50 Best Movies of 2022 Ranked (and Where to Watch Them All)

50 Best Movies of 2022 Ranked (and Where to Watch Them All)

Ghezal Amiri
Ghezal Amiri

Published on June 15, 2023

Updated on August 28, 2023

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 Germany'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.

A middle-aged Chinese immigrant is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led.
Two lifelong friends find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship, with alarming consequences for both of them.
A cash-strapped documentary maker decides to make his newest documentary about a mollusk shell he finds living in his Airbnb with his friends.

04

Happening
Happening

Happening

2021

France, 1963. Anne is a bright young student with a promising future ahead of her. But when she falls pregnant, she sees the opportunity to finish her studies and escape the constraints of her social background disappearing. With her final exams fast approaching and her belly growing, Anne resolves to act, even if she has to confront shame and pain, even if she must risk prison to do so.

05

Burning Days
With the mayoral election approaching, the newly-appointed state prosecutor of a small town suffering from a water supply crisis gradually descends into trouble after a young local woman is raped.

06

Aftersun
Aftersun

Aftersun

2022

Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.

07

Argentina, 1985
A team of lawyers takes on the heads of Argentina's bloody military dictatorship during the 1980s in a battle against odds and a race against time.

08

Heojil kyolshim
A detective investigating a man's death in the mountains meets the dead man's mysterious wife in the course of his dogged sleuthing.
Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for adventure has taken its toll: He has burned through eight of his nine lives, leaving him with only one life left. Puss sets out on an epic journey to find the mythical Last Wish and restore his nine lives.

10

Till
Till

Till

2022

In 1955, after Emmett Till is murdered in a brutal lynching, his mother vows to expose the racism behind the attack while working to have those involved brought to justice.

About this list

Titles

50

Total Watch Cost

$75.82

Total Watch Time

99h 19min

Genres

Drama, Comedy, Mystery & Thriller

Where can I watch this list online?

Find out which streaming services have the most titles from this list below.

There are 50 titles in this list and you can watch 10 of them on Kanopy. 43 other streaming services also have titles available to stream today.

  1. 10 titles Kanopy
  2. 8 titles Netflix
  3. 8 titles Netflix Standard with Ads
  4. 7 titles YouTube TV
  5. 7 titles Disney Plus