The NBR is the National Board Of Review. Established in 1909, the committee picks 10 movies (usually) that they deem the best of the calendar year. One of the movies they select for their list is elevated to the movie of the year.
I have made it a mission of mine to complete as many NBR lists for as many years as possible. It is a slow and grueling process, but we are getting there. If you are curious in the lists, there is a fabulous Wikipedia page they has everything you need. I also have a tab on my Stanko Movie List – Google Sheets.
Below are the movies (listed in alphabetical order) that NBR deemed the best of 2022.
- Aftersun
- Avatar: The Way Of Water
- The Banshees of Inisherin
- Everything Everywhere All At Once
- The Fabelmans
- Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
- RRR
- Till
- Top Gun: Maverick
- The Woman King
- Women Talking
Top Gun: Maverick was named the 2022 NBR movie of the year.
My Rankings Of the 2022 NBR Top Movies
11. Till
I didn’t know much about the Till story before watching the movie. The movie educated me and made me want more. But that’s a tough thing to hear, that the movie made me wanting more.
The most emotional parts of the movie were the text coming up at the end. The pacing of Till just felt a tad off. The movie seemed to skim the surface of what it could be.
STANKO RATING: C+
10. Everything Everywhere All At Once
I know, I am in the minority. Everything Everywhere All At Once absolutely dominated the 95th Academy Awards with 11 nominations and seven wins. it won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing.
It won all those awards, and I just don’t love this movie. Everything Everywhere All At Once is just too strange for me. I can’t do hot dog hands and piano playing with toes. I don’t think Michelle Yeoh was in the same stratosphere as Cate Blanchett with Tar. I didn’t get emotional at the end either with the mother/daughter conversation.
Perhaps it caught me in the perfect inflection point of my multiverse fatigue. Perhaps I need to watch Everything Everywhere All At Once again, but I will cop that I don’t have a strong desire.
STANKO RATING: B
9. The Woman King
This movie rocked, as an action movie. I didn’t quite get the supreme push for it in any other categories than possibly Viola Davis.
The movie is surprisingly brutal at times but there is a humanity to many of the women. Nanisca has a truly nasty backstory that gets flushed out to bring the story full circle.
This is one to recommend to action fans who want a little bit more quality than some of the late 2010s Netflix action.
8. The Fabelmans
I watch The Fabelmans with envy. Perhaps not for the childhood and parents that Sammy Fabelman grew up with, but for the passion he had. I love movies, but discovered it too late. Sammy found it young and took it by the horns.
Michelle Williams is my hangup with this movie. She was nominated and I just don’t get it. Judd Hirsch, fine, totally understandable. Hell, the screenplay too, for it to be so personal means something.
Between this movie, and the next on the list, there are 16 Oscar nominations and no wins. What it did win was
7. The Banshees Of Inisherin
Here is my take. Do I think The Banshees Of Inisherin is a better movie than The Fabelmans? Honestly, I don’t. But in terms of a movie that still gets brought up and forces me to think about it from time-to-time, it’s definitely The Banshees Of Inisherin.
The movie gets dark and has characters that are not entirely likable. Kerry Condon plays the most likeable character, Siobhán, the sister of Colin Farrell’s Pádraic.
The movie is good, I just don’t think it’s nine Oscar nominations good.
6. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Sometimes you just want to have a good time. Thank you Rian Johnson. Thank you Daniel Craig. Thank you Benoit Blanc.
Does Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery reach the same heights as Knives Out (2019)? No, not really. Does Janelle Monáe steal my heart for two hours and is Craig ever so charming? Oh, hell fucking yea!
This is a prime example of an attention-grabbing popcorn flick made by a filmmaker who understands how to combine the flair with the nuance. It is a movie where it looks like everyone is having fun, and I am here to say I had a good time as well.
5. Women Talking
I am a sucker for a movie that features a lot of talking about a thought-provoking topic with a dreary, rather depressing yet understandable ending. Yes, I am a bit messed up in the head.
Women Talking has a TON of outstanding actresses in it: Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Frances McDormand and Judith Ivey is great (I didn’t know her before this movie).
The movie won for best Adapted Screenplay and was nominated for Best Picture. Women Talking is not an easy movie to recommend to people because it’s a great one-time watch.
STANKO RATING: A-
4. Avatar: The Way Of Water
Never, ever, doubt James Cameron. Don’t you ever fucking do it.
James Cameron told everyone in Hollywood to wait till he was ready for Avatar: The Way of Water, and damnit, if he wasn’t right again.
The last hour of this movie is a battle sequence that has some of the best action Cameron has ever made. It all looks outstanding and Cameron successful expanded the universe and lore.
Was the world excited to return to Pandora? There were some doubters, including myself. The Way Of Water made 2.32 BILLION DOLLARS. It is a crowning achievement in filmmaking. Honestly it reminds a bit of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014) where you have to appreciate the approach to how it was made.
STANKO RATING: A-
3. RRR
I summed this movie up best when I wrote about it the first time. RRR is the perfect movie for 13-year-olds, or for grown-ups who love to still pretend being 13 years old.
I wish I got to see RRR in the theaters because some of the outrageous moments would have been made even more grand with tigers jumping through the screen with a thunderous score.
There are about four (or more) climaxes to RRR. Every build up is filled with over dramatized emotion, but the soap opera state of mind is matched by the slow-motion car chases and stylized fight sequences. Nothing about RRR is normal. It is a movie that would never be made in the states, and it’s better for it.
Just a fucking unbelievably good time. It is impossible to not cheer when watching it.
STANKO RATING: A
2. Aftersun
Wreck me. Ruin me. Disarm me.
Aftersun‘s last act is so well hidden and crafted that when its truth is revealed, you are left gob smacked with your jaw on the floor and your eyes filling with tears. It is so powerful. So emotional. What an ending, what a lesson taught.
Paul Mescal as Calum is so earnest as the father to his daughter Sophie, played by Frankie Corio. With the movie being told from her point of view, we see how she interprets the crucial moments they have together. The lasting memories that she won’t and can’t forget.
Aftersun is deeply personal, and if you think you’ve got something working over the first two acts, then just wait till you see the doorway to the full story Charlotte Wells is telling.
STANKO RATING: A
1. Top Gun: Maverick
I still have the need, the need for speed. Top Gun: Maverick somehow worked better than anyone could have hoped, churning out unbelievable box office success alongside critical praise.
Tom Cruise is pitching heat right down the dickens at every moment. Ed Harris, Charles Parnell, John Hamm, and Miles Teller do their best to toss fire back, but you just have to let Cruise cook in the nostalgia stew he has created visually. Let’s be real, the only one who could tame cruise in Maverick Is Jennfer Connelly. When she left the door open, I gasped.
No other movie from 2022 have I rewatched in snippets more than Maverick. It is an achievement with the amount of work they put in with the arial work, and it’s even more of an achievement from a crowd-pleasing standpoint.
No one, and I mean no one had, or has, a bad time watching Top Gun: Maverick.
STANKO RATING: A-
Ranking NBR’s Top Movies From 2014
Ranking NBR’s Top Movies From 2015
Rankings NBR’s Top Movies From 2022
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