I’m struck by how many of my 2022 picks deal with relationships in extremis: a love story disguised as a Hitchcockian murder mystery, a long friendship gone suddenly surreally awry, an unlikely romance that unfolds on a sub-zero train journey, a married couple whose shared obsession with mortality is piqued by a toxic dust cloud, a father-daughter bond that’s finally understood through the prism of bitter-sweet memory.
It’s as if all the conflict and uncertainty in the world is being reflected in these personal stories; there even seems a correspondence between a costume drama about a queen trying to resist her suffocating, male-controlled royal image, and a journalistic procedural concerning the spark of the #MeToo movement. And while we’re all struggling to cling onto a sense of self in troubled times, who better than David Bowie to inspire us to be creative, and to be brave?
1. Aftersun
2. She Said
3. Decision to Leave
4. Compartment No. 6
5. The Banshees of Inisherin
6. White Noise
7. Corsage
8. Moonage Daydream
9. Official Competition
10. The Batman