By the end of 2021, I told myself that I was going to make a harder effort to watch less movies in 2022. I did promise that same strategy for 2021, and that didn’t happen as I saw 187 films anyway. You know what though? I pulled it off for 2022! I “only” saw 143 new movies this past year! That’s lower than the 175 I saw in 2020, and the 145 I saw in 2019… Congratulations to me? Let’s see if I can get a lower number in 2023.
As for the movies in 2022, I grew to greatly appreciate films with a lot of heart, empathy, cleverness, fun, and just those that embraced putting movie magic on screen, more so than I probably ever did before. There were still a lot of movies trying to be incredibly serious or grim dark, but it looks like I didn’t appreciate them as much, and it showed with where they landed on my list.
Another type of movie in 2022 that surprisingly didn’t land super high on my list are Superhero comic book movies! None of them made my top 20! It’s not that they were bad, but I guess I’ve gotten so used to what they have to offer that they don’t impress me as much anymore. Is it superhero movie fatigue? I don’t think so, as I still enjoy watching them quite a bit. They just need to do more to wow me now I suppose.
With the studios and movie theaters still scrambling on what to do with the industry, the amount of films being released has narrowed a bit. The streaming services are an available venue to release films now, but many are realizing that the bubble is about to pop and they can’t keep throwing money into them with wanton abandon. While in some cases like Netflix, seemed to have found a solid reason now as to why theaters need to partner with them more, as proven with the release of Glass Onion. We’ll see how this all plays out in 2023 and 2024, to see if they all can finally find a proper balance.
As for my list below, it is once again a Top 50 from the year. They all land in my “LOVED IT” and most of the “ENJOYED IT” grades. The numbering is a bit flexible as to where the films land, but this gets the general idea on how much more I liked a movie over another. It is of course an incomplete sampling of movies as I once again only focused on films that were easily accessible to me, as I prefer writing reviews for movies that my readers are actually able to check out for themselves. Some of them I just didn’t have time for.
For the other 93 movies that I saw in 2022, feel free to browse through the #isawthatmovie Archives…
the 2022 released films that I might still check out in 2023 are…
Women Talking, All Quiet on the Western Front, Aftersun, Living, Bardo, Emergency, Empire of Light, Corsage, Causeway, Good Luck To You Leo Grande, Cha Cha Real Smooth, The Inspection, A Man Called Otto, Broker, Emancipation, and I'm sure there's more...
P.S. I’m changing things up once again with the #isawthatmovie blog for 2023. I want it to be even simpler for me to write up a movie review. You’ll see…