No Cops No Bosses
A revolutionary guide to the best films of 2022
For the best revolutionary films from previous years, see my lists for 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and earlier. Also, check out my list of the best revolutionary films of all time. You can also follow my film reviews through the year on Letterboxd. And if you have an account on Medium, it helps me if you follow my page. Also, I won’t put my own work on this list, but I hope you saw Powerlands this year.
This list is written from an unapologetically anticapitalist perspective. That doesn’t mean every film meets the same political criteria, but it does mean that I look for great art that also challenges colonialism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, ableism, and the prison industrial complex, as well as films that uplift visions of the better world that is possible. I try to keep the reviews short, and avoid spoilers.
A few years ago, my list was almost entirely films I saw in the theater. There is now less space for theatrical releases of films that don’t feature franchises or superheroes. Despite the expanding universe of streaming services, it is still hard to find independent stories and filmmakers who take chances. I hope this list helps you find a film you may have otherwise missed.
Here are the 2022 films that gave me hope and inspiration:
Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s Neptune Frost is a unique and ambitious afrofuturist musical. It is poetic, musical, genderqueer, anti-colonial, and anti-corporate. After Yang, by South Korean filmmaker Kogonada, is moody, smart, atmospheric science fiction. If you love the dystopian body horror and alienation of David Cronenberg films like Dead Ringers, Videodrome, eXistenZ, or Naked Lunch, then you may love Crimes of the Future, a return to his roots. Gender dysphoria is a subtle theme of nonbinary filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a moody and mysterious journey through an adolescent’s online life.
Going into Fire Island, a loose adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, I expected a sweet gay romcom with POC representation. But Andrew Ahn’s new film also contains a sharp analysis around race, class and gender. This year’s other big gay romcom, Bros, is funnier than Fire Island, but not as deep.
Sinéad O’Connor was ahead of her time, and was punished for it, as well as for being an outspoken young woman. Kathryn Ferguson’s documentary Nothing Compares beautifully re-examines the early years of O’Connor’s career.
Amber Midthunder was great in the TV show Legion and is spectacular in Prey. I’m not generally interested in Predator spinoffs, but I appreciate how they rethought the series as a story of Indigenous resistance. Although I didn’t love Bodies Bodies Bodies, a clever horror satire that takes aim at Gen Z culture, I was never bored. One of two fun class struggle satires this year (see my list for the other), Mark Mylod’s The Menu is an original and sharp treat.
Dina Amer’s You Resemble Me is a feminist examination of a French Muslim girl failed by multiple systems. Patriarchy is the real killer in Ali Abbasi’s serial killer drama, Holy Spider, based on true events in Iran’s second largest city. Luckiest Girl Alive, directed by Mike Barker and based on Jessica Knoll’s adaptation of her own novel, explores trauma recovery and which victims are believed. Aftersun, the first feature by Charlotte Wells, is a subtle, smart, and quietly moving drama about a young girl whose father is trying to parent while wrestling with his own demons. Julian Higgins’ God’s Country is a smart and moody thriller, beautifully shot, though its use of Hurricane Katrina as a plot point feels unearned.
And my top 20:
20) Too few US films tell the stories of working class lives and struggles, and To Leslie gets a lot right in its story of a woman struggling with alcoholism. The performances are excellent in veteran TV director Michael Morris’ first feature. Not just from Andrea Riseborough (who was nominated for an academy award for this role), but also surprising turns from Marc Maron, Stephen Root, and Allison Janney.
19) The Janes, Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin’s documentary about Chicago’s pre-Roe underground abortion services is a crucial story, especially at this moment, when we are about to need many more Janes.
18) With The Woman King, Gina Prince-Bythewood constructed a rousing epic of African resistance to colonialism with powerful performances by Viola Davis and Thuso Mbedu.
17) Nikyatu Jusu’s first feature, Nanny, was released by Blumhouse (the producer of horror franchises like Paranormal Activity and The Purge), but it’s actually a quiet psychological drama about a Senegalese immigrant working for a Manhattan couple. Beautiful and poetic more than frightening (though there are some scares), the film is a thoughtful debut rooted in West African folklore while critiquing exploitative systems of the underground economy and immigration.
16) Olivia Wilde’s feminist dystopia Don’t Worry Darling received bad reviews and distracting behind the scenes gossip that prevented a lot of people from seeing it. It’s a shame, because it’s a smart, original, angry, and timely response to the current right wing attacks on women.
15) Horror is not my favorite genre, but Zach Cregger’s Barbarian delivers originality, non-stop thrills, and an excellent lead performance by Georgina Alice Campbell. As an abolitionist, the films’ depiction of the uselessness of the cops and cravenness of landlords offers an added bonus.
14) I’m biased toward Edward Buckles, Jr’s Katrina Babies. This is a very New Orleans film, and I saw it in an audience that included the friends and family of the filmmakers. Everyone in New Orleans knows that Katrina has left scars on a generation of young people, but Buckles helped this message reach beyond our city.
13) An all-POC cast and classic punk soundtrack bring life to Henry Selick’s beautiful animated supernatural tale Wendell and Wild, about a community resisting construction of a prison (as well as demons and zombies).
12) Too many of us didn’t know the history of the Alabama roots of the Black Power Movement, making Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power a crucial work.
11) I’m glad I didn’t know much about Nope before seeing Jordan Peele’s science fiction film. It kept me thinking afterwards about the ways in which it’s a film about filmmaking, about being the subject and object, and about storytelling.
10) Marxist satire will always bring me joy, and Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness is a wild ride. As Rolling Stone wrote, “Östlund’s movies are not designed for you to miss the point.” Examining gender dynamics, the currency of beauty, the obscenity of wealth, and identity politics, this movie may attempt to do too much, but when it hits it destroys.
9) Bantú Mama is another important film from Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing, which is single-handedly keeping great filmmaking like this from slipping through the Hollywood cracks. Assured directing by Ivan Herrera and a powerful lead performance by Clarisse Albrecht, who also co-wrote the screenplay, brings out life on the margins in the Dominican Republic.
8) “It’s a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought with telling the truth,” says the lead character in Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a film with much more class anger and commentary than I expected.
7) I was surprised by the negative reviews Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Bigbug received. If you liked his other films, like Amélie, Delicatessen, or The City of Lost Children, then you will probably love this clever dystopian authoritarian robo-future thriller-satire.
6) If British socialist director Ken Loach made a US thriller, it might look like Emily the Criminal. It’s rare for a US film to be this smart about class. And Aubrey Plaza shows new dimensions of her talent.
5) Steven Soderbergh makes excellent thrillers, and Kimi is one of his best and smartest. The filming perfectly captures the moods and emotions of the 2020 height of the pandemic, anxiety, and techno-paranoia. This is the thriller we all needed for this moment.
4) There are some complicated and regressive politics behind RRR, including problematic Hindu nationalism and patriarchy (there is very little for the women characters to do). But it is also a crowd-pleasing anti-colonial musical action film. The first 90 minutes of S.S. Rajamouli’s over-the top Tollywood hit is basically one stunning, breathtaking, absurd set-piece after another. And it keeps building and surprising.
3) Like the work of artist Nan Goldin, who is at the center of this film, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed focuses on those who have lived and thrived and struggled outside of what society sees as “mainstream.” Laura Poitras’ moving and original film lifts up activism, from ACT-UP to harm reduction, and is quietly abolitionist.
2) Sarah Polley’s Women Talking grapples with power, patriarchy, forgiveness, revenge, complicity, grief and gender in ways that are so wise and thoughtful it raises my bar for what to expect from films. Polley’s screenplay, adapted from a novel by Miriam Toews and based on actual events, explores complicated conversations about accountability in a way with resonance far beyond the film.
1) Not just the best film of the year, but an all time classic. Everything Everywhere All at Once, by the filmmaking duo known as The Daniels, redefines what is possible in cinema. In the space of a minute, it moves organically from hilarious comedy to heartbreaking drama. From thrilling action to healing intergenerational trauma, the film continually tops itself.
