2022 saw the comeback of major box office success following two years of struggling returns. With a diverse mix of heart-pumping action, touching dramas, majorly anticipated sequels, remarkable foreign films, and all that’s in between, the year truly featured something for everyone. The first half of the year contained a number of familiar franchises returning to full capacity theaters including Hotel Transylvania:Transformania, Scream, Jackass Forever, The Batman, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Jurassic World Dominion. The sequel to 1986’s Top Gun with Top Gun: Maverick became the second highest grossing film of the year behind another long-awaited sequel mentioned soon. The franchises did not slow down as the year progressed as seen with such titles as Minions: The Rise of Gru, Thor: Love and Thunder, Halloween Ends, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Disenchanted, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and the release to end all releases, over ten years in the making, Avatar: The Way of Water.
Sprinkled throughout the year were family-friendly titles with Turning Red, Lightyear, Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, DC League of Super-Pets, Strange World and two releases of Pinocchio with Robert Zemeckis’ straight-to-Disney+ rendition and Guillermo del Toro's Academy Award winning version. There were a number of phenomenal female-led films as well including Michelle Yeoh’s Oscar winning performance in Everything,Everywhere All at Once, Viola Davis in The Woman King, Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till in Till, Cate Blanchett in Tár and Angela Bassett in Wakanda Forever, just to name a few. Foreign films also dominated with critics and audiences alike with such titles as 's war drama All Quiet on the Western Front,South Korea's romance/mystery Decision to Leave, Ireland's coming-of-age drama The Quiet Girl, Argentina's historical legal drama Argentia, 1985, India's epic action drama RRR, Poland's drama EO, and Belgium's coming-of-age drama Close. 2022 overall had an incredible array of films to choose from regardless of preferred genre. Here are 50 of the best movies of the year and where to find them.
