Look, you’re probably tired of year-end content at this point—I get it—but I think it’s safe to say we won’t be definitively “finished” with this year in cinema for quite some time. 2022 saw many filmmakers submitting oversized, overly-ambitious, and often risk-laden or personal projects, and many of these projects have us still reeling in the fallout. So, what’s one more list? Let’s get into it.

10. Until Branches Bend

directed by Sophie Jarvis

I will be using my number ten pick to continue my mission of shamelessly promoting and dumping praise on the exceptional Canadian films set in the regions I call familiar. Until Branches Bend, the debut feature from Sophie Jarvis, is a film cultivated and now sprung forth from the Okanagan Valley region of British Columbia. To many Vancouverites like myself, this area primarily figures as a summer vacation destination, its warm, sparkling lakes and far-spanning vineyards beckoning, but for those who call the Okanagan home—such as Jarvis herself, once upon a time—there is far more to reckon with. For Grace Glowicki’s Robin, a humble cannery worker, there is the discovery of an invasive species of beetle, which may spell doom for the agricultural industry and the economic livelihood of her town. Jarvis’ thoughtfully constructed, psychological-cum-conspiracy thriller functions as both an intimately observed, homegrown work of social realism, and as a barbed allegory for modern climate concerns at large. Its off-kilter and sometimes slightly surreal presentation makes for a viewing experience that intoxicates as often as it unsettles, while Jarvis’ and Glowicki’s sensitive approach to their protagonist’s curious story infuses everything with warmth and heart.

9. You Won’t Be Alone

directed by Goran Stolevski

Terrence Malick, eat your heart out! (Or, if you will, tear your entrails out!) First-time feature director Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone is a shockingly transcendent work that emerged unexpectedly out of Sundance, and has since clawed its way under my skin. A folk horror tale of the shapeshifting witches that haunt 19th-century Macedonian, the film composes itself with unshakeable imagery—some of it bone chilling, some of it breathtaking—and whispered voiceover narration from its mute protagonist, whose side we almost never leave, even as she assumes different forms. Without speech, the mercurial Nevena interacts with the world primarily through touch, taste, and smell, and it benefits us as viewers to take a phenomenological approach to the narrative as well, focus on what we can first process on a sensual level. This turns this sprawling, gothic fable that spans different lifetimes and mountain villages into something immediate and personal. And this is why I wonder if Stolevski has Malick to credit in any way. Yes, You Won’t Be Alone is more of a grisly slog than an ethereal float, but it still taps into that beauty that is learning, that is exploring new perspectives and new ways of life—the beauty that is growing.

8. Decision to Leave

directed by Park Chan-wook

The latest from Korean master Park Chan-wook has a familiar premise: a detective (Park Hae-il) investigating a possible homicide finds his case sidetracked when he starts fiercely obsessing over the saturnine wife (Tang Wei) of the deceased. But just when you think you have the work pinned—a psychological thriller/police procedural à la Hitchcock’s Vertigo, perhaps?—it transforms, then transmogrifies, becoming a different puzzle entirely. Park incorporates everything from woozy yearning, to slapstick comedy, to ghastly images of violence, and he consistently finds ways to weave these moments amongst the most unexpected set ups. He accomplishes this in characteristically brilliant fashion, Decision to Leave functioning on further levels as a showcase for Park’s dizzying and dazzling displays of blocking, shot composition, and creative scene transitions (really, of Kim Sang-bum’s editing in general). Park is unquestionably an artist on the top of his game (or, the top of his mountain, if you will). If you’re unfamiliar with Park, let this film be your gateway drug.

7. Babylon

directed by Damien Chazelle

My last theatre experience of 2022 was Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, an experience that was heightened for me by the 4D chair I ended up seated in, which pulsed with minor vibrations, and had me feeling as if I were riding the same cocaine high as the film’s characters. But Babylon was never attached to a 4D experience; the pulses were just the dormant chair malfunctioning. It was all just a wonderful/horrible coincidence.

As Chazelle’s latest, most unapologetically ambitious and excessively in-your-face project suggests, it was coincidence both wonderful and horrible that sprung forth from and defined the turbulent silent era of Hollywood filmmaking. Chazelle plunges us into these hedonistic and halcyon days with a 30-minute bacchanalia sequence that gives The Wolf of Wall Street a run for its money (and cocaine), then spins you headlong into the equally adrenaline-fueled and manic hours spent on set as the industry grapples with the invent of sound. In Babylon, early Hollywood becomes an unwieldy beast unto itself, devil-may-care nights feeding into hellish production schedules and vice versa, each facet of the reckless lifestyles working in a freakish tango of symbiosis, and somehow still delivering on-screen magic. But the beast also claims its victims, and Chazelle’s ensemble does mesmerizing work embodying a whole gamut of helplessly ensnared Hollywood hopefuls. Babylon feels very much like Chazelle’s Boogie Nights, but it is also a critique of Hollywood at its most erosive, its most circus-insane, and its most darkly soul crushing. It’s no wonder one of the film’s most memorable shots looks to have been pulled straight from the “dance macabre” sequence of Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.

6. Aftersun

directed by Charlotte Wells

When I first watched Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun, during a midday screening at TIFF, I let it wash over me. I soaked in its warm nostalgia and let myself go adrift in its breezy naturalism, contented to let myself believe that a late 90’s father-daughter vacation in Turkey was just that. It wasn’t until later, when I was alone with the film, and reflecting on my own late father, that Aftersun completely bowled me over. This intensely personal-feeling debut feature from Wells has become an underdog triumph—and it is only vaguely inspired by Wells’ personal experiences. It would stand to reason that the film is a testament to Wells’ prowess as an emotionally instinctual and innately attuned filmmaker, one who, like the adult Sophie in the film, works to so delicately (and achingly) unfold her story’s many veiled layers of generational (dis)connect. The film also introduces us to newcomer Frankie Corio, who works alongside new indie golden boy Paul Mescal to commit to screen one of the most nuanced and affecting performances of the year. If it doesn’t click for you at first, don’t worry. This film, like the Polaroid photo that becomes emblematic of the pair’s brief time together, requires time before it bleeds into full view (and before it bleeds through you).

5. Euphoria S2E1: Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door

While the swing-for-the-fences second season of Euphoria took the smash hit HBO series in some confounding—and maddening—directions, other moments when the series really “hit” (to use the parlance of our times) impacted me on some truly transcendent—and cinematic—levels. The season’s opener, Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door, is maybe the hardest hitting episode of the series thus far. It is a virtuosic saga of the separate nocturnal odysseys taken by our hedonic treadmill-running Gen Zers as they scramble and scrape their ways towards redemption at a proto-Babylon New Years Eve party. This episode was my introduction to the Sam Levinson-helmed series, and I remember sitting mouth agape my entire viewing, occasionally turning to my partner and asking, “Is this really that teen drama everyone is going nuts for?”

The episode begins with a Scorsese-esque recounting of one Fezco’s (Angus Cloud) sordid past coming into the drug trade, and only spirals out more thrillingly from there, later chronicling Rue’s (Zendaya) perilous descent into a nightmare drug deal, and culminating in her character’s two most potent jolts of—for lack of a better word—euphoria. It’s a careening, chaotic, and surprisingly operatic hour of television, and it is topped off with to-die-for needle drops and awesomely striking 35mm cinematography. As far as I’m concerned, every teen drama that has come before this is Saved by the Bell.

4. Everything Everywhere All at Once

directed by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once (often abbreviated to EEAAO) was exactly that when it came to online pop culture this year. Naturally, this discourse was steered by the film’s most impassioned proponents and its most vehement scorners. We’ve seen both sides hit their quota of annoying by this point, but I like to look at the dichotomy as it relates back to the movie itself, for their inevitable schism is one of the precise conflicts explored by the Daniels. In the film, Michelle Yeoh’s Laundromat-owning, and later, multiverse jumping, Evelyn, a woman staring down a crossroads, is torn between the influences of her husband—the ultra-optimistic, somewhat cloying, but sincere and loving Waymond (Ke Huy Quan)—and the sinister and nihilistic, ultimately insecure alphaverse iteration of her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). For the record, I am not drawing a direct correlation between the film’s characters and the two sides of the film’s discourse; I am saying that such dichotomies almost become parodies of themselves when they spring from films also about diametrically opposed philosophies. The beauty of EEAAO, though, is that it allows both sides of its conflict a sort of equal footing; both sides of its conflict a chance to impart its wisdoms on the protagonist. Let’s be honest, for much of our lives, we define existence much like Evelyn does: as a precarious balance on the edge between opposing impulses, between googly eyes and everything bagel black holes. I have made peace with the fact that coexistence is the best thing these two camps can strive towards. If you count yourself in one camp, as opposed to the other, that’s OK—just be kind.

3. Fire of Love

directed by Sara Dosa

Yes, it’s a love story; and what’s more, it’s probably the most dime-store-romance-novel-sounding love story you could ever conceive of (“Two French volcanologists share a passion, the fiery heat of which is rivaled only by the rivers of lava that they traverse!”). The thing is, this love story was as real as a doughnut, and there is even the extensive footage to prove it. Sara Dosa’s Sundance-smash documentary was the first film of the year that had me thinking, “Five stars,” and it has held its mantle in my top 10 ever since last January. It really is that delightful—unabashedly awe-, wonder-, and whimsy-filled, overflowing with gooey, magmatic sincerity. Dosa and co. turn page after page of Maurice and Katia Krafft’s stories and insights like a child excitedly showing you their favourite picture book, flitting across centuries and continents in a way that is consistently digestible and consistently awe-inspiring. Along the way, a deep reverence and love for Mother Earth is instilled. As the Krafft’s demonstrate, this is a love that can and should work in tandem with the love we feel for each other and the love we hold in our interests. In case you aren’t already sold on this now easily accessible, Discovery Channel-distributed documentary, you should also know that the film’s volcano footage—culled mostly from the Krafft’s tireless work in the 70s and 80s—might just stand up against a certain mega-budget, CGI-rendered water film this year (I said what I said). And while it often reminds one of just how alien and volatile our planet can be, having the Krafft’s as your guides can turn those active volcanos into the coziest places for a cuddle.

2. The Fabelmans

directed by Steven Spielberg

Spielberg has been a household name for so long now, almost everyone has that one powerful memory associated with seeing one of his films. I still vividly remember seeing A.I. and Minority Report in theatres; but at this moment in time, I am fully in the grips of recency bias: my memory of first seeing Spielberg’s latest, his profoundly personal The Fabelmans, will be the memory I will cherish always. Is his story of a young, future director’s first dabbling with the life affirming (and life complicating) “power of cinema” one of the most saccharine and indulgent works Spielberg has ever produced? Yes. But this is ultimately Spielberg’s way of disarming you before he delivers some of the most devastatingly implosive drama you ever thought him capable of. This is not Spielbergian cynicism finally seeping through; this is Spielberg finally confronting the subject matter that has intimidated him most of his professional career.

Like the auteurs that have walked similarly daunting paths before him, Spielberg overcomes the apprehension for his medium by routing all questions back to that essential “why?” of cinema. Why does cinema shape the realities we build for ourselves in our memories? Why do these memories shape our art? And why does art ultimately turn around and shape us? Call The Fabelmans just another love letter to cinema, but don’t deny the vision that brought this particular letter to life. It belongs to a name that is practically synonymous with the word “cinema” itself, and I will gladly give myself to that name’s dream worlds time and time again if what they so consistently deliver is as entrancing and as elating as this.

1. TÁR

directed by Todd Field

Ok, let me first get my bias out of the way: at one point in TÁR, Cate Blanchett’s Lydia Tár herself name-drops my city’s orchestra, as well as our currently enlisted music director (and in a positive light, no less). Yes, this fills me with a certain glee; but it is not the sole basis for the affinity I feel towards this masterwork.

Todd Field has given us a story set in the contemporary world of classical music and filled it predominantly with negative space and silence, thereby placing the emphasis on his meticulous directing, as well as Blanchett’s landmark performance. Both play “conductor” of TÁR in this sense, and they have triumphed in doing so, delivered a virtuoso character study, a sneaky psychological horror, and an exacting satire, all amalgamated into a coolly calculated arthouse presentation that absorbs you fully. Each and every component of the filmmaking—laid out in the “reverse” credits that roll before the film proper begins, like a maestro sets up their sheet music before conducting a symphony—is so finely attuned to the film’s themes and motifs, what TÁR gives us can only be described as filmic harmony. And the story, dense with emotional, spiritual, socially conscious, and theoretical weight, is a resounding success on all fronts, a vainglorious unspooling of the high art world’s stubborn adherences to its old masters—and a wickedly funny one at that—as well as a devilishly orchestrated game of sexual and professional politics. Oh, and what I said about this film defining itself by silence isn’t entirely true. Hildur Guðnadóttir provides a deviously creeping score, Blanchett conducts the real-world Dresden Philharmonic (the on-set recordings can be heard in the film), and real-world cellist Sophie Kauer plays in-film cellist, Olga—and all turn in highly accomplished work. The vinyl of the film’s soundtrack releases on January 20th, in case any of you were looking to get me a late Christmas gift...

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