Michael Mann Ferrari disguises the fissures of masculinity in the typical rhythms of biographical fare, but the sheer amount of texture and feeling hidden between the lines — and within Adam Driver’s craggy, steely performance — is staggering. Intimate, somber failings juxtaposed with screeching banshee metal and spitfire ambition, their non-reconciliation a feature and not a bug: a full-blooded film years in the making. Minor spoilers ahead…

In 2013, filmmaker Anthony Chen’s first feature, Ilo Ilo, won the coveted Caméra d’Or at Cannes. Centered around the inseparable bond between a 10-year-old Singaporean boy and his Filipina nanny, Chen’s full-length debut deployed a specific lens — a family weathering the 1997 Asian financial crisis — to tell a universal story exploring the nooks and crannies of our shared humanity. Flash forward to exactly a decade later, Chen makes his triumphant return to Cannes (in the Un Certain Regard section) with The Breaking Ice, a moving, humanist snapshot of China’s lost youths told through a ships-in-the-night friendship.

John Wick has always been the action franchise of the decade, but Chad Stahelski’s Chapter 4 is next level: the type of exhilarating, metal-as-hell ballet of bullets that blows the doors off action filmmaking. There hasn’t been a take-your-breath-away feast for genre fans like this since Mad Max: Fury Road or The Raid. Minor spoilers ahead…

Every single Evil Dead movie is a bloody, gruesome delight, and now the tradition continues with Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise. A decade after a deadly-serious reboot turned the franchise on its head, this new installment finds a bond between sisters shredded by a disgusting waltz of Deadites, guts, and gore. Alyssa Sutherland brings her A-game as a twisted, cackling fiend: a physical performance for the ages. Minor spoilers ahead…

Michael B. Jordan marks his confident and kinetic directorial debut with Creed III. Carving a propulsive parallel to Adonis Creed’s journey to cement his legacy, Jordan sheds the Rocky franchise DNA by charting his own path of blistering performances, formal verve, and anime-inspired showdowns. An electrifying tempest of fists and sweat, Creed III fully transcends what could have been a journeyman effort. Jonathan Majors is astonishing. Minor spoilers ahead…

Brandon Cronenberg follows up his 2020 sci-fi stunner Possessor with another carnival of grotesque delights in Infinity Pool. Conducting a brand new phantasmagoria of bloody satire and goopy violence, the younger Cronenberg pushes stars Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth to uproarious new extremes. It’s a sick blast. Minor spoilers ahead…

After two-plus years floundering in the pandemic, it seems that the film industry is finally regaining its legs. This year, Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water blasted off, the Daniels’ multiverse-hopping stunner Everything Everywhere All at Once was the sleeper hit of the year, and old masters in their late eras such as Steven Spielberg and David Cronenberg returned in top form. It might have been harder than ever to whittle down a top ten in 2022, but it was an absolute delight to journey through the year’s cinema. Here are my 10 favorite movies of 2022, along with some honorable mentions:

The superstar team of Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner, and Janusz Kaminski ripping another one out of the park is the least surprising development at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The entirety of Spielberg’s being splashed upon the big screen, The Fabelmans sidesteps the treacly sentimentality of your typical autobiography to deliver a moving form of self-therapy: the legendary director’s heart and soul, delivered through his masterful craft. The Fabelmans is Spielberg’s most personal film, and one of the year’s best. Minor spoilers ahead…

Ryan Coogler pulls it out of the fire with the overstuffed, gorgeously wrenching Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. A powerful tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman combined with Marvel myth-making at its most thoughtful, the film admirably attempts to fill an irreparable void left by its star’s untimely passing. Wakanda Forever strikes sometimes delicate, sometimes clumsy balance between an all-caps comic book movie and an intimate tour through the stages of grief. Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, and Tenoch Huerta are the most formidable trifecta Marvel has seen in years. Minor spoilers ahead…

“The closer you look, the harder you fall.” Park Chan-wook cross-pollinates a police procedural with a swooning, femme fatale romance and it’s every bit as good as you think it will be. Swirling around two lost souls navigating a web of murder, deceit, and desire to desperately cling to their perverse affair, Decision to Leave is a sensual puzzle box — and one of the year’s best films. Tang Wei is sensational. Minor spoilers ahead…

Director Martin McDonagh reunites with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin, a darkly comedic portrait of an imploding friendship amidst mounting pettiness. Men and their decimated kinships unraveled upon the screen, richly textured and frequently uproarious, it’s McDonagh at his best as he explores evaporating bonds, crushing loneliness, and enmity in grotesque escalation. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are unsurprisingly in top form in what will likely be my favorite film of the year. Minor spoilers ahead…

Welcome to my dispatch from this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. As usual, I won’t be writing full reviews of everything I see at the festival, but there are plenty of notable films in this year’s slate that deserve attention. Here are the capsule reviews for 2022’s TIFF: Devotion, The Whale, My Policeman, and Sick. Minor spoilers ahead…

Detective Benoît Blanc is back in another intricate whodunit in Rian Johnson’s sprawling sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. A new location, a new mystery, and a new cabal of suspicious, bumbling elites are at the center of yet another murder, and it’s up to the world-renowned gumshoe to solve the case. Glass Onion is frantic and far from the airtight elegance of its predecessor, but Johnson’s wit and craft remain electrifyingly. Frequently surprising, frequently uproarious, this is one mystery you won’t want revealed ahead of time. Minor spoilers ahead…

The secrets to Zach Cregger’s Barbarian have been closely guarded since its premiere at San Diego Comic-Con in July, and for good reason: There are some nasty tricks hiding in this basement. Gore-hounds and squirm-fiends with appetites for sick thrills will have a great time with the film’s surprisingly funny descent into madness, but Barbarian’s fizzling atmosphere and payoffs make it this year’s not-quite-Malignant. Minor spoilers ahead…

Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey is an absolute corker. The latest installment in a flagging franchise, the film weaponizes its simple formula into a sleek, sci-fi action missile. With powder keg tension, gnarly kills, and a formidable Amber Midthunder as a Comanche huntress facing off against a hi-tech alien foe, Prey is living proof that bigger isn’t always better. Minor spoilers ahead…

Action maestro David Leitch (John Wick, Deadpool, Atomic Blonde) returns with Bullet Train, a mile-a-minute, star-studded bloodbath. It’s a bombastic actioner that coasts by on kinetic fisticuffs and spectacular carnage, but not even Brad Pitt’s charisma nor Leitch’s eye for brutal violence can save it from its hollow Tarantino pastiche and its excruciatingly unfunny attempts at cleverness. Minor spoilers ahead…

A sprawling, sci-fi procedural anchored by weighty performances, white-knuckle set pieces, and thunderous soundscapes, Nope is director Jordan Peele’s most mature and layered work, exploring our primordial obsession with spectacle and our desperate need to capture it. A slowly unfolding puzzle box that is as alluring as it is exhilarating, Peele assembles his formidable image-making around what he knows best: terror and wit. Minor spoilers ahead…

Detonating its staid biopic formula with supernova movie star Austin Butler and lunatic, maximalist filmmaking, Baz Luhrmann — with maniacal glee — paints an irresistible portrait of a tortured artist. You won’t learn anything from Elvis you can’t glean from the skim of a Wikipedia page, but its boilerplate, breakneck procession is upended by hair-raising voltage and an astonishing capture of The King’s mythic charisma. Minor spoilers ahead…