With the exception of only seeing 65 films in theaters in 2020 due to theater shutdowns caused by the China Virus (still more than your average film goer sees in any given year), I have been able to slowly but surely increase the number of films viewed in theaters since at least 2018. 2022 saw me break my 2021 record which was 139 films seen in theaters. In 2022 I slightly increased that number to 141, beating my record by two films. Despite the personal pride of beating my own record, the bad news is that 2022 was perhaps the single worst year for film overall since I began reviewing films in 2016 (at first for fun, then professionally). Even my Top 10 Best Films, while all solid, only have the top four or so that blew me away. While numbers 5-10 are great films, they weren’t game changers and finding a Top 10 was more difficult than previous years. Between injecting woke, forced, political propaganda and ridiculous diversity quotas/white erasure, Hollywood continues to remake and recycle old, unoriginal ideas with more and more sequels, prequels, requels, remakes, reboots, legacyquels, etc. I’ve noticed a trend over the past few years now with foreign films being much better than what comes out of Hollywood/America. While Hollywood has specific lobbying groups who only have the job of reading scripts and then telling the studios that they need more LGBT or minority characters (Mark Dice has written about this in his fantastic book “Hollywood Propaganda: How TV, Movies, and Music Shape Our Culture”), foreign countries are completely fine with having completely homogeneous casts with no diversity quotas to be found. Asian films have all Asian actors. Spanish films have all Spanish casts. Imagine a film coming from Africa with an all black cast getting complaints that there weren’t enough white, Latino or Asian people in it. No other country outside of America seems to care about diversity in film. They put the main emphasis on telling fantastic, original, well written stories, regardless of the makeup of the cast and their skin color or sexuality. Diversity isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it isn’t necessarily a good thing either, especially when it is forced. A strong script, memorable characters and solid direction is what should matter but Hollywood has yet to learn this lesson.
While last year we finally were able to catch up on releasing films that had been delayed due to the China Virus and Hollywood is basically back to normal in terms of release dates, it has been refreshing to not have to wait an extra year or two for films to come out (“Top Gun: Maverick”, for example, was supposed to come out in 2019 and was finally released three years later). After having watched 141 films in theaters (plus the Oscar nominated short films), 2 Amazon Studios films, 1 Apple TV+ film, 2 Disney+ films, 2 HBO films, 3 Hulu films, 16 Netflix films and 10 Video on Demand (VOD) films, I definitely had no shortage of films to watch and review (177 films in total). Add to that the 27 different TV seasons across multiple channels and streaming platforms. While my films viewed in theaters have continued to grow, I know at some point as I take on other side jobs and spend time with friends, family, loved ones, etc. that I will eventually hit a point where I can’t see as many films every year. While that is likely inevitable, I will continue to view as much content as possible so you, the viewer, knows what to check out and what to not waste your time on, which is why I started this site in the first place. The only change I made this year is that I won’t be including my best puns/hashtags of the year simply because it is incredibly time consuming to go through every single review I wrote for an entire year to pick out puns that sometimes may not make sense unless you’ve seen the film. However, I encourage you to search for films you would like to know if they are worth watching or not, read the review (since they are all spoiler free) and then check out my puns at the end of each review. Since reading hundreds of film reviews may take up too much of your time, I present to you my Best/Worst of 2022 List so you know what to add to the top of your queue and what to avoid at all costs. Without further adieu, let’s take a look at the highs and lows of 2022…
TOP 10 BEST FILMS OF 2022:
10. Downton Abbey: A New Era
9. Vengeance
8. Spirited
7. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
6. The Pale Blue Eye
5. Blonde
4. Top Gun: Maverick
3. The Good Nurse
2. Decision to Leave
1. All Quiet on the Western Front
TOP 10 WORST FILMS OF 2022:
10. Firestarter
9. The Bubble
8. Pinocchio
7. Studio 666
6. Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
5. Daddy Daughter Trip
4. My Son Hunter
3. The Wolf and the Lion
2. Unfavorable Odds
1. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Favorite Film of 2022:
Top Gun: Maverick
Most Hated Film of 2022:
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Best Comedy of 2022:
Jackass Forever
Worst Comedy of 2022:
Daddy Daughter Trip
Best Horror Film of 2022:
Smile
Worst Horror Film of 2022:
Studio 666
Best Animated Film of 2022:
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Worst Animated Film of 2022:
DC League of Super-Pets
Best Action Film of 2022:
Top Gun: Maverick
Worst Action Film of 2022:
Jurassic World: Dominion
Top 10 Best Characters of 2022:
The Jackass Crew as themselves in “Jackass Forever”
Mia Goth as Maxine/Pearl in “X” and “Pearl”
Harry Melling as Edgar Allan Poe in “The Pale Blue Eye”
Ke Huy Quan as Waymond Wang in “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Kerry Condon as Siobhán Súilleabháin in “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Barry Keoghan as Dominic Kearney in “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Alexander Skarsgård as Amleth in “The Northman”
Nicolas Cage as himself in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”
Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher in “Thor: Love and Thunder”
Based autists as themselves in “GameStop: Rise of the Players”
Top 10 Worst Characters of 2022:
Jack Champion as Spider in “Avatar: The Way of Water”
Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik in “Sonic the Hedgehog 2”
Laurence Fox as Hunter Biden in “My Son Hunter”
John James as Joe Biden in “My Son Hunter”
Rohan Campbell as Corey Cunningham in “Halloween Ends”
Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Beth Hatten in “The Lost City”
Eddie James as Eddie Sanders in “Family Camp”
Keke Palmer as Emerald Haywood in “NOPE”
Zen McGrath as Nicholas Miller in “The Son”
The New York Times as itself in “She Said”
Best Superhero Film of 2022:
The Batman
Worst Superhero Film of 2022:
Morbius
Most Overrated Films of 2022: (Alphabetically)
Avatar: The Way of Water
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
NOPE
Tár
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking
Most Underrated Films of 2022: (Alphabetically)
2000 Mules
Blonde
Breaking
I Love My Dad
The Duke
The Outfit
The Pale Blue Eye
TOP 5 BEST FILM SCORES of 2022: (Alphabetically)
All Quiet on the Western Front
Babylon
Blonde
Men
Smile
Stay tuned tomorrow for my 2023 Oscar Predictions for the films of 2022! Thanks for reading…
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