The new year has come, which means awards season speculation and Best-Of lists run rampant before the cycle begins all over again, albeit a little belatedly this year (we needed a break!) Sundance starts next week, the Festival moving online/virtual again this year with the surge in post-holiday Omicron cases. In some ways, the Oscar game often kicks off in Park City, unofficially, critically acclaimed titles like “Coda,” often first making their mark on a potential awards run. Film lovers are usually still trying to catch up on everything they missed while all this is happening, and the movies keep coming and coming.
READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2021
With that said — and sorry to overwhelm your watchlists further — there are always several films we caught at festivals the prior year which aren’t released until the next. Things also can get muddy and confusing with titles like “A Hero” or “The Worst Person in the World,” which only got small qualifying runs, but technically, neither have had an official U.S. release date; after all, cinephiles and civilians should be able to enjoy these movies too. So, we always like to try and spotlight a few more movies that we believe are worthy of your attention in the coming months. So here’s our list of the Best Films Of 2022 We’ve Already Seen, aka, a compendium of the film festival hits we saw in 2021 that should be arriving to U.S. shores later this year. Released dates listed where applicable, but most aren’t available yet.
READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2022
“After Yang”
Enormous admirers of essayist turned filmmaker Kogonada’s masterful debut film, “Columbus,” “After Yang,” was one of the best movies we saw at Cannes last year. A humanist sci-fi tale about a world affected by the advent of ‘technosapiens,’ the movie follows a father (Colin Farrell) struggling to repair his family’s robot babysitter, Yang (Justin H. Min), who has become a caretaker to Farrell’s adopted Asian daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). Adapted from Alexander Weinstein’s short story “Saying Goodbye To Yang” (from the outstanding collection, Children of the New World), “After Yang” is like a cross between Philip K. Dick and Yasujiro Ozu, “a soulful and heartbreaking meditation on impermanence full of poignant wonder and riches of human grace.” Review by Rodrigo Perez
“Another World”
Starring the mighty Vincent Lindon, who gave one of the year’s finest performances in “Titane,” Stéphane Brizé’s “Another World” is the third film the director has made—following “The Measure of a Man” (which won Lindon a Best Actor prize at Cannes) and “At War”—to “make expert use of [the actor].” Describing it as the conclusion to “an unofficial trilogy on contemporary economic relations,” Brizé’s movies “[require Lindon] to slip into three entirely different positions on the economic ladder with naturalistic ease. Following turns as a downcast laborer and fiery union organizer, “Another World” casts Lindon as an industrial middle manager.” One of the best films we saw at Venice, after his turn in the Palme d’Or winning, chameleonic horror flick “Titane,” Lindon is an artist whose casting always piques our interest. – Review by Marshall Shaffer
“Benediction”
Following up his Emily Dickinson biopic “A Quiet Passion,” period romanticist Terence Davies returns in top form with “Benediction.” Beginning in World War I, Davies’ newest tells the story of poet Siegfried Sassoon, who befriends a fellow creative after being hospitalized. Starring Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi as Sassoon—depending on the time period—“Benediction” has just about everything going for it that has brought its director much success in the past. “Despite LGBTQ+ themes being explored in his earlier works, [it’s] is the queerest film the publicly gay Davies has made to date,” we noted in our review. “Considering how rarely gay relationships in this period are explored, it’s a welcome addition to the director’s cinematic legacy. – Review by Gregory Ellwood
“Costa Brava, Lebanon”
Mounia Akl’s magical realism-tinged debut “Costa Brava, Lebanon,” comfortably occupies a space between “Beasts of the Southern Wild” [and] “Honeyland”: Each movie deals with environmental dilemmas, ranging from climate change to the loss of biodiversity, but in their own ways and [with] their own approaches.” “Costa Brava, Lebanon” follows the Badri family, who escaped the amoral fires of Beirut’s political conflicts eight years prior, settling down at a relative’s farmhouse. Now, government authorities have laid claim to their property and want to turn it into a landfill. Soon forced to side against their own family members, “Costa Brava, Lebanon” puts its characters on equal footing and then keeps them grounded even in the film’s most dreamlike moments. [It’s]a feat worth celebrating as much as this is a film worth savoring.” – Review by Andrew Crump
“Cow”
Andrea Arnold has always had a particular penchant for ragged works of neo-realism (“Fish Tank,” “American Honey), and her keen sense of love and understanding–one of the things that makes her such an indispensable voice in today’s cinematic landscape–finds itself fully blossoming in the director’s documentary, “Cow.” “Entirely shot at cow level,” the film follows a year in the life of a cow named Muna after giving birth to a baby calf. One of our favorite titles from Cannes last year, a [different filmmaker] film might have used judicious editing to manufacture reactions of despair from its bovine protagonists. Arnold, however, stays so close to the mother and daughter that it soon becomes clear there are no montage tricks at play here.” Review by Elena Lazic