This list is compiled by the Guardian film team, with all films released in the US during 2022 in contention. Check in every weekday to see our next picks, and please share your own favourite films of 2022 in the comments below.
50
Bros
Billy Eichner’s ribald romcom, produced by Judd Apatow, saw two gay men struggling with commitment and heteronormative expectations and was heralded as being a groundbreaking queer first within the straight and strait-laced studio system. But, stake-claiming aside, it is also genuinely funny and insightful. Read the full review
49
Broker
Hirokazu Kore-eda enlisted Parasite’s Song Kang-ho for a rich and emotionally persuasive drama about two friends stealing babies from outside a church and selling them on the adoption parallel market. Read the full review
48
Top Gun: Maverick
Tom Cruise returns almost four decades on for another bout of speed and need: this time he is the mentor to a new generation of navy fighter pilots, led by Miles Teller, playing the son of Maverick’s late wingman, Goose. Read the full review
47
Paris, 13th District
The latest film from Rust and Bone director Jacques Audiard, here putting together a short story collection of sexual encounters and relationships in Paris’ 13th arrondissement, shot in tough black-and-white. Read the full review
46
Holy Spider
Border director Ali Abbasi returned to the Cannes film festival this year with a shocking act of provocation. A grisly thriller loosely based on the true story of a serial killer targeting women in Mashhad, it caused controversy in Iran but won Zar Amir Ebrahimi the lead actress prize at the festival. Read the full review
45
Happening
Golden Lion-winning abortion drama, more relevant than ever, from director Audrey Diwan; a study of a woman (played by Anamaria Vartolomei) who becomes pregnant in early 60s, pre-legalisation France. Read the full review
44
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Entertaining second dose of Rian Johnson’s labyrinthine crime mystery, with Daniel Craig on good form as Hercule Poirot-esque detective Benoit Blanc, here investigating a murder-themed party that turns deadly. Read the full review
43
Vortex
Split-screen dementia drama from Argentine provocateur Gaspar Noé, starring Dario Argento and Françoise Lebrun as an elderly couple whose lives are dogged by the latter’s cognitive decline. Read the full review
42
The Woman King
Stirring period epic, starring Viola Davis as the leader of the Agojie, a brigade of female warriors in west Africa, who are attempting to see off threats from the Oyo empire as well as from slave-buying colonialists. Read the full review
41
Brian and Charles
David Earl and Chris Hayward’s story of an inventor’s relationship with his creation blends Caractacus Potts with Victor Frankenstein to heartwarming effect. Read the full review
