The best movies of 2022, so far

Just over halfway through 2022, the year in movies has already been an intriguing one, with one of the highest-rated releases to date topping the box office. It would be “Top Gun: Maverick”. But if you’ve seen it before and want to catch up on other strong films, I asked Times co-chief critics AO Scott and Manohla Dargis what their favorites were. Here they are, in no particular order. — Stephanie Goodman

‘Everywhere All at Once’

The story: A laundromat owner (Michelle Yeoh) is stressed. Her husband files for divorce. Her daughter is depressed and angry with her. And to top it off, the taxman audits it. When she enters to fight the Audit, her encounter with an unyielding bureaucrat sets off a multiverse adventure that showcases the lives she might have lived (and the hot dog fingers she might have had) and, more importantly, different paths for his relationships. .

AO Scott’s view: “Ancient intelligence serves a sincere and generous heart,” our reviewer wrote of the film directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who work as Daniels. “Yes, the film is a multiverse metaphysical journey into the head of the galaxy, but at its core – and also on the surface – it’s a bittersweet domestic drama, a marital comedy, a story of struggling immigrants and a painful ballad of mother-daughter love.

Lily the review and interviews with Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, who plays her husband. You might remember Quan, who started out as a child actor, as Short Round in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”

Look: It’s still in select theaters, or you can buy it on major digital platforms. Also watch an anatomy of a scene with the directors.

‘Event’

The story: In the southwest of France in the early 1960s, Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei) is a 23-year-old student who hopes to become a writer. But when she becomes pregnant, her efforts to obtain an abortion, newly criminalized at the time, turn to despair. The film is based on the memoirs of French writer Annie Ernaux.

The opinion of Manohla Dargis: Director Audrey Diwan’s gaze “remains clear, direct, fearless,” writes our critic. “She shows you a part of life that movies rarely do. By that I mean: She shows you a woman who desires, desires to learn, to have sex, to have children as she pleases, to be sovereign – a woman who, by choosing to live her life, risks becoming a criminal and dares be free. ”

Lily the review and an article on how the film fueled a wider debate in France.

Rent it or buy it on Amazon Prime and other major digital platforms.

“Gourmet flow”

The story: In the world imagined by writer-director Peter Strickland, culinary delights can also be musical, and bands perform by pressing mash on a blender or pouring food into hot oil. In a mansion where players and worshipers have come together, egos and entrenched principles boil the tension. (Who could resist?)

AO Scott’s view: “The film is not so much an allegory or a fantasy as a witty philosophical speculation on some basic human problem,” Scott wrote. “We are animals driven by lust, hunger and aggression, but also delicate creatures in love with beauty and abstraction. These two aspects of our nature collide in unexpected and infinitely variable ways.”

The story: The pandemic may be receding, but Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz) continues to work from her loft, perhaps out of agoraphobia, at a job that involves fixing bugs in KIMI, a Siri-like digital assistant. While working on one of these bugs, she thinks she heard a violent crime. Her tracking efforts put her in danger.

The opinion of Manohla Dargis: The thriller “consciously draws inspiration from an assortment of cinematic referents,” including “Rear Window,” our reviewer wrote. But director Steven Soderbergh is “pulling out all his tricks, clearly having a blast.” Even as the plot grows increasingly ominous, “it maintains a lightness of touch and visual play that keeps the film safely in the realm of pop fun”.

Lily the item.

spread it on HBO Max.

“Neptune Frost”

The story: In this Afrofuturist vision by American multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams and Rwandan filmmaker Anisia Uzeyman, a Burundian minor (Kaya Free) and an intersex runaway (Cheryl Isheja and Elvis Ngabo) find themselves in an African community devoted to the imaginary and to solidarity.

AO Scott’s view: The plot is “loose and suggestive,” he wrote, describing the film as “a collage of vivid sights, sounds, and words that hit the film’s themes like hashtags. Williams and Uzeyman marry anarchist politics with anarchist aesthetics, creating something that feels at once handmade and high-tech, digital and analog, poetry and punk rock.

Lily the item.

look it in theaters.

‘Lingui, the sacred bonds’

The story: In N’Djamena, Chad, 15-year-old Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio) has been expelled from school because she is pregnant. His single mother, the enterprising Amina (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane), earns money by selling charcoal stoves that she concocts from scrap tires. Both women therefore have a stake in their quest for a safe abortion.

The opinion of Manohla Dargis: Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun “shows you women in motion and revolt, fleeing and escaping and sometimes making sneaky and joyful circles around the men in their lives”, writes the critic. “And, if you watch the end credits, you’ll also hear the laughter of the women – a divine, triumphant coda.”

Lily the review and an interview with the director and a star of the film.

Look: Stream it on Mubi; rent or buy it on the main digital platforms.

‘Future’

The story: In a project started before the pandemic and completed during it, directors Pietro Marcello (“Martin Eden”), Francesco Munzi (“Black Souls”) and Alice Rohrwacher (“Happy as Lazzaro”) traveled Italy to interview young people on everything from their career hopes to their sense of happiness.

AO Scott’s view: “It would be a mistake to impose too much coherence on such a kaleidoscopic and open collective portrait,” he writes. Still, the film is “an affirmation of the sustainability of an approach to filmmaking based on curiosity, democratic principles and the idea that people can speak for themselves”.

The story: Young Nelly has gone with her mother and father to the French countryside to empty the house of her recently deceased grandmother. In the woods, Nelly befriends another girl who builds a cabin, just like Nelly’s mother once did. As the two, who look alike, grow closer (they are played by twins Josephine and Gabrielle Sanz), their enigmatic connection hints at deeper bonds.

The opinion of Manohla Dargis: “Part of the mystery is that it’s unclear what kind of story this is and where — with its charming childishness and restrained melancholy — it might be headed,” our reviewer wrote. By withholding the information, director Céline Sciamma “encourages you to look at this place and this story with the open eyes of a child, which means putting aside your expectations of how films work”.

Lily the item.

Rent it or buy it on major digital platforms.

‘M. Bachmann and his class’

The story: In her on-the-fly documentary filmed during the 2016-2017 academic year, Maria Speth follows the title character, a charismatic sixth-grade teacher with a countercultural bent, and his mostly immigrant students in a German village north of Frankfurt.

AO Scott’s view: While we don’t learn much about the subjects’ lives outside of school, a few students “are particularly focused, nearly eclipsing their teacher and contributing to the film’s emotional richness,” our reviewer wrote. “This is not a heroic drama about idealism in the face of adversity. It’s a recognition of the hard work of learning and the magic of simple decency.

The story: A young Swedish girl by the stage name Bella Cherry (Sofia Kappel) has just arrived in Los Angeles and is determined to become a star in the porn industry. As she performs in extreme scenes, trying to overcome her own limitations, she observes how the work affects the humanity of other performers, male and female.

The opinion of Manohla Dargis: “It’s a smart, daring, totally unexpected film that, at its core, is an old-school story about an ambitious man who tries to overcome obstacles to become another American success story,” the reviewer wrote. Director Ninja Thyberg “knows the horrors, as one harrowing scene highlights. But women do porn and women watch it, and for different reasons, including because they like it. Because it’s their choice.

Lily the item.

Rent it or buy it on major digital platforms.