badly, both thematically and in execution.

At this point, I confess to a morbid interest in such misses. This was a well-financed, highly hyped production with a lot of big names attached. How did it go this wrong? Did no one see this coming? Such things happen: Don’t Worry Darling (which I’ve also not seen) is this year’s other notorious example.

DWD had already been flagged as a trainwreck in the making before it premiered, and one of the liveliest lines of discussion was sympathy for Florence Pugh, who everyone likes, having gotten stuck in it. Flo was a trooper and saw it out (as did Chris Pine), as professionals are supposed to do. She was then conspicuous for doing the absolute bare minimum on promotion — probably no more than what she was contractually obligated to do. The bad blood was thick enough on that to choke the sharks. The problems there mostly point to the director, who may have gone from Annointed One to pariah in one film.

And we probably shouldn’t forget the new team at Warner Bros. Discovery cancelling the nearly completed Batgirl and writing the whole think off as a tax loss. That film had been developed when WarnerMedia was in full grovel mode to the DIE zealots, and there was already a blackwashing backlash attached to it. But there was also a lot of buzz that it was just flat out bad. A lot of money. A lot of big names. Some stupid decisions. An expensive writeoff. I feel sorry for the actors involved; the failures here had to do with the producers, writers and directors.

Meanwhile, a lot of excellent work is getting done by the small independent producers working the low budget end of the market. Nowadays, that’s where I look for good movies.

[Albion Wilde]

May I be added to your movie ping list? Thanks!

[LibertarianLiz]

Elvis was certainly worth seeing, though I don't know if the Gospel Coalition would agree. The only other nominated picture I saw all the way through was Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (costume design). It was sweet and maybe even the Gospel Coalition might like it.

Huby and I saw Mrs. Harris ..., and really enjoyed it. You are correct, a sweet movie.

[sphinx]

Done. I actually thought you were already on it, as you participate in the movie threads (most started by other people, and the more the merrier) pretty regularly.

Anyone else?

There are a lot of movie threads on FR. I started the movie ping list mainly as a way to try to nudge the discussion towards recommendations of good films — “good” being defined as movies that might appeal to curmudgeonly freepers whose default stance on movies tends to be “nuke Hollywood from orbit.” Good movies are still being made. Finding them is the trick.

So if you see something good, please pass it along. This goes especially for new movies. We all like golden oldies, but it’s nice to find good new films BEFORE they become golden oldies, at which point we discover them and mutter, “how did I miss this when it came out?”

My own Road to Damascus moment was about four years ago, when I was reading something online (NOT about movies), followed a few links, and came across a passing reference to a well-regarded film dealing with a subject about which I already had an interest and knew the backstory. I watched it out of curiosity. I have never been more surprised by a movie in my life. I wondered how a movie this good got made about a subject of interest to me at several levels, and I had never even heard about it. That’s when I realized I had a huge blind spot.

A lot of us have blind spots. Our target acquisition systems are broken. That’s where I hope we can direct some attention.

[SamAdams76]

Put me on this movie ping list as well.

[dfwgator]

LOL, reminds me of this SNL classic about a “British Movie”...

Don’ You Go Rounin’ Roun to Re Ro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6p0W4ZsLXw

[StayAt HomeMother]

I and my grandkids (at about ages 8-10) enjoy my reading the “All Creatures Great & Small” books to them as bedtime stories.

[sphinx]

Done.

I don’t post often — there are plenty of other film threads on FR — but if a month or more has gone by, I’ll usually start looking for a hook. We do a lot of kvetching about bad films and Hollywood excesses, and that’s fine in its place. My point of entry, however, is to nudge the discussion a bit in the direction of identifying GOOD films, which can get lost in the content firehose. (Especially if they’re siloed on a streaming platform to which one doesn’t subscribe.)

[SomeCallMeTim]

Thanks!!! That sounds like a list I would like.

Only seen a couple of them. Loved Maverick. Also Facing Ryan. But then, I grew up where Nolan is from, just a few years behind. He’s always been a hero to me. :-)