This is the time of year when movie critics everywhere compile their list of the best movies of the year, and in compiling a list for this site, I realized that for one reason or another (bad timing, usually,) some of the best movies I saw this year didn’t receive a review on this site. So while movies like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Nope, Glass Onion, Violent Night, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande and even Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers made for some of the best movie-going experiences of 2022, other great movies didn’t get a write up on this site. So to rectify that omission, and to allow me to write off the cost of a few more movie tickets on my taxes, here are the nine best movies I saw last year that weren’t reviewed.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
Watching Everything Everywhere All At Once felt like falling in love. This movie romanced me with its clever writing, great performances and a mind-blowingly original concept, which is saying a lot for a movie that was one of at least two films exploring a multi-verse this year. Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis delivered outstanding performances as people who get caught up in a tangle of parallel lives when their existences in separate universes suddenly come crashing into each other during a routine tax audit. The directing team known as The Daniels threw together an everything bagel of disparate worlds where people had hot dog fingers, were boulders with googly eyes, and that movie with a chef hiding a rodent under his hat was really about a raccoon, and wound up making an incredibly moving film about family relationships, marital love, and what it means to be human. If you haven’t seen it yet, give it a chance to woo you.

RRR

The Indian-Telegu epic RRR has everything you want in a movie: explosions, romance, fighting, dancing, danger, and tigers. RRR (the Rs stand for Rise, Roar, Revolt) stars N.T. Rama Rao Jr. as Komaram Bheem and Ram Charan as A. Rama Raju, two real life heroes in a mythologized historical saga that brings the two together on film (as they never were in real life) to liberate their people from the odious British army occupying their land. With a run time of 187 minutes (ten of those devoted to the stunning dance number “Naatu Naatu”), S.S. Rajamouli’s movie moves at a breakneck pace that never, ever gets boring. At theatrical showings, this film had audiences standing and cheering. You may be tempted to do the same, even watching it on Netflix in the living room.

THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT

Nicolas Cage plays a fictionalized version of himself in this fun diversion. Down on his financial luck, the actor must accept a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a dangerous super fan Javi Gutierrez played by Pedro Pascal. In writer/director Tom Gormican’s movie, Cage manages to get recruited by a CIA operative Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) to spy on Gutierrez. Forced to live up to his own legend, Cage must become his most iconic and beloved on-screen characters in order to save himself and his loved ones. This one was just plain fun to watch. Love Cage or hate him, you can’t not watch him, and he and Pascal exude so much charm as they embark on adventure and bromance that you can’t help but love this story.

3000 YEARS OF LONGING

George Miller’s gorgeous fairy tale 3000 Years of Longing was a story about stories, particularly love stories.  Based on the short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” by A. S. Byatt, in the film, Tilda Swinton plays Alithea, a lecturer (on myths) who purchases a bottle that contains a 3000 year old djinn, played by Idris Elba. Rather than claim any wishes for herself, Alithea asks her genie to tell her stories about his life, which all revolve around the extraordinary women he has loved. Though the movie bombed at the box office, it was ambitious, with lush imagery and compelling stories, and anything with Idris Elba is worth a watch.

BARBARIAN

Barbarian is a nailbiter – more suspense than horror, it tells the story of your worst Airbnb nightmare come true, and no, I’m not talking about an outrageous cleaning fee. Georgina Campbell stars as Tess, who books a room in a house in Detroit while she applies for a job. She arrives at the house to find that it’s already occupied by Keith (Bill Skarsgard), who allows her to stay with him rather than try to find other accomodations on this dark and stormy night. While the audience is yelling at Tess to under no circumstances stay with the seeming likable (but probably psycho) Keith, Tess takes things to the next level of “no she didn’t” when she explores the house’s basement (and sub-basement!) And then the movie gives the audience a case of cinematic whiplash by smash-cutting to Justin Long cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in a convertible. It all ties together in the most suspenseful and gruesome way; both hard to watch and impossible to look away from, Barbarian is one of the best horror releases of the year.

X

Ti West had two interconnected movies about making movies, but I have only seen X so far. (The followup-prequel, Pearl, is definitely on my must-watch list.) Blending the familiar trope of a group of teens gathered in a remote country house with the twist that they are there to film X-rated fare, West casts Mia Goth in a dual role (which turns out to be key to this movie’s relationship to Pearl) and introduces us to a very creepy killer (or killers) who start picking off the cast in really horrific ways. X also stars Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow, Kid Cudi, Owen Campbell and Martin Henderson as the stars and crew who just want to make great horny cinema. The movie is beautifully shot, leaving viewers feeling like they are there on set. West had a banner year, giving audiences two films are certainly also contenders for best horror of 2022.

SHE SAID

Journalism is an unusual subject for a tense thriller, yet Maria Schrader’s biographical drama She Said had me on the edge of my seat all the way through. Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan star as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Zoe Kazan, who start an investigation into Harvey Weinstein, who was recently convicted of rape but in 2017, when the movie is set, is still working in Hollywood, despite numerous whispers and outright allegations of sexual harrassment and assault of the women he worked with, from office staff to the stars of his movies. Twohey and Kazan track down these women, hoping to get one or more of them to commit to telling their heart-breaking, maddening stories on the record. While most are bound by non-disclosure agreements they had to sign in order to get settlements, one of Weinstein’s first victims is free to talk – but she’s also about to undergo surgery for cancer. Weinstein gets wind of the article, and tries his best to stop them from publishing it. Even knowing how it all turned out, the movie makes us believe that somehow this expose might not happen, and the tension is close to unbearable.

THE MENU

The first of two wry eat-the-rich tales that came out in the end of 2022 is The Menu, which is both scary and hilarious as it takes a stab (sometimes literally) at indulgent, wealthy food tourists. Ralph Fiennes plays Chef Julian Slowik, who caters to the rich and famous at his restaurant, The Hawthorne, which is tucked away on a secluded island. Serving up a menu of pretentious dishes with twee presentations and very little actual food, Slowik’s captive audience is suddenly finds themselves in over their heads as each course amps up the fear factor a little more. Anya Taylor-Joy stars as an outsider who infiltrates the upper crust when she is hired by Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), a foodie fanboy to be his plus one at the meal, and who must find some way to escape the macabre goings-on. Incredibly, the movie is actually very funny, even as the on-screen mayhem increases.

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

Another film taking potshots at the 1% is Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning commentary on how the rich really aren’t like us, and aren’t really likable either. Starring Harris Dickinson as male model Carl, and the late Charlbi Dean as supermodel Yaya, the story follows them as they bicker about money and gender roles. pretend to eat expensive food for Instagram posts, and basically collect all kinds of luxury freebies just for being born attractive. The two are gifted a yacht cruise where they meet fellow rich parasites like Russian oligarch Dimitry (Zlatko Burić), his wife Vera (Sunnyi Melles) and their mistress Ludmilla (Carolina Gynning), businessman Jarmo (Henrick Dorsin) and elderly couple Clementine and Winston (Amanda Walker and Oliver Ford Davies) who gained their fortune making land mines (alas, now forbidden by the United Nations) and hand grenades. The ostentatious and shallow elite are in garish contrast to the crew (both the front-of-house stewards and hostesses – and captain Woody Harrelson – as well as the back-of-house cleaners and sailors) who do everything in their power to keep their capricious guests happy. Östlund turns this ship of fools upside down, with a stomach-churning dinner scene that is swiftly followed by a wreck that strands some crew and passengers on an island where now crew member Abigail (a winning Dolly de Leon), the only person capable of starting a fire and hunting for food, is now the most powerful person on the island. Triangle is hard to watch at times, but is an amusing poke at the superficial lives of the rich and famous.