Best movies to see in 2022
Reports of the death of cinema may have been exaggerated.
They said that cinema was dead. Dead ever since the Golden Age of Television ushered in an era of filmic series populated by A-list movie stars; dead because of streaming; and finally, dead because of lockdowns and straight-to-Disney+ releases. But then came the closing months of 2021. Spoiled for choice as the distribution backlog cleared, we had blockbusters like Dune, No Time to Die, and even a big comic book flick to give the box office a year-end boost — Spider-Man: No Way Home proving that when people want to watch a big film they’ll go to a movie theatre.
According to industry site Box Office Mojo, ticket sales jumped up from $2m to $7m from the last weekend of October to the first one in November.
While that’s still a far cry from the $20 million pulled in over Christmas 2019 (in pre-Covid times), the trend is encouraging — as was Spider-Man’s record-breaking opening weekend.
Looking at the year ahead, there are plenty of big draws with films to be distributed via cinemas first and foremost.
Following a pre-pandemic trend, sequels and comic-based cinematic universes are big. Disney, and particularly Marvel, has a huge slate of spin-offs and sequels planned, alongside Paramount, 20th Century Studios and Netflix. But there’s also plenty for lovers of independent cinema and auteurs like Martin Scorsese, Baz Luhrmann and Guillermo del Toro releasing ambitious new projects while new directors step into the spotlight.
A long time coming
Two mammoth sequels stand out in 2022. Twelve years since James Cameron’s CGI masterpiece, Avatar, smashed box office records around the globe, and a staggering 3½ decades since Tom Cruise first donned the aviators in Top Gun, these beloved stories open a new chapter. Cameron’s passion project, Avatar 2, will expand on the world of the Na’vi some time in December 2022.
Top Gun: Maverick brings Tom Cruise back as Maverick alongside Miles Teller playing Goose’s son, and also stars Jennifer Connelly, John Hamm and Glen Powell.
Cruise’s Pete Mitchell will take up the mantle of the instructor, and watching him blast off in the red and blue helmet with Kenny Loggins blaring will be worth the wait. It’s out on May 26 in Australia.
Elsewhere, Rian Johnson’s follow-up to the wildly popular 2019 film Knives Out, Knives Out 2, boasts – if possible – a cast even starrier than the first with Ethan Hawke, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Katheryn Hahn and Edward Norton featuring alongside Daniel Craig’s southern sleuth Benoit Blanc. Release date TBC.
Prestigious pictures
If the sequels and superhero movies featured above fill you with horror – relax. Martin Scorsese, perhaps one of the loudest critics of superhero movies, brings us Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by David Grann about the Osage “Reign of Terror” Murders in 1920s Oklahoma.
The film is expected to take an honest light to a brutal chapter in Native American history. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone and Jesse Plemons, we’re sure this film will earn loud Oscar buzz despite likely being a difficult watch.
On a much lighter note, 2022 will also bring us Baz Luhrmann’s highly-anticipated biopic of The King, Elvis. Starring Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Aussies Olivia DeJonge and Dacre Montgomery, there is no doubt Luhrmann will bring his trademark maximalist glitz and glamour to the tragic tale of the rock and roll legend.
It will be a wild ride you won’t want to miss. Elvis is slated for release in mid-June.
Nightmare Alley is Guillermo del Toro’s seance-like journey into the world of 1940s American carnivals, replete with conmen, mentallists and criminally inclined tycoons.
It stars Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett and a supporting cast of heavy hitters who can each carry a film single-handedly – Toni Collette and Willem Defoe among them. It will have you questioning what’s real and what’s not – in case you didn’t have enough of that in 2020 and 2021. Nightmare Alley is in cinemas on January 20.
Next-gen stars
Leading lady turned director Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, the follow up to her hilarious coming-of-age comedy Booksmart, has had gossip mags and social media in a frenzy. Not only is Gen Z it boy Harry Styles starring in the psychological thriller opposite Gen Z it girl Florence Pugh, this is the very film that kickstarted Styles and Wilde’s generation-spanning off-screen romance. Pass the popcorn.
There’s been a bit of talk about the upcoming Downtown Abbey revival screening in 2022 but for us, the period piece to line up for is Jane Austen’s Persuasion starring Dakota Johnson and Henry Golding in the classic roles of Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth.
Directed by British theatre wunderkind Carrie Cracknell (a former associate director of the Young Vic and the Royal Court, no less) and backed by Netflix, this is a cinematic period piece with a serious pedigree.
Veteran Brad Pitt leads a multi-generation cast that boasts former child-star Joey King in Bullet Train. Sandra Bullock, Zazie Beetz and rapper Bad Bunny also join the film, in which a number of rival hitmen step on to a train – and not many of them walk off. Think of it as a turbocharged Murder on the Orient Express. Directed by John Wick’s David Leitch, this is one for the action fans.
Comic book cash cows
Cranking up its assembly line, Marvel is hoping to lure audiences across Disney+ and in cinemas with sequels to three of the most critically acclaimed and simultaneously widely adored films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Topping the list is Thor: Love and Thunder. The sequel to the brilliant Thor: Ragnarok, Love and Thunder was shot in Sydney over 2021 and reunites Taika Waititi with Chris Hemsworth in what has been described as a romance film. If it brings even a touch of Ragnarok’s wacky, dayglo atmosphere, count us in.
An extra sweetener: Thor brings Christian Bale – who arguably helped to resurrect superhero franchises with the Dark Knight Trilogy – into the MCU as the villain to Hemsworth’s hero. Love and Thunder is slated to be released mid-year.
Speaking of Batman, Robert Pattinson is the latest to take up the role of Bruce Wayne’s caped crusader in DC’s next great hope, The Batman.
The trailer and R-Patt’s attempts at a gravelly dark voice would suggest DC is mimicking the grounded, gritty magic of Bale’s Batman (as opposed to, say, George Clooney’s camp or Michael Keaton’s playboy). Whether he pulls it off is uncertain, but with cinematography by Aussie Greig Fraser, director of photography on the sumptuous and immersive Dune, it promises to look ravishing.
The Batman is scheduled for release on March 3.
For many superhero fans, there is no more anticipated film in 2022 than Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part One.
In the follow-up to the wholly unique and groundbreaking animated Into the Spider-Verse film that won Best Animated Feature at the 2019 Oscars, Miles Morales returns as, you guessed it, Spider-Man – but as is the conceit of this interpretation, he leads many different iterations of the character across multiple universes.
Rumour has it this film will focus on his romance with Gwen Stacy, a badass Spider-Woman from another dimension, while they travel across the multiverse kicking crime’s butt.
This wholly unique take on Spidey is scheduled for release on September 29.
Which brings us to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The original film broke barriers as the first African-American lead superhero film in 2018, Ryan Coogler’s world building and a rich dedication to African culture won over audiences, as did a breathtaking performance from Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa.
Boseman died in 2020 after a private battle with cancer he was fighting even during the filming of the movie. It’s unclear how his larger-than-life presence will be filled in the upcoming sequel, but with Coogler, Letitia Wright and Michael B. Jordan returning, we have confidence. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is likely to hit cinemas in November.
Oscar bait
A backlog in the scheduling pipeline caused by Australia’s Delta wave of Covid means that many of next year’s big awards contenders have already been released overseas. They come to a cinema near you early in 2022 so it’s worth checking them out ahead of the Academy Awards on March 28.
House of Gucci, focusing on the aristocratic Italian family behind the famed fashion house, is a story of murder, intrigue and glorious suits derided by the Gucci family and former creative director Tom Ford.
Nonetheless, Lady Gaga is tipped to earn her second Best Actress nomination for her performance. She stars alongside Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Salma Hayek and Jared Leto, a cast of actors not known for holding back with their performances. Labelled “a vivacious romp” by kinder critics, this could be the new year pick-up you’re looking for. It’s out on January 1.
Kenneth Branagh’s opus Belfast, based loosely on his childhood in the Irish capital during The Troubles, is a joyous, life-affirming film that will, in a very Irish way, have you grinning and crying at the same time. Shot in black and white and soundtracked by Van Morrison, this little shot of nostalgia is a Best Picture nominee lock. Belfast is out on February 3.
For royalists, Princess Diana superfans or lovers of lavish biopics that play fast and loose with the truth, the film of 2022 is Spencer. Set at Christmas in 1991 at Windsor Castle, the film follows Kristen Stewart as Diana Spencer as she navigates the breakdown of her relationship with Prince Charles and terse moments within the royal family. From the mind of Pablo Larraín, the man behind 2016’s Jackie — out on January 20.