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So here we go with my countdown of the top ten films of the year 2022. First proudly on the list is Tollywood epic RRR. No other movie in the last twelve months has been such an unrelenting thrill, nothing else has given me such joy and no other movie has so boldly employed every cinematic convention with anything like this unrestrained ambition. Having not watched a lot of Indian films I wasn’t sure if this one was special but having done a bit of research since I now know that it is truly exceptional in any part of the world. It might just be the best action, comedy, drama, musical ever.

RRR is on Netflix

If you can watch this clip and not instantly want to see the rest then I’m afraid I don’t understand you.

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By some contrast, number nine with its simpler ambitions is Cyrano. This is a movie that came and went with little fanfare and certainly isn’t getting mentioned in anyone else’s annual countdowns but I thought it was delightful. Bringing songs to Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac and giving the hero not a big nose but a small stature both work really well and Peter Dinklage is excellent in the title role. More than anything though this does what the play has always done, which is provide a beautiful love story. The low budget shows through in places but the high emotion wins out.

Cyrano is on Amazon Prime

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Number eight is a movie that has appeared on many other end of year lists. In fact it was number one for Sight & Sound, The Guardian and The Observer. Aftersun is a subtly powerful film built initially on just spending time with two very likeable characters. As you worry that something bad is going to happen to these people though, you eventually realise that it already has and the end doesn’t so much stick the knife in as pull out the one that you didn’t know was already there. The film is a beautiful hymn to how memories remain precious but carry a sting in grief.

Aftersun is still in some cinemas

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Grief is also the theme of my next film. It’s is difficult to know what the Black Panther sequel would have been like had Chadwick Boseman not passed away. There is no doubt that whatever it would have been, we would have wanted it over what we got but it is hard to think it would’ve been a better film. The way this movie handles the loss of its star is actually quite brilliant and sets it apart from any other film of its type. Who would have looked to a superhero blockbuster for a beautiful examination of loss but wonderfully, and sadly, that is what we’ve got. Black Panther Wakanda Forever is my seventh favourite film of the year.

Black Panther Wakanda Forever is in a few remaining cinemas and is coming soon to Disney+.

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Number six in my films of the year, Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical, was apparently due to drop on Netflix in the UK on Christmas Day but has been delayed. It seems this advertised date only ever applied to America but presumably it is actually due to it still doing very well in cinemas. If you been waiting for it to start streaming then I apologise then because I’ve done my bit here, having seen it twice. There is so much that is great about this movie; the brilliant songs, the superb dance numbers, the inspiring story and the array of universally excellent performances. In the end though I think there is one player that is truly instrumental to the success of everything, one person holding it all together, and that is the amazing twelve year old Irish actor Alisha Weir. The characterisation that she and director Matthew Warchus give to the indomitable Matilda and they way they make her totally believable among all the high fantasy, is why I love this film.

Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical is in cinemas now and will be on Netflix at some point or other in the future.

See the endearing clip of Alisha Weir hearing she has the part in the film here:

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Okay, here we go into the top five with two American films, a Norwegian and a Korean movie still to come. Before that though we head to Britain, via Japan.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 movie Ikiru is a lovely movie about the small differences we can and should make before our time is done. As such, it is bigger than any one country being more about being a human than it is about being any particular nationality. Living is a film with a small budget and limited ambitions but huge scope and incredible heart.

Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave is my number four film of the year. Following The Handmaiden and Stoker, the celebration South Korean director has made another exceptional thriller. This time his violent sensibilities may have been reigned in a little, possibly as part of a wider homage to Hitchcock that the movie plays into, but it lacks none of his usual narrative power. The precise meaning of the title is not clear until the very end but once it is apparent it hits you like a truck and is one of the best denouement of the last twelve months and then some.

Decision to Leave is streaming on Mubi.

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Number three on my list is Jordan Peele’s Nope. When the first poster for this came out there was very little indication of what it was going to be. Still when the initial trailer was released, it all remained a bit of a mystery. The second trailer changed things though, making it clear that this was Peele turning his hand to sci-fi. Then everyone got to see the film and it all changed again because Jordan Peele is never that predictable. What Nope is, is a brilliant movie that takes images and ideas you know and does something totally new with them while weaving together an allegory looking at a whole load of different concepts altogether.

Nope is available on iTunes and Blu-ray

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The Worst Person in the World is my second best movie of 2022. If I were to list my favourite scenes of the year, which I have done before, then this film would have two of them; one as protagonist Julie meets Eivind for the first time at a party and the other as she runs through Oslo to see him again. These alone are reason to watch the movie, there is a third equally audacious but less charming scene later on as well, but around these is a highly engaging story about four years in the life of one woman that also manages to show all of life for all people.

The Worst Person in the World is also available on iTunes and Blu-ray

Watch the trailer here:

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There is no film this year, or in any recent years, that has shown a fraction of the imagination or invention, nothing else has been as bold or as confident and no other movie has had as tight a grip on its storytelling and characterisation as Everything Everywhere All at Once. In amongst all the unimaginable flights of fantasy (unimaginable for anyone other than writer/directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) there is also a touching family drama with exceptional performances from a largely Asian American central cast. There is simply nothing like it and if inferior but massively successful films like Avatar: The Way of Water and Jurassic World: Dominion make me worry for the state of action blockbuster cinema, then this brings me all the hope and excitement. This is what tops my list in 2022, it is everything, everywhere, all at one.

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