This past year in cinema was a marked improvement on 2021 in more ways than one. On one hand, we saw the domestic box office continue crawling back toward pre-pandemic levels—an almost 65% increase in earnings despite a similar number of releases. Two movies in particular helped with that: Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick. Both long-gestating sequels actually cracked the all-time domestic box office top-10. Perhaps it wasn't total hyperbole when Steven Spielberg told Tom Cruise that he saved the movies. (He's done it before, and he'll probably do it again when the final Mission: Impossible movies drop.) I don't know if the box office will ever get back to where it was before the pandemic due to competition from streaming (and TV), but 2022 was a step in the right direction.
And on the other hand, this year's Oscar slate is far superior to last year's. The 2022 Best Picture showdown of CODA and The Power of the Dog was one of the weaker ones in recent memory (I preferred Dog but literally rated them both four stars), and none of the acting performances seem likely to go down in the annals (and neither will CODA—or Dog for that matter). The ceremony will always be more remembered for The Slap than any of the films or performances that actually won. This year, we're spoiled with a surfeit of exceptional films and performances led, seemingly, by the idiosyncratic and charming Everything Everywhere All at Once. Not even, I don't know, Bill Nighy drop-kicking Jimmy Kimmel could detract from world cinema legend Michelle Yeoh winning Best Actress. (I encourage him to try, though.)
Both facets of the year that was are represented in my favorite films and performances of 2022: art and commerce, forever intertwined but forever at odds. But I don't play favorites, celebrating both the tiniest independent drama (Aftersun) and the biggest big-budget spectacle (the Avatar sequel). The usual preamble out of the way, let's get to handing out some fake awards to movies big and small—starting, as the real ceremony often does, with the supporting categories.
Gold = winner
^ = nominated for a real Oscar
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Brendan Gleeson – The Banshees of Inisherin^
Brian Tyree Henry – Causeway^
Barry Keoghan – The Banshees of Inisherin^
Brandon Perea – Nope
Ke Huy Quan – Everything Everywhere All at Once^
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Honorable mentions (alphabetical): Paul Dano – The Fabelmans, Tobey Maguire – Babylon, Mark Rylance – Bones and All, Ben Whishaw – Women Talking, Steven Yeun – Nope
This is probably uninteresting, but the way I figure out my list of nominees and honorable mentions is by going through my running list of all the year's movies on Letterboxd and putting the names that come to mind in a Notepad document. I say this because, looking at this list (four out of five names in common), you might assume I start with the real Oscar nominees and go from there. But that's just how it turned out this year—the Academy mostly got it right. The lone missing name here is Judd Hirsch. He was great but was basically only in one scene, which doesn't pass muster for me. I would have preferred the grounded, unfussy work of his costar, Dano, although I didn't particularly care for the film overall. A quick note about the other HMs: I went back and forth between Yeun and Perea for the final slot, Maguire just absolutely GOES FOR IT in his brief appearance in the flawed but worthwhile Babylon, Rylance's strange and terrifying performance is a testament to his range, and Whishaw balanced goofiness and gravitas.
- I'll start with the prohibitive (-2000 right now, the biggest favorite in any of the major categories) Oscar favorite, and very much a contender here: Ke Huy Quan. Not only is his comeback story incredible (he was basically driven out of Hollywood due to typecasting after a successful career as a child actor in the '80s), but so is his performance. He gets many of the film's funniest/most ridiculous lines but also serves as the movie's emotional lynchpin as the doting father/neglected husband to also-Oscar-nominated Stephanie Hsu and Michelle Yeoh. Imagine not acting in basically 20 years and returning with a performance this funny, layered (he plays multiple versions of himself like everyone in the movie), and brimming with pathos. Quan's Oscar will be richly deserved.
- His closest Oscar competition seems to be the Inisherin boys, so let's move on to them. We'll start with Barry Keoghan, who has a preternaturally disarming screen presence—I, for one, will never forget his performance in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. That disquieting presence is put to full use in Inisherin, where he plays the town's fool. A developmentally disabled, alcoholic, abused young man, he's the butt of many of the movie's darkest jokes, but he also delivers its most heartbreaking line: "There goes that dream." If you've seen the movie, apologies for the reminder. If you haven't, rectify that as soon as you can. Keoghan made my field almost solely because of his delivery of that line.
- Somehow, some way, Brendan Gleeson—only one of the best, most beloved character actors of all time—has never been nominated for an Oscar. That error was finally, thankfully, rectified this year for his portrayal of the delightfully hateable Colm Doherty in his reunion with Martin McDonagh after 14 years. (Surely his work in In Bruges was worthy of an Oscar nom?) His wry smugness is a perfect foil, once again, for Colin Farrell's well-intentioned dimwit. He doesn't quite have that one standout scene like Keoghan, but his is sturdy, assured work throughout. Unlike his character, I can count on my fingers several roles he could have been nominated for in the past. He won't win the real statue this year (maybe someday), but he's right up there with Quan for the fake one.
- Might as well talk about the fourth and final real Oscar nominee, Brian Tyree Henry. I had barely heard of Causeway when the nominations were announced, and I admit to not really looking forward to watching it. (I blame David O. Russell for general Jennifer Lawrence burnout.) I liked but didn't love the movie—but was very impressed with Henry's work. The movie takes Henry out of Atlanta and drops him in New Orleans, but the character—an auto shop owner with a prosthetic leg—wouldn't necessarily been out of place alongside Paper Boi, Earn, and Darius. (Still need to finish the final season.) His naturalistic, lived-in performance seems almost effortless—but that would be taking away from his craft. Like Keoghan, his reading of a single, simple line—"Not inside"—is one of the best of the year and earned Henry a nom here.
- That leaves us with Brandon Parea from Jordan Peele's underappreciated Nope. (Not even one nomination? Original Screenplay? Sound? Cinematography?) I almost went with Yeun here for his textured, forlorn performance as former child actor turned theme park owner Jupe, but I ultimately went with the relatively unknown Parea's doe-eyed yet paranoid turn as a Fry's Electronics employee, of all things. I just love how he gloms on to what OJ and Emerald are up to—his zealous belief really kickstarts the plot. And he really sells the minor character details—his recent heartbreak, listening to "Sunglasses at Night." It's not the kind of performance that would normally get nominated, and he was the last name in my field after the real nominees. But it was a relatively underwhelming year for supporting actor performances, so I gave him the nod.
There's a sizeable gap between the top two names here—Gleeson and Quan—and the rest of the field. Quan is fantastic in EEAAO and I'll be heartily rooting for him at the Oscars—but only because my winner in this category, the magnificent Brendan Gleeson, doesn't have much of a chance (he's +1800, behind even Keoghan). I can only hope he has a real Oscar in him someday. Maybe the next McDonagh collab in 14 years?
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jessie Buckley – Women Talking
Kerry Condon – The Banshees of Inisherin^
Claire Foy – Women Talking
Eiza Gonzalez – Ambulance
Thuso Mbedu – The Woman King
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Honorable mentions (alphabetical): Angela Bassett – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever^, Hong Chau – The Whale^, Dolly de Leon – The Triangle of Sadness, Stephanie Hsu – Everything Everywhere All at Once^, Keke Palmer – Nope
This category is the inverse of the above—only one actual Oscar nominee in this field. But you do see three of them in the HMs—Bassett's stately work as Queen Ramonda, Chau's exasperated nurse in The Whale (the best part of a movie I didn't love overall), and Hsu's feisty breakthrough in EEAAO. They all just missed out here, like de Leon's show-stealing third-act performance in Triangle and Palmer's expert comedic work in Nope. As far as Curtis goes, she's... fine. The support and few precursors she's gotten so far have to be more for her long career and general goodwill. Certainly not the performance. But onto my field.
- First up is the one woman to make the real Oscar field, Kerry Condon. Despite a 20+ year career, I wasn't too familiar with her before Banshees. I knew her mostly as the voice of F.R.I.D.A.Y. in the MCU and, more prominently, as Stacey Ehrmantraut on the superlative Better Call Saul. (It's easily one of the best shows of the past decade.) But me and cineastes everywhere will definitely take more notice in the wake of her sensational performance in Banshees as the put-upon sister of Farrell's doltish Pádraic. She's the character the "There goes that dream" line is delivered to, and her resoluteness and grace—cut through with pure Irish wit—in that scene and throughout the film is near the top of the list of highlights of McDonagh's incredible film.
- Now, you may be asking yourself—did I really see Ambulance, the latest Mikey Bay joint, in the header image? Am I really seeing a performance from said Mikey Bay joint nominated in this category? Well, all I have to say to that—besides yes and yes—is that you clearly haven't been reading this blog very long. I'm an avowed Bay fan (his non-Transformers work, at least). And I'm also, now, an avowed Eiza Gonzalez fan. I was just wowed by her (hopefully) star-making turn in Ambulance as a jaded, harried EMT abducted by two would-be bank robbers. Laugh it up if you want, but she's the beating heart of this action movie—and her character really, really works. She just lights up the screen every time she's on it. She's one to keep an eye on for sure.
- Since the final two nominees are in the same movie, let's move on to Thuso Mbedu, who might be more accurately billed as the co-lead of the Oscar-snubbed The Woman Queen. But with Viola Davis as the clear lead, we'll slot her costar here. In her film debut, Mbedu plays Nawi, a young girl given over to the soldiers of the Agojie by her father after refusing to marry an older man. She becomes a fierce warrior, but still a vulnerable young girl—and Mbedu's utterly convincing performance captures both aspects of the character. She was the real takeaway from The Woman King to me—we know Davis is good, but her costar is a very promising young actress as well.
- The last two nominees are both from the thorny, somewhat divisive Women Talking. Let's begin with the one who's a return nominee from last year, the tastefully named Jessie Buckley. Last year, she was nominated for her role as the younger version of Olivia Colman's character in The Lost Daughter—a passionate academic unsure of motherhood. The character of Mariche couldn't be more opposite: she's an uneducated fiercely protective mother and abused wife. But the same fire burns within both characters—and, indeed, most characters I've seen her play. She already has one Oscar nomination to her name, and she will absolutely win one someday. Mark it down.
- Claire Foy's name is probably more familiar to most, having starred in The Crown. (Which I haven't seen; not up my alley.) She's every bit Buckley's equal in Women as the outspoken, even more fiery Salome. Whereas Mariche is reactive, Salome is proactive—a fanatical zeal permeates her performance. She has a monologue about halfway through about not only protecting her children, but murdering the men who would harm them—"I will dance on graves!" Absolutely incendiary stuff. I nearly bolted upright in my seat and started cheering. I think she was the main highlight of the film for me—even more so than Buckley (Nominal star Rooney Mara was quite good but not on their level.)
This was a much tighter race than Supporting Actor. Mbedu was the only one I didn't really consider as the winner. I loved both Buckley and Foy, but they did somewhat cancel each other out. Thus, it came down to Condon and Gonzalez. In the end, I went with... Eiza Gonzalez. Condon was excellent and would obviously get my Oscar vote, but Gonzalez's performance just stuck with me a bit more. Perhaps because she wasn't sharing the screen with two other Oscar nominated performances? But I honestly think her performance was incredible, action movie or not.
BEST ACTOR
Austin Butler – Elvis^
Colin Farrell – The Banshees of Inisherin^
Brendan Fraser – The Whale^
Jon Hamm – Confess, Fletch
Paul Mescal – Aftersun^
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Honorable mentions (alphabetical): Dali Benssalah – Athena, N. T. Rama Rao Jr. – RRR, Mark Rylance – The Outfit, Adam Sandler – Hustle, Alexander Skarsgård – The Northman
Like Supporting Actor, we have four nominees in common with the real Oscar field. The one missing name is Bill Nighy from Living. I love Nighy (Billy Mack! Davy Jones!) and liked the movie/performance, but both were a little too... minor to merit serious consideration here on this blog. Amiable, but minor. As you'll read below, I had a hard time filling the final two slots in this category after an obvious top three, and Rylance nearly made the field with his painstakingly reserved work in the underappreciated The Outfit. I was really impressed by Benssalah's transformation from patriot to radical in the stunning Athena, and Rao's charm and physicality were the best part of the phenomenal RRR. Sandler continues to deliver career-best work when he wants to (that Oscar nom is coming) and Skarsgård gives the year's most physically impressive performance.
- We'll start with what might surprise you to learn was the final name in this field—Brendan Fraser. I tried to keep him out, I really did—I have real reservations about decorating performances that rely so heavily on makeup and prosthetics like this. (As I made clear when discussing Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour.) But Fraser's work in The Whale is much, MUCH better—more nuanced, more empathetic, just more technically impressive. He actually creates a character, even under all the makeup/fat suit, rather than doing an impression like Oldman. He has some really strong line readings as well. And not that it matters here, but you have to love his comeback narrative—he wouldn't get my vote for the Oscar, but I'd be happy for him if he won. (Although he's looking more and more like a co-favorite with Butler now than the frontrunner.)
- Might as well take the segue that's offered—Austin Butler was an easy inclusion here, much to my surprise. The trailer for Elvis was awful, and reviews were mixed at best. I likely would never have watched it if it wasn't nominated, and even then I was prepared to be underwhelmed—performances based on real-life people is perhaps my least favorite kind of acting. But I was blown away by Butler—he radiates megawatt movie star energy and is just scintillating as Elvis. He smolders, he sears, he scorches. But he also brings a humanness to the role, which I wasn't expecting—he was a real man under all the glitz and glamor. (He also sung a ton of the vocal tracks as well, which helps.) He may very well pull off the upset on Sunday—and if he doesn't, he'll be back someday for sure.
- Let's pause here before—spoilers—the top two contenders in this category. I want to talk about Jon Hamm, and comedic performances in general. Like Supporting Actor, I struggled a bit to fill this field, and I landed on Hamm only after long consideration of the HMs. I asked myself which performance I found myself thinking about most after the credits ended. It wasn't Benssalah (felt the film was more a directorial achievement); it wasn't Rylance (too quiet) or Sandler (good but far from his best work); and Skarsgård's work lacked depth. Instead, it was Hamm's rather subdued comedic mastery that stood out to me. Every line reading, every mannerism felt perfectly calibrated—this is a man fully harnessing his talents. I wish there were more movies—and more performances—like this out there. I think I heard a sequel is in the works?
- This category was by far the hardest to decide, and it came down to Farrell vs. Mescal. The case for Colin Farrell is easy to make. He's long been one of my favorite actors—although I will admit I didn't take to him right away after his Phone Booth/Recruit/Daredevil beginnings. But then came Intermission (man, it's been a while), then Miami Vice, then In Bruges... and so on. He's one of his generation's most talented actors, and I'm so, so glad his talent has finally outshone his ubiquitous early-career tabloid presence. His work in Banshees might be career-best—simultaneously one of the funniest and most heartrending performances of the year. He plays almost every emotion conceivable like strings on an Irish flute—it's just a knockout performance. When I first saw Banshees, I thought he'd be a shoo-in for this category...
- …but then, literally 5 days later (I checked!), I saw Paul Mescal in Aftersun. I didn't know much about the movie, and I had no idea who Mescal was—all I really knew is that a ton of critics I follow on Letterboxd adored it at festivals. And... I was fucking leveled by Mescal's work as a depressive father (Calum) on holiday with his daughter (Sophie) in the Mediterranean. One of my core tenets as an amateur critic is that the best acting is an act of creation—creating a character, a person with just your voice, your face, your mannerisms. Work like Mescal's here is the purest form of creation I can think of—it almost feels like you're watching a documentary at times. Several scenes gave me chills—that breakdown in the hotel room is the strongest example. The more I think about it, the more I think that this in one of the major performances of the last several years.
So I suppose this category wasn't that difficult after all (afterall?)—despite my great affection for Farrell and his performance, this one goes to Paul Mescal for his utterly transformative, heart-shattering work in Aftersun. He has no chance on Oscar Sunday, and I don't know what the future holds for him, but this work will always be a major touchstone for me. Now, let's get Farrell his Oscar someday!
BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett – Tár^
Zoë Kravitz – Kimi
Aubrey Plaza – Emily the Criminal
Tang Wei – Decision to Leave
Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere All at Once^
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Honorable mentions (alphabetical): Frankie Corio – Aftersun, Viola Davis – The Woman Queen, Daisy Edgar-Jones – Fresh, Jennifer Lawrence – Causeway, Taylor Russell – Bones and All
Two out of five in common with the Oscars here. The only Oscar nominee I take much issue with is Michelle Williams for The Fabelmans. I consider Williams one of our best working actresses—even more so than Amy Adams, she's most due for an Oscar. But her overly sentimental, Capital A Acting in Fabelmans ain't it. Andrea Riseborough, whom I also very much like, plays a stock character (the relapsing/recovering alcoholic)—she plays the role well, yes, but it's nothing we haven't see before. Finally, Ana de Armas (one of my favorite up-and-coming talents) is held back by glaring flaws in the writing and direction of Blonde. I prefer the likes of Corio (sensational young actor performance), Davis (frustratingly passed over for the likes of Williams and Riseborough), Jones (the best of a strong crop of scream queens this year), Lawrence (more films without David O. Russell, please), and Russell (the highlight of a somewhat underwhelming Bones). But I even more prefer (obviously) the three new names in this field. Let's start with the one I knew would make this field when I saw her movie early last year.
- That would be Zoë Kravitz from Kimi, which was released on HBO Max in February 2022. It was Soderbergh, so I knew it would be good, but I wasn't necessarily expecting something that (spoilers) would wind up making my Best Picture field. And Kravitz's performance has a ton to do with that—she's very much the centerpiece of the movie as the titular Kimi (just kidding! her character is named Angela), onscreen for nearly the entire runtime. Angela is a highly intelligent, deeply neurotic recluse, and Kravitz's performance is twitchy and raw, her eyes constantly darting about the frame quizzically. It's also sensual—Angela may be a recluse, but she also yearns for (physical) companionship. Kravitz really captures all these conflicting desires and creates a truly memorable character. I remember really liking her in Gemini a few years back, but this is a step forward and I'll be keeping an eye on what she does next.
- This should be Aubrey Plaza's second nomination on this blog. If I had seen Black Bear when it came out instead of well after the fact, she would have won Best Actress over Carey Mulligan (and booted Vanessa Kirby from a nomination). She's not *quite* as good in Emily the Criminal (yes, she does play the titular Emily), but she's close as a burnout/wannabe artist from New Jersey (but living in L.A.) drowning in student loan debt. There's more than a little Jersey Shore influence here, but also a good helping of '70s Al Pacino antihero swagger. She makes questionable decision after questionable decision (duh, she's a criminal), but she makes you believe that this character would make those decisions—and that this character thinks the decisions are good ones. (They almost always aren't.) The movie itself is a little held back by a copout of an ending, but Plaza's performance rises above it. She'll be back in this space before too long, I'm sure. And maybe one day the actual Oscars?
- I liked but didn't quite love the new Park Chan-wook, Decision to Leave (although I do plan on rewatching it), but I was easily won over by Tang Wei's performance in it. I always love when a character within a movie is themselves acting, and there are multiple such levels to Tang's work here. First, she coyly seduces the detective investigating her for her husband's possible murder—but is the seduction genuine or to help cover up a murder she may have committed? These kinds of films demand that it be played both ways, which Tang does marvelously. After a time jump, her character finds herself married again, now to a shady business developer—but she tangles herself up in the detective's life once again. Is it genuine or not? The film eventually resolves that question, but Tang's layered, multifaceted performance has you guessing the entire time.
- Like the category above, this one came down to two real Oscar nominees—but unlike Best Actor, these two are duking it out for Best Actress for real. When I first saw Everything Everywhere All at Once, I said Michelle Yeoh deserves "a damn Oscar." And I stand by that. She's sensational as Evelyn and her performance runs the gamut—family drama, zany comedy, sci-fi, Wong Kai-wai cosplay, and, of course martial arts. She uses every trick she's picked up in her legendary film career, resulting in one of the best performances of her career (right up there with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which also needs a rewatch soon) and, hopefully (likely?) an unprecedented Oscar. It can't be understated how much her winning would mean for world cinema, for representation, for the hundreds of actors and actresses from outside the U.S. and siloed into genres like martial arts that came before her. But... will she win this fake Oscar? She has some fierce competition in...
- ...Cate Blanchett, who is surprisingly a first-time nominee on this blog. (She just missed out for Carol in the first version of my Fake Oscars back in 2015.) She's long been one of my favorite actresses, and her portrayal of Jude Quinn in I'm Not There would be on my shortlist of best performances ever put to film. I don't say this lightly—she's almost as good as Lydia Tár. Here's what I said when I first saw the film: "It's easily the best performance of any kind I've seen this year, likely of this young decade, and perhaps even of her incredible career." Like I said above, the best acting is a form of creation, and Blanchett creates, embodies, manifests an entire being with her body and voice. From the opening scene—a long interview with Adam Gopnik—it's almost like you're watching a biopic of a real person. In fact, many people thought just that—that Lydia Tár was real. I can think of no higher compliment for an acting performance.
This was a bit of a tough call, in the end. Yeoh is a huge sentimental favorite, and I'll absolutely be rooting for her to win the Oscar (since Blanchett already has two). But this fake Oscar absolutely goes to Cate Blanchett and what, ultimately, is the better performance. That's really all that matters here (it's not so cut and dry when it comes to the Oscars, where legacy and narrative do matter to an extent). I'll be very interested to see how this race is decided tomorrow night.
BEST SCREENPLAY
Todd Field – Tár^
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – Everything Everywhere All at Once^
Martin McDonagh – The Banshees of Inisherin^
Jordan Peele – Nope
Charlotte Wells – Aftersun
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Honorable mentions (alphabetical): Zach Cregger – Barbarian, David Cronenberg – Crimes of the Future, David Koepp – Kimi, Ruben Östlund – Triangle of Sadness^, Sarah Polley – Women Talking^
I'll spare everyone my usual rant about why I don't have an Adapted Screenplay category (I know I've given it a few times in years past). Of all these nominees and HMs, there's only one screenplay adapted from another work: Sarah Polley's thorny, fascinating Women Talking, which may be the frontrunner for the Oscar. Of the rest of the actual nominees, Living was charming but minor, Maverick's strength was not in its script, I much preferred Knives Out's script to Glass Onion's, and I fail to see anything Oscar-worthy in the AQotWF script. Oh, and as mentioned previously, Fabelmans just didn't work for me. I did quite like Triangle, especially the first and last sections. I wish I could have found room for Cregger's bonkers Barbarian, Cronenberg's warped and prescient Crimes, and Koepp's immaculately constructed Kimi, but the field was just too strong with three Oscar nominees and two films that should have been.
- One of those is Jordan Peele's Nope, yet another unique, inventive story from perhaps the most interesting mainstream American filmmaker today. On the surface, Nope is a small-scale alien invasion/monster movie—and a damn effective one at that. But it's also a sly commentary on summer blockbusters, showing us the forgotten minorities and animals that help make them but receive none of the credit. And it shows us that the things people get nostalgic about, the viral clips that go around every now and then, maybe weren't so great—man, that Gordy sequence is incredible. I can't quite say that everything Peele tries to tackle here fully comes together, but the ideas here are so original that it's okay this isn't as fully formed as Get Out. And I still say that Peele's best is yet to come, which is unbelievably exciting.
- Speaking of writer/directors with incredible debuts, we have Charlotte Wells and Aftersun. The premise is simple enough—a divorced father and his 11-year-old daughter go on holiday in Turkey. Fun, sun, swimming pools, shooting pool, karaoke. But what starts off as a minor haunting, melancholic quality soon permeates the whole film as Wells explores the impossibility of knowing the internal life of your parent. It's deeply observant, ultimately devastating work. It feels so fully realized that it must be autobiographical—but it's not. The dialogue is so naturalistic, so un-filmlike that it must be improvised—but it wasn't. It's just masterful work. This isn't the last you'll be hearing about Wells, here or elsewhere.
- And now we have the three Oscar nominees for three very, very different scripts. As I said when I first saw it, Martin McDonagh's Banshees feels like a stage play with the scope of a Russian novel. There are few characters and even fewer settings, but McDonagh is exploring some big ideas about the human condition—Bulgakov with a brogue. Like Aftersun, the premise is straightforward—a guy decides he no longer wants to be friends with his lifelong drinking buddy simply because he's kind of boring. Since it's McDonagh, things escalate from there in dark, funny, bloody ways as he ponders friendship, art, fate, and what it means to be a "nice guy." It's easily my favorite McDonagh since In Bruges, and a welcome return to form after the misstep that was Three Billboards.
- Next we have Todd Field and Tár. Field had a burgeoning career as a character actor in the '80s/'90s, popping up in movies like Twister and Eyes Wide Shut before shifting to writing/directing with In the Bedroom (which I haven't seen) in 2001. I did see and like 2006's Little Children. But nothing could have prepared me for the staggering achievement that is Tár, Field's third feature and first in over 15 years. From the riveting opening interview scene mentioned above, I knew I was watching something special—a perfectly calibrated meditation on power, sex, fame, the #MeToo movement, and cancel culture set in the world of classical music. It's nothing short of an American masterpiece—novelistic, powerful, perplexing, thought-provoking, and never less than fascinating. I absolutely can't wait for a second viewing.
- The final nominee here is the likely Oscar-winning duo of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, better known as the Daniels, for EEAAO. In my initial Letterboxd review, I called it recklessly inventive—the concept is way out there, some of the dialogue borders on absurd, and the plot is at times obtuse. But the story is incredibly grounded—children and parents learning to find common ground, a husband and a wife learning to love each other again. That's the Daniels' greatest achievement here—couching this very touching, very universal story within the wackiest of conceits. People with hot dog fingers. Talking rocks (low key one of the best scenes of the year). Raccacoonie. A literal everything bagel. This uber-high-concept approach didn't really work for me with their previous effort, 2016's Swiss Army Man (aka the farting corpse movie with Harry Potter), but, man, did it work like gangbusters here.
I think Peele is the only nominee here that I didn't consider winning at some point. Any of Wells, McDonagh, or the Daniels would be a worthy winner, but Tár is just a singular achievement, so Todd Field takes the prize here. I hope it's much less than 16 years before his next movie, but even if it is a long wait, it will undoubtedly be worth it.
BEST DIRECTOR
James Cameron – Avater: The Way of Water
Todd Field – Tár^
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – Everything Everywhere All at Once^
Steven Soderbergh – Kimi
Charlotte Wells – Aftersun
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Honorable mentions (alphabetical): Michael Bay – Ambulance, Zach Cregger – Barbarian, Martin McDonagh – The Banshees of Inisherin^, Jordan Peele – Nope, S.S. Rajamouli – RRR
Three names in common with the last category, but only two in common with the Oscars, with Peele (again, not quite everything he was going for really came together 100%) and McDonagh (solid, unflashy work behind the camera) dropping to HM here. Triangle was a little tonally wonky to merit consideration here, and, again, Fabelmans just wasn't on my wavelength. (The last Spielberg I really admired was Munich way back in 2005.) Of the HMs, Michael "Action Is" Bay was closest to an actual nomination—I really went back and forth between him and Soderbergh as examples of consummate commercial filmmaking. But Soderbergh's work is inarguably tighter. We also have Cregger again for his unpredictable and undeniable debut and Rajamouli's bromance/action/epic RRR, which has developed a huge cult following. I'll have a little more to say about it in the next category.
- The final name in this field was Steven Soderbergh, who is about as prolific a director as there is working today. Just to compare him to Todd Field, since 2001 (when In the Bedroom was released), Soderbergh has made a whopping 24(!) movies—and keep in mind that he had a decade-long career, including a Best Director Oscar for Traffic, before that. His genre interests are all over the map—heist movies, character dramas, sci-fi, noir, thrillers. His latest, Kimi is one of the latter, an exquisite blend of contemporary concerns (the pandemic, remote work, the surveillance state, sexual assault) that he gives the Hitchcock treatment to. It's anchored by Kravitz's spellbinding central performance and Cliff Martinez's mesmerizing score, but Soderbergh pushes all the right buttons to make what is unmistakably an artifact of 2023 but should also prove to be infinitely rewatchable.
- I would never describe Charlotte Wells's Aftersun as rewatchable, much less infinitely so—it's the kind of film you only really need to see once. I'd put it in the same category as recent dramas like Roma, Minari, and Drive My Car—profound, affecting works that I probably won't rewatch for at least a decade, if ever. They're just not ideal "Saturday night with a couple beers" movies, you know? But that doesn't mean I don't admire films like this any less—and I might even say Aftersun is the best of the ones mentioned here. Wells suffuses her film with a poetic, elegiac energy—you get the sense of some impending tragedy, although the end of the film reveals no such tragedy. Instead, we get several scattered, hallucinatory scenes of adult Sophie interacting with Calum at a club, trying and failing to connect with him. The most powerful moment of the film—and perhaps the year—intersperses this with young Sophie dancing with Calum on holiday to "Under Pressure." The memory of that scene will stick with me a long time, making a rewatch somewhat unnecessary.
- Speaking of rewatches, I've already rewatched a few of the films from this category: Kimi, Ambulance, Nope, and EEAAO. (I meant to rewatch Avatar in non-3D/HFR but have yet to do so.) I've seen a lot of handwringing on Film Twitter about Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert potentially winning the Oscar, which is just ridiculous. EEAAO is just the kind of idiosyncratic, emotive, funny, skillful filmmaking the Academy should be acknowledging. I do sympathize a bit with those advocating for (minor spoilers for this category) Todd Field for Tár, but he's the only other nominee I'd consider worthy. Östlund probably shouldn't be there, this is far from Spielberg's best work, and McDonagh's script is stronger than his direction. If a filmmaker (or filmmakers) can make a scene featuring two rocks with googly eyes one of the most touching of the year, then they're Oscar worthy. Deal with it.
- If prognosticators are to be believed, James Cameron likely just missed out on another Oscar nomination for the Avatar sequel. He's more than worthy in my book (er, blog) for his grandiose worldbuilding and visual effects mastery. The first Avatar is still one of the most memorable theatrical experiences of my lifetime (others include Fellowship of the Ring and Gravity), and I honestly wasn't expecting The Way of Water to come anywhere near replicating that experience. Boy, was I wrong—Cameron has once again reset the market when it comes to visual effects, making another recent CGI blockbuster like Black Adam look like backwater diarrhea. But the technical wizardry isn't just pretty to look at, it's in service of a surprisingly strong story about family, capitalism, man's relationship to nature, and conservationism. He even manages to deconstruct a bit the blockbuster genre he helped build—in most of them, the collateral damage is to man-made cars, streets, buildings. Here, it's to a fully fledged, sentient ecosystem—each and every bullet is meaningful. Powerful stuff.
- Then we have Todd Field for Tár. I truly think what he has accomplished here deserves the word "masterpiece," and I said as much after my first (and thus far, only) viewing. This will be the film critics and historians will think of first when they talk about 2022 in cinema, like Mad Max: Fury Road, Moonlight, and Parasite of their respective years. (It's either this or Top Gun: Maverick, honestly; I don't think it'll be EEAAO. For audiences, maybe.) Like I was discussing with Kimi above, the subject matter is very of its time, and Field delves deeply into the psychology of his characters with the same fervor as his one-time director Stanley Kubrick. Like that genius, Field's absolute mastery of his craft is apparent in every frame, from the interview to the Juilliard scene to the dog in the basement to the tackle to the Philippines. He's just operating on another level—above the Daniels, above Cameron, above, yes, Spielberg, above anyone else's work on any film this year. To be clear, I'd have no problem with the Daniels winning the statue, but Field would get my vote—and he takes the fake statue here.
This was the easiest category so far to pick a winner: as stated above, Todd Field is this year's fake best director. In honor of this monumental achievement, I resolve to watch In the Bedroom soon. *Goes to add it to his Letterboxd watchlist.* Now, let's hope we get another Field movie before 2040.
BEST PICTURE
I think—think—that I'm done tweaking my top 10 movies of 2022 list, which is presented below as my nominees for Best Picture. You can also find this list on my Letterboxd, along with every other 2022 movie I've seen rated and (roughly) ranked. (The order outside the top 20 or so doesn't really matter.) I've also included my initial review(s) for each of the top 10 (many of which were linked above), and I'll add some brief thoughts after, mostly for movies that weren't discussed much above.
1. Tár^ | Letterboxd Review
2. Avater: The Way of Water^ | Letterboxd Review
3. Aftersun | Letterboxd Review
4. Everything Everywhere All at Once^ | Letterboxd Reviews
5. The Banshees of Inisherin^ | Letterboxd Review
6. Ambulance | Letterboxd Reviews
7. Barbarian | Letterboxd Review
8. Nope | Letterboxd Reviews
9. RRR | Letterboxd Review
10. Kimi | Letterboxd Reviews
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Honorable mentions (in order): The Sadness, Top Gun: Maverick^, Crimes of the Future, Women Talking^, Triangle of Sadness^
- I think the box office numbers of top two sums things up pretty well: Tár made a scant $20 million, while Avatar made over $2 billion. Art and commerce, commerce and art. The next two films repeat the same pattern: $7 million for Aftersun compared to over $100 million for EEAAO.
- Most people will tell you Top Gun: Maverick was the best action movie of the year. And, don't get me wrong, I quite liked it with its fun, young cast surrounding Tom Cruise at his movie star best; with its riveting action sequences and warm, nostalgic vibes. But truth be told, I thought it leaned a bit too heavily into the nostalgia factor, and I'm in the minority for still preferring the first one. But Maverick is a solid four-star movie, where as Ambulance (sorry, AmbuLAnce) is Michael Bay at his Bay-est best, trading in Autobots and Decepticons for an ambulance, CGI nonsense for spectacular drone shots. It's also an outstanding entry into the Heat pantheon of great L.A. bank robbery movies. Throw in Gonzalez's fantasic performance, a berkserk Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen as the sympathetic co-lead, and Garret Dillahunt and his big ol' slobbery pooch, and you've got the real best action movie of the year. Action is Bay, and Bay is Action. Same as it ever was.
- This past year was also a great year for horror films, led by Zach Cregger's awesome debut, Barbarian, which spins an absolutely insane story from a simple double-booking mix-up at an Airbnb in the Detroit suburbs. I went in not even knowing that much and was just blown away, giggling like an idiot at every twist and turn. But the most shocking thing of all might be that Cregger was more known in the sketch comedy scene than the horror scene as a member of The Whitest Kids U'Know. I never would have thought. There were also a ton of other great horror and horror-adjacent movies in 2022, such as the gleefully niihlistic and hyperviolent Taiwanese zombie movie The Sadness, Cronenberg's positively Cronenbergian Crimes of the Future, the cannibal love story Bones and All, and three new scream queens in Daisy Edgar-Jones (Fresh), Sosie Bacon (Smile), and Mia Goth (Pearl).
- The last movie I want to talk about is the Telugu-language historical action epic RRR, a kind of "What if?" movie about the entirely invented bromance between two early 20th Century Indian revolutionaries. Historically accurate or not, Bheem and Raju is one of the greatest bromances in cinema history—right up there with Maverick and Iceman, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, Dominic Toretto and Brian O'Conner. The movie itself has everything an action fan could ask for: impressive fight choreography, countless motorcycle stunts, a truckload of CGI animals wreaking havoc, and one of the best dance scenes you'll ever see. It's just a fucking blast, and I'd love to see it in theaters in the original Telugu language, rather than the Tamil dub that's on Netflix.
And... that's that. Another year of movies, another way-too-long blog post. This one's over 7,000 words, which might be a record for me. Next up is my Oscar predictions, which always run much, much shorter (more like 2,500-3,000 words). That should be up sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, thanks for reading!
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