It seems like only yesterday that we film critics were putting the 2021 movie year to bed and hashing out our obligatory Top 10 lists for the year. Now here we are again, sifting through everything we’ve seen over the last 365 days and choosing what we deem to be the “best” of the bunch. It’s all pretty silly but undeniably fun. As always, leaving certain films off my list was pretty agonizing. But that’s the nature of these things. So without further ado, let’s get to it. It’s time to recognize the “best” movies from 2022 (according to me, for whatever that’s worth).

So let’s kick off this annual ritual by giving some love to the terrific movies that just missed my Top 10. Here is my #11-20….

• #20 – “The Fabelmans”
• #19 – “Thirteen Lives”
• #18 – “After Yang”
• #17 – “Brian and Charles”
• #16 – “The Menu”
• #15 – “The Eternal Daughter”
• #14 – “Avatar: The Way of Water”
• #13 – “Women Talking”
• #12 – “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”
• #11 – “RRR”

#10 “Broker” – South Korean filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda makes movies I often love. So it’s no surprise that his latest, “Broker” ended up on this list. It’s yet another beautifully composed and constructed character study from Kore-eda. One that navigates some thorny moral ground yet is wrapped in the filmmaker’s signature warmth and grace. “Broker” has a lot going on, but Kore-eda always keeps his characters at the center. And with the help of some top-form performances, these emotionally complex characters bring humanity to this equally heartfelt and heartbreaking story.

#9 “Top Gun: Maverick” – Who knew that after 36 years a “Top Gun” sequel would gross nearly $1.5 billion at the box office? Even better, who knew it would be one of the year’s very best movies? Yet here we are with Tom Cruise reprising his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in a film that’s everything you want a blockbuster to be. And while I don’t deny the film’s nostalgic draw, Cruise and company aren’t just rehashing old material. They’ve given us a meaningful next chapter along with the best aerial fighter footage ever put on screen. It’s an jet-fueled blast from start to finish.

#8 “The Quiet Girl” – Few movies from 2022 had an affect on me quiet like “The Quiet Girl”, the astonishing feature film debut from writer-director Colm Bairéad. This tender yet subtly heartbreaking coming-of-age drama is as hushed as its young lead character (delicately played with by a wonderful newcomer, Catherine Clinch). The story’s patient, organic rhythm sucks you in, and Bairéad conveys so much information and emotion through his quiet observations. And the film ends with arguably the most crushing final shot that I’ve seen this year or in recent years. Bairéad is truly a filmmaker to watch.

#7 “The Banshees of Inisherin” – I’ve had a pretty up-and-down relationship with the films of Martin McDonagh. But I fell so hard for his latest, which turns out to be one of the funniest movies of the year and also one of the saddest. It features a brilliant ensemble ripe with awards worthy turns from Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, and Barry Keoghan. But it’s all anchored by McDonagh’s brilliant screenplay which takes us to some dark and somber places yet has us laughing nearly every step of the way.

#6 “Decision to Leave” – South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook is impossible to put in a box. Case in point: his latest feature “Decision to Leave” which is arguably his best film to date. At times this juicy genre stew plays like a hard-boiled noir; other times it’s a simmering psychological romance. It can surprise you with its unexpected dark humor and move you with deep sense of longing. Its visual language is as compelling as the mystery, and the whole thing keeps us guessing throughout. It’s a hard movie to define, but that’s part of what makes it so special.

#5 “White Noise” – No movie on my list marches to its own wacky beat quite like “White Noise”. And that’s one reason I love the film so much. Noah Baumbach turns out to be the near perfect choice to tackle Don DeLillo’s “unfilmable” 1985 novel. While “White Noise” left an impression on me after seeing it the first time, it completely won me over after a second viewing. Baumbach gives us plenty to relish that is outside his normal comfort zone. But his signature humor and character work remain, giving the film the same offbeat allure that us Baumbach fans adore.

#4 “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” – I’ve always had a soft spot for the story of “Pinocchio”, and I wasn’t about to miss Guillermo del Toro’s take on the age-old tale. What I wasn’t expecting was to be completely swept away by his stunning stop-motion triumph. Nothing about the movie feels rehashed. Del Toro adds his own spins to the story, his own twists to the characters, and his own imagination to the world-building. It’s enchanting and heartfelt yet darkly funny and a bit macabre. It’s voiced to perfection, immaculately scored, and animated with painstaking detail and incredible artistry.

#3 “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood” – I’ll watch anything Richard Linklater puts out, and this year he released a movie I’ll be watching over and over again. “Apollo 10 1/2” is a smile-inducing autobiographical jaunt which beautifully braids Linklater’s own childhood memories with a surprisingly tender youthful fantasy. There really isn’t much in terms of plot. Instead, it plays like a motion picture scrapbook, and I loved every second of it. And the cool mix of rotoscope with 2D and 3D animation was icing on the cake. Now if only Netflix had promoted it!

#2 “The Batman” – I had my concerns about cranking up another Batman series/franchise. But in the film’s gritty opening scene, director Matt Reaves proved he had a fresh new take that was well worth exploring. Everything that followed clicked right into place, from the spectacular cast to the immersive world-building to the dark and ominous tone. And rather than following the stock comic book movie blueprints of today, “The Batman” falls more in line with the edgy crime thrillers of David Fincher. Overall it’s a welcomed jolt to the genre and a showcase for Reaves who has something pretty special on his hands.

#1 “All Quiet on the Western Front” – 92 years after Lewis Milestone’s 1930 film, Edward Berger has delivered a jaw-dropping remake of a landmark classic. This searing epic-scaled polemic brandishes the same scathing anti-war messaging. But Berger and DP James Friend utilize today’s technology to deliver powerful imagery both on the battlefield and on the faces of the young soldiers sent to die there. It’s a relentlessly bleak account that emphasizes the brutality and inhumanity of war, resulting in some of the most visceral battle sequences ever put to film. Yet the human cost always remains its focus. An unforgettable masterpiece.

Is 2023 the year Cillian Murphy finally gets an Oscar nomination? It certainly looks like he has the material in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer”. Written and directed by Nolan, the film is his first since breaking away from Warner Brothers. It features a jam-packed cast that includes Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Rami Malek, Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Kenneth Branagh, and Josh Hartnett among others. That alone makes for an highly anticipated feature, but it’s the brand new trailer that really gets me excited.

The film sees Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist whose role in the Manhattan Project earned him the title of “father of the atomic bomb”. The glimpses we get are of a conflicted man caught in what he feels is a no-win situation. The set and costume design looks spot-on, and you can already get a sense from the trailer than Nolan has done a ton of research. So we have a fascinating historical figure and a noted filmmaker with an incredible cinematic prowess. We might be in for something special.

“Oppenheimer” releases exclusively in theaters on July 21, 2023. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

Boy the 2023 movie year just gets more and more stacked. The latest movie instantly added to my must-watch list is the Sam Raimi produced “65”. The early teases were intriguing, but the new trailer completely won me over. Written and directed by the duo of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, “65” is a genre-bending science-fiction action-thriller with Adam Driver as its lead. That alone was enough to sell me.

But then I saw the new trailer, and the movie quickly climbed higher on my list. Driver plays a pilot who crash-lands on an unknown planet. As he explores the area he discovers a single lone survivor (Ariana Greenblatt). But the planet is also has its share dangers, and they’re of the prehistoric variety of you get what I mean. That’s quite the formula, and the trailer shows off the kind of production value that could make it a lot of fun. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

“65” arrives in theaters on March 10, 2023. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

I never quite got onboard with fervent adoration for “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”. I enjoyed the family elements of the story and wish there had been more of it. And I enjoyed most of the animation up until the final act. But the movie never found a good balance. Sometimes it felt like a moving family story with the inescapable superhero baggage attached. Other times it was like watching someone else play a video game. The new trailer for the much-anticipated sequel looks very much the same.

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” teases several of the things I liked about its predecessor while also showing several of the things I didn’t. The early family bits look great and the animation really shines in those clips. But when it amps things up, the sensory blasts of colors and hyper-stylized visuals overwhelm. Add to it my growing boredom for the current multi-verse fad that’s everywhere these days, and I’m just not sure this is for me. But I’ll still see it and hope that (like the first film) there’s enough of the good stuff to get by.

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” hits theaters June 2, 2003. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

I had a great time once again appearing on Tavern Talk by Initial Reaction. This time I joined host Philip Price to discuss Sam Mendes’ ambitious but overstuffed drama “Empire of Light” which is out now in select theaters. As always, we had a blast talking about the movie and breaking down its strengths and weaknesses. Don’t worry, this is a spoiler-free review so please click below and give it a watch.

I’m a little late getting to this, but last week Marvel Studios dropped the first trailer for the upcoming third installment in their “The Guardians of the Galaxy” branch of the MCU. I’ve enjoyed the “Guardians” films, but I’ve never considered them top-tier MCU. The films are full of fun characters, but the hit-and-miss goofiness along with some pretty bland villains have held them back. Still, director James Gunn finds ways to make things entertaining.

His third chapter sees the Guardians at a pretty low point. It’s especially true for Peter (Chris Pratt) who’s still struggling with the loss of his Gamora. But this is a James Gunn movie so you know things aren’t going to stay somber for very long. In fact we get several good laughs in the trailer that fit nicely with the goofy tone of the previous films. But we also get glimpses that make us wonder if we’re in for some heartbreak. Time will tell. I’m pretty interested in seeing where this third (and possibly final) “Guardians” movie goes.

“The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” opens May 5, 2023. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.