Fionnuala Halligan is Screen’ s executive editor for reviews and new talent.
Read our other critics’ top tens here.
Top 10
1. Aftersun
Dir. Charlotte Wells
Wells’s lament for young parenthood is such a limber, layered and fresh debut it immediately became the must-see film at Cannes. A second viewing proves it has not been over-praised and is, in fact, all the richer when you surrender and stop fighting the narrative for answers that don’t exist — onscreen, or in life. This heart-melting debut sees the Scottish director give it her all, but she also knows when to pull back and leave the viewer in silent contemplation. At its heart is love, loss and two exceptional performances from newcomer Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal, who continues to impress in his talent and the choices he makes.
2. No Bears
Dir. Jafar Panahi
Panahi’s meta parable is a layered and deceptively complex piece about what it means to be free, featuring a director (played by Panahi himself) shooting a film-within-a-film while under house arrest. Needs must technically, but the digital image is pleasingly crisp as Panahi’s room subtly tilts around him.
3. Women Talking
Dir. Sarah Polley
This could have been a play (it started out as a novel), but now it’s most emphatically a film. Polley’s confident staging of a charged debate between women about their violent oppressors — who happen to be their own husbands and children — takes place mostly in a barn where a roster of actors work together and separately to charge every minute with danger and drama.
4. The Quiet Girl
Dir. Colm Bairéad
Another remarkable debut with a child’s experiences at its core. Working with cinematographer Kate McCullough, Bairéad turns his Irish-language adaptation of Claire Keegan’s novella into a summer for all the senses.
5. The Banshees Of Inisherin
Dir. Martin McDonagh
The juxtaposition of the sunny beauty of a Westernmost Irish island with the darkness at its heart is deftly handled by McDonagh. It might be tempting to focus on the sharp and funny screenplay but there’s much more at work here, especially from actors Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan — and Jenny the donkey, of course.
6. Top Gun: Maverick
Dir. Joseph Kosinski
7. The Swimmers
Dir. Sally El Hosaini
8. Alcarràs
Dir. Carla Simon
9. All The Beauty And The Bloodshed
Dir. Laura Poitras
10. Close
Dir. Lukas Dhont
Best documentary
1. A House Made Of Splinters
Dir. Simon Lereng Wilmont
Lereng Wilmont’s film goes back to east Ukraine post-2014 invasion, and four orphans from ‘splintered’ families who are sheltered for nine months, after which they must go to a state institution if they are not ‘reclaimed’. Heartbreaking and tender; a hard but essential watch.
2. Nothing Compares
Dir. Kathryn Ferguson
God bless Sinead O’Connor, for all she did, and all she tried to do. A powerful documentary about a talented and sensitive woman who dared to be different and called the world out for what it was. Pilloried mercilessly at the time, her sense of justice endured and her restless spiritual quest is more understood than mocked in this standout Sundance documentary.
3. Navalny
Dir. Daniel Roher
Plays like a thriller, only Putin’s Russia as documented here is very real, and very, very scary. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny isn’t afraid, though, even as he delivers himself into evil.
Performance of the year
Cate Blanchett in TÁR
Dir. Todd Field
The (happy) problem with the 2022 acting categories is that they’re not even a question: Blanchett has blown the competition away with her phenomenal performance as a powerful, narcissistic conductor in TÁR, crowding out Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once or Vicky Krieps in Corsage. She casts shade over the male actors too — although, as some bodies still separate the categories, it’s a tie for me between Colin Farrell in The Banshees Of Inisherin and Paul Mescal for Aftersun.
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