The best movies of 2022, so far
The early months of a year may be a good time for resolutions, renewal, and taking stock of life, but it’s traditionally a pretty paltry time for taking stock of new movies. January and February in particular used to be infamous dumping grounds for studio movies that were expected to underperform, and that weren’t worth promoting. But the streaming era has changed that calculus — a novelty-hungry home-viewing audience doesn’t care as much about the season, and more and more release houses are finding it’s worth slipping interesting movies onto VOD or even bringing them to theaters during a season when they’ll face less competition.
So even though it’s still early in the year, it’s worth beginning the survey of which 2022 releases have excited us most, from big action-adventures to small indie genre movies. Even this early in the year, we’ve seen some standouts.
All entries are in reverse order of release: The most recent releases are first, so it’ll be easy to see the newest additions to this list. We’ll be updating it throughout 2022.
It’s hard to look back fondly at the painfully awkward middle-school years, but Pixar’s Turning Red considers the tumultuous ups and downs of early adolescence without flinching, and with an astonishing amount of love. Domee Shi, who directed 2018’s Pixar short Bao, makes her theatrical debut with this one-of-a-kind movie that envelopes quirky magic, cultural specificity, and most of all, an absolute love for young girlhood in all its messy glory.
Thirteen-year-old Mei discovers that she turns into a gigantic red panda when she’s overwhelmed by strong emotion — a quirk all the women of her family have been burdened with since ancient times. Mei struggles to control the panda just as other
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