Never done this before on the site, but I have seen these rankings going around and it seemed like fun, so let’s give it a try. We need to do something while we wait for voting to begin and the awards picture to come into focus. Just to be clear, this is not a ranking of what I think has the best chance to win the Oscar for Best Picture – that will come a little later – but instead, this is a rundown of my personal preferences among the nominees. Which are the best and worst films in the lineup?
Half of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture this year made my personal top 10 list, so all in all, I would call this an excellent year for the Academy Awards. Among the five that did not make my top, I consider three high-quality entertainments, one an odd little misfire, and one a truly baffling inclusion. So, let’s start there.
2022 Best Picture nominees ranked:
10. Elvis, directed by Baz Luhrmann
If you can say anything about Luhrmann, it is that he takes big swings. Elvis is a huge swing, but apart from Austin Butler’s truly wonderful leading performance, it is also a huge miss. The director has made just six features in a 30-year film career. This is his first in nine years, dating back to a mostly ill-conceived Great Gatsby adaptation in 2013. In that time, his filmmaking style has not mellowed. If anything, Elvis finds Luhrmann at his most frenzied, swinging his camera to and fro, cutting the narrative to ribbons, and encouraging the hammiest villain performance this side of a Bond movie.
Remarkably, this is not the most maximalist film in the lineup this year (that would be the next movie up on this list), but it is the one putting all that effort in service of a story that never seems that interested in digging deeper than the surface. Butler is the only person in this enterprise determined to pull reality from the clutches of Luhrmann’s glitzy extravagance, and his Best Actor nomination is well deserved. Following closely on the heels of Bohemian Rhapsody (overhated) and Rocketman (overpraised), this biopic has nothing new to say about the form or its subject.
9. Everything Everywhere All at Once, directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Here we go: the most critically acclaimed film of the year, the most nominated film at this year’s Oscars, and the most beloved movie on the film literate side of the internet. It is not for me. As I said in my piece on nominations morning, I am pleased for anyone who finds joy in this film’s success, particularly those people who see themselves in this story of immigrant parents and familial reconciliation. This is a film that makes people feel seen, and that is a wonderful thing. I just don’t think it’s a very successful movie.
Why not? There is no in-world logic to the story, which makes its universe-hopping seem haphazard and beside the point. The emotional beats are overplayed and underbaked – we’re going to save the universe with the power of a hug! – and don’t hold up under scrutiny. The wild mix of tones also means that even if the emotional beats had been better executed, they still wouldn’t land because you can’t go from a slow-motion sex toy gag to a poignant mother-daughter moment and expect us to care. The editing will probably win the Oscar, and there sure is a lot of it, but it’s mostly just exhausting.
Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan are wonderful performers, doing the most with what they are given, and if there is any real emotion in the film, it is because of them. But even they cannot rescue this nuance-free slog of a film that feels much longer than its ridiculous 2-hour, 20-minute runtime. If this movie wins Best Picture – and it is the frontrunner right now – good for everyone involved, but it would be the winner I like the least since at least the one-two punch of Chicago and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
8. Top Gun: Maverick, directed by Joseph Kosinski
This movie is a lot of fun. In a manner of speaking, it saved movie theaters by not only becoming a surprise hit but by becoming one of the highest-grossing films in the history of cinema. Tom Cruise, personal life aside, re-established himself as one of the 10 biggest stars in the last 50 years of film. Each action sequence is beautifully choreographed and executed by Kosinski and his team. There are even some quality character moments and callbacks to the original film.
All of that said, this is a silly Best Picture nominee. This is an enjoyable action picture that is being given a lot of credit for “blowing stuff up real good,” as Roger Ebert once put it. Everything you need to know about this movie is in the scene when Tom Cruise goes rogue to prove the impossible mission (see what I did there?) is in fact possible. The pilots he is meant to be training sit back and watch him perform cool stunts on a screen. They are us. When they cheer, we are meant to cheer. When they are on the edge of their seats, we are meant to be on the edge of ours. It all works perfectly well as a microcosm of the Top Gun: Maverick experience. It happened. It was fun. Then the feeling fades, like a vapor trail, into nothing.
7. Avatar: The Way of Water, directed by James Cameron
On any given day, I could probably swap this with Top Gun: Maverick on this list. Seven-eight. Eight-seven. They are not that far apart in terms of intent, though maybe a little further apart in terms of execution. But, that’s not really fair to Joseph Kosinski to compare what he can do behind a camera to what Cameron can do. Overall, Avatar: The Way of Water is probably equally if not more silly than Maverick, but there is a throwback nature to Cameron’s film that makes the silliness feel of a piece with the experience rather than an embarrassing side element.
In roughly 125 years of film history, Pandora is probably the most fully realized fictional universe ever. Cameron’s dedication to making these movies is so single-minded and maniacal that you are almost required to sit back and applaud the mere fact that he did it. The crazy sonuvabitch did it. There are sequences in this film that you have never seen before from both a technical achievement level and an aesthetic beauty level. The storytelling, well, that has never been Cameron’s strong suit. But when everything else is this impressive, it’s almost beside the point. Good for him, and bring on Avatar 3.
6. The Fabelmans, directed by Steven Spielberg
This is the 13th film Spielberg has directed to garner a Best Picture nomination, tied for the most ever with William Wyler. There are so many that even Spielberg’s Best Picture nominees could be broken down into tiers of quality. Two or three are in the running for Greatest American Films Ever Made (Jaws, Schindler’s List, and depending on your proclivities, ET: The Extra-terrestrial). The next level down are the stone-cold classics like Saving Private Ryan and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then, you have the hall of the merely very good, including Lincoln, The Post, and War Horse. The Color Purple is on its own in the bottom tier and probably best ignored.
So, where does The Fabelmans rank? For my money, it is merely very good, which is not intended as a knock on the film. Spielberg’s “very good” is better than a lot of directors’ best. The filmmaker does hold the audience’s hand a little too much through the movie, and Michelle Williams’ character has the more interesting story compared to the one we actually follow of little Sammy Fabelman and his love of cinema. It is to Spielberg’s credit that he is willing to go to some of the darker, thornier places that this movie goes, but the story lacks the thematic weight of his best films.
5. All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Edward Berger
I said most of what I need to say about this and the next four movies on the list in my Top 10 Films of 2022 feature, so I will keep these brief. Berger’s war picture, which takes more than a little inspiration from Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, is a stunning achievement on virtually every level. It remains exciting that the Academy continues to embrace foreign-language films in the top categories as this is the fifth consecutive year a film not primarily in English has been nominated for the top prize. All Quiet on the Western Front is a wonderfully deserving link in that chain.
4. Triangle of Sadness, directed by Ruben Östlund
Östlund doesn’t miss. The two Palmes d’Or on his mantle should be proof enough of that. There is a meme that goes around the internet every now and then asking what the best three-film run of all time might be. Impossible to answer with any certainty, but it’s a fun thought exercise. Maybe Östlund’s would not be the first name to come to mind, but his current run of Force Majeure, The Square, and Triangle of Sadness belongs in the conversation. With each successive film, the director’s blade only gets sharper, and I can’t wait to see what target he points it at next.
3. TÁR, directed by Todd Field
I am going to have to write about Field and this film a few more times this Oscars season, and that makes me very happy, but it also makes me a little wary of repeating myself. How to sing the praises of a missing master over and over without sounding a little obsessive? The truth is I probably am a tad obsessed with figuring out how Field is able to do the things he does with a camera, with an actor, with the words on a page. It boggles the mind, and sometimes, I just sit back and try to appreciate the fact that we got another movie from the guy.
2. The Banshees of Inisherin, directed by Martin McDonagh
There will be a lot to say about Colin Farrell, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, and Brendan Gleeson when their categories come up during this series, but this has to be one of the greatest ensemble performances of this century – perhaps matched only by the next film on this list. If asked to describe what makes a great performance, I would point to the way each of these actors navigates the nuances and subtleties of McDonagh’s prose, translating the beautiful text into real, lived-in characters. It is one of the hardest things in film, and these performers make it look effortless.
1. Women Talking, directed by Sarah Polley
This was my No. 1 film of the year, so yes, of course it tops this list, too. Four times my favorite film of the year went on to win Best Picture, most recently Parasite in 2019. This is unlikely to be the fifth in that club, but that’s okay. The nomination is fine recognition of Polley’s incomparable achievement, though one wishes it had more general support for its perfect cast, gorgeous cinematography, haunting score, and of course its director. At the end of the day, we are lucky to have this film, and for that, we owe Polley more than any award could represent.
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