Now that 2023 is almost upon us, it is time to start catching up on all the great movies of 2022. It’s always a good way to spend a cold January.

My year-end roundup is at Eyes Wide Open:

Assuming the future still contains books, when one is written about what moviegoing was like in 2022, it will have a hard time finding a theme. Think pieces on the state of Hollywood (including several penned by this critic) over the past few years often bemoaned the industry’s caution and overreliance on industrially producing sequels to safe IP. The concern grew that, post-pandemic, theaters and audiences would stick to the familiar. To a degree that did happen, with even supposed arthouse theaters showing Wakanda Forever. But as the year closes with the usual late-December crush of award contenders muscling into crowded release schedules, fears of a movie landscape dominated only by superhero flicks with quarter-billion-dollar budgets have not quite panned out…

I break down the ten best movies of the year (some of which are pictured above), and also list some honorable mentions and disappointments.