The Top 10 Films & Shows I Watched in 2022
Disclaimer: This list includes films and shows that I simply watched this year, not just 2022 releases.
Ahhh, here we are again. It’s my favorite time of the year: the roundup of the 10 best things I watched in 2022 has come at last.
This is the fourth annual list, and every year I look forward to reviewing all the different things I’ve watched and recalling my experiences with the art.
For these lists and the rankings, I take into consideration things outside of just technical precision and critical acclaim. I’m influenced by things like where I was mentally at the time of watch, how it specifically resonates with me, and sheer enjoyability.
PS: Before I get into the list, I just want to clarify that I’m still making my way through Gilmore Girls and The Sopranos, and had I finished both series, they would definitely be in the top 10.
PS.s: I know there were a lot of great things released this year that might not be in here, so please don’t come for me. (Listen, I can’t watch everything at all times.)
Well, without further ado!
10. The Last Duel (2021) Dir. Ridley Scott
Synopsis: When Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) assaults Jean de Carrouges’s (Matt Damon) wife, Marguerite de Carrouge (Jodie Comer), the two men must face off in a trial by combat to settle their dispute and crown their side of the story as the truth.
My brief hot-take: Ahh, the movie that fell off everyone’s radar. Honestly, I’m not sure why this film fell off the face of the earth—it is fantastic. This is a film for storytellers and story-lovers. It’s structured by our three main storytellers and their accounts of the assault (Le Gris’s POV, Jean de Carrouges’s, and Marguerite’s). It’s a violent period piece driven by narrative theory, and is just a grisly, thought-provoking film about women’s truths, men’s pride and shortcomings, and the role violence plays in it all. I honestly think this film deserves way more acclaim than it originally received, but I’m still glad to be among the people who watched and really loved it.
9. Dead to Me (2019–2022) Created by Liz Feldman
Synopsis: When Jen’s (Christina Applegate) husband is killed in a hit-and-run accident, she meets Judy (Linda Cardellini), who is suffering her own loss, at a support group. Together, they set off to find who’s responsible for the hit-and-run, unfolding a wild and emotional trek filled with secrets, mayhem, and healing.
My brief hot-take: Hear me out. This show, Netflix-produced and peddled and all, is so entertaining, surprising, and heartfelt. I laughed. I cried. I cried from laughter. I laughed when I was crying. This show is so much more than what it’s marketed as, and I’m so glad I decided to give it a shot. At its center, this show is a dark comedy about female friendship and the lengths we go to to protect and heal the ones we love most. I know, it’s a story as old as time, but our characters are so refreshing and dynamic, you can’t help but binge-watch the entire thing with hunger for more. And honestly? I just straight-up enjoyed it like it was nobody’s business. It has so much fun while pulling on heartstrings, and I applaud its ability to subvert genres and character.
Plus, Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini fucking rule.
8. Drive My Car (2021) Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Synopsis: After his wife’s sudden death, stage actor and director Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is asked to direct a production in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a young chauffeur who drives him to and from rehearsals and social engagements. Throughout their rides, they develop an unexpected kinship and help one another heal from the suffering they’ve previously been trying to escape.
My brief hot-take: This is a film you have to slowly digest. It’s admittedly not the most entertaining. In fact, it demands its audience to properly settle in for the long and emotional ride with characters who are very taciturn, scenery that is often limited to what’s outside a small car window, and music that’s not music at all.
Drive My Car is a subtle film that’s massive in its message. It asks its viewers to simply be in the passenger’s seat as it takes us through an emotional journey toward healing. I thought deeply about this film for a couple days after having watched it. There’s so much to say about this film and its intertextuality (it features more than four languages and even includes sign language), but ultimately, I’ll leave you with this: Drive My Car is a meditation on grief, regret, feeling versus acting, and intertextuality. It’s a ride in which you have to be fine with handing over the keys, where the only destination is truly facing your life in order to heal.
7. Top Gun Maverick (2022) Dir. Joseph Josinksi
Synopsis: Naval aviator Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) finds himself back in Top Gun, a program for the top fighter pilots in the United States. This time, he must instruct and lead a group of younger pilots in a critical, nearly-impossible mission, all while facing the ghosts of his past and ensuring everyone comes back home in one piece.
My brief hot-take: This is one of the more memorable theater-going experiences I’ve had… maybe ever. It is a film—as Cruise so lovingly prefaces in his short message to us right before it starts—that’s “made for [us],” and you can feel that love and care in every second. There’s something to be said about a film that successfully gets a Netflix- and streaming-dominant culture into the theater at a record-breaking rate and volume. It is a movie that does what a movie does. Watching it, you forget where you are, you root for the good guys, you’re forced to the edge of your seat. It’s a truly special movie that’s simply good through and through. The score is great, the action is visceral, and Miles Teller single-handedly made mustaches hot.
6. Barbarian (2022) Dir. Zach Cregger
Synopsis: Tess (Georgina Campbell) travels to Detroit for a job interview and arrives at her Airbnb only to find that it’s been double-booked by mistake and is already occupied by another strange man named Keith (Bill Skarsgard). Keith charmingly convinces her to stay, but she soon discovers that Keith is the very least of her problems.
My brief hot-take: This was such a fun and memorable film, and I’m so glad I watched it in a theater. It’s one of the best horror films I’ve ever watched, and I can only liken the experience of watching it to trying to hold onto a slick fish—it’s out of your hands before you can really ever get a good grip. Its ability to subvert its genre and topple expectations is impressive. Not only is this a truly hair-raising horror movie, it also explores deeply thought-provoking and heartbreaking themes. There’s also some moments of laugh-out-loud comedy that raises this film to the next level in terms of versatility. I’ve never once gone from utter shock and horror, to complete delight and laughter so fast. Our entire theater was screaming, laughing, and groaning through it all, and it became this unbelievable ride we all got to experience together.
5. Nope (2022) Dir. Jordan Peele
Synopsis: OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) run a horse ranch. After their father dies in a freak accident, they discover a sinister and mysterious UFO terrorizing their ranch and surrounding land. The siblings fervently attempt to capture it on film, while a nearby theme park owner (Steven Yeun) tries to profit off of the flying spectacle.
My brief hot-take: Yup. 100% yup. I absolutely loved Peele’s directorial debut Get Out, and his follow-up Us. Nope is no different, and Peele again shows us all why he’s already earned such respect and a built-in audience. Nope is probably the most ambitious in terms of production and scope. And capitalizing on his traction and growing audience from his first two films, Nope is arguably one of his most relatable films to his biggest audience yet. While some (white) audiences might have felt alienated by his first two films, Nope seeks to tackle a more universal(ly) American issue: spectacle. Peele plays with meta- and self-referentiality, and he’s so masterful at not only turning the mirror on his audience, but throwing all of us (including his own self) into a hall of mirrors where we can spend an eternity trying to figure our way out and through his films.
4. Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) Dir. Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert
Synopsis: Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) is a Chinese immigrant who owns a laundromat and struggles to make ends meet. While being audited by the IRS, she’s swept into the multiverse where she alone must save the world while exploring all the lives she could have had.
My brief hot-take: Every once in a while, there comes a movie that is so ambitious, so creative, and so fucking wild, that it completely takes your breath away and takes the world by storm. It’s with good reason that this film is as successful as it is, and I’m inspired to know that the masses loved and enjoyed it. This is a cinematic feat that’s not only a sight to behold, but a multi-layered message to its audiences about the Asian-American experience, generational trauma, being your own superhero, being kind, and literally everything else, everywhere, all at once. This is also a movie in which I genuinely believe would make the world a better place, should everyone everywhere were to watch it.
3. The Rehearsal (2022) Created by Nathan Fielder
Synopsis: In this reality TV show, Nathan Fielder deploys actors, complete sets, and intricate flowcharts to give real people the chance to eliminate everyday uncertainties and “rehearse” life’s biggest moments.
My brief hot-take: You don’t always have to make some avante-garde arthouse film about “what it means to be human” to show what it means to be human. Sometimes, you just need to give Nathan Fielder a seemingly unlimited budget.
This is by far one of the most fascinating, hilarious, and cringy studies of human nature I’ve ever seen. I found myself physically reeling from having to confront the strangeness, ridiculousness, and absurdity of humans. Fielder is a visionary, regardless of how some people might view his exploitative antics and unpalatable personality. One moment, I’m screaming at the absurdity of the human subjects. In another moment, I’m deeply concerned by our folly. In another, I’m faced with my own biases and bigotry. And in another, I can hardly stand to watch the actual pain and desires the average human faces. The Rehearsal manages to run this gamut with a sense of humor so elevated, nuanced, and at times, seriously troubling. By the end of the season, I wasn’t sure if I should laugh at or be concerned for my fellow humans. I should probably rehearse what to do next time.
2. House of the Dragon Season 1 (2022–) Created by Ryan Condal & George R.R. Martin
Synopsis: Set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon follows the Targaryen family and their dragons in the civil war for the throne.
My brief hot-take: It feels so damn good to be back in Westeros. I can’t describe the feeling I got when I heard the theme song come on on that Sunday evening. Like many GoT fans, I was pretty wary of a spin-off series considering… how things ended. But I was, like all of us were, so relieved and pleasantly surprised that not only was HotD good, it was way better than expected and seemed to restore the faith many of us had lost with the last couple seasons of GoT. But with an entire GoT series under its belt, HotD seems to know (so far) what fans know and love about the universe. We’re back with families and geography we all know and love, and HotD has not only introduced new themes, generations, and dynamics, but has surpassed many of our expectations with its impeccable acting, production value, and detail. This first season was such an exciting homecoming for so many of us, and I can’t wait to see what unfolds in this power-hungry, incestuous, violent universe.
1. The Bear (2022–) Created by Cristopher Storer
Synopsis: Fine-dining chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) must return to his hometown of Chicago to save his late brother’s failing sandwich shop.
My brief hot-take: Don’t let the simple plot fool you. This is the best thing I watched this year. Everything about this show from its acting to its setting is, in my most humble opinion, worthy of a million chefs’ kisses. The emotion was palpable, the cinematography visceral, and the characters all relatable. I was floored by the end, and this is a show that I’ll be thinking about for a long time to come. You can read a full article about my experience watching The Bear here.
