Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: 2022 in films

The Top 6 of the Year

1. Top Gun: Maverick - Joseph Kosinski + Best Action-Drama of the Year + Best American Movie of the Year + Best $ Return of the Year: 8.75 times the cost + Best Mega-hit Movie of the Year + Best On-Screen Couple of the Year: Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly + Most Profitable Movie of the Year: +425.48 mil. $ range

2. Holy Spider - Ali Abbasi + Best Danish Movie of the Year + Best Huge Flop Movie of the Year + Best Political Movie of the Year + Best Poster of the Year + Best Serial Killer Movie of the Year + Best Societal Critique of the Year + Best Thriller of the Year + Best True-Crime of the Year + Most Undeserved Flop of the Year

3. Avatar: The Way of Water - James Cameron + Best 3D Movie of the Year + Best Action-Adventure of the Year + Best Science Fiction of the Year

4. Elvis - Baz Luhrmann + Best Biopic of the Year + Breakthrough of the Year: Austin Butler + Best Music Movie of the Year

5. Bamse - Henrik Ruben Genz + Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Period Movie of the Year

6. Speak No Evil - Christian Tafdrup + Best Horror of the Year

The Bottom of the Year

1. Le Temps des Secrets - Christophe Barratier + Most Expensive Flop of the Year: 8.3 mil. $ + Worst $ Return of the Year: 0.31 times the cost

[7 titles in total]

Notes:

2022 was an abysmal year on several fronts: The China Virus pandemic finally came to an end, only to be taken over by a worse crisis (especially for Europe), as evil dictator Putin's Russia invaded neighboring country Ukraine, with millions of refugees, thousands of deaths, destruction on a massive scale, an inflation and energy crisis and world instability as a direct consequence. Cinemas have felt the downturn in economic tides harshly, although the hardest blow may be the one continually suffered due to the uptick in streaming and social media absorption, all taking away from shared social experiences in theaters. Many cinematic and exciting releases are shoveled off to streamers with cinemas hungering for prestige products week after week, month after month, with a theatrical plate in 2022 that looked decidedly less interesting than in each year in several decades leading up to it.

All this means less trips to the cinemas, and Film Excess only reflects that in only having 7 reviewed theatrical titles ready for the first annual list of the year here. - A number that will hopefully be considerably higher in 2023, preferably nearer to the average 20-30 titles theatrically experiences new titles reviewed in most years.

In spite of the small number, the Top 10 is topped with 2 masterpieces: Joseph Kosinski's genre-dream, a full throttle entertainment bonanza and a career milestone for Tom Cruise and Kosinski, Top Gun: Maverick is the year's best; Ali Abbasi's grueling, angry and important spotlight on Iran's patriarchal Islamist evils Holy Spider takes silver; with James Cameron's sensational return to his Pandora universe with Avatar: The Way of Water grabs bronze. The list goes on with Baz Luhrmann's best picture to date, the opulent music biopic Elvis; Henrik Ruben Genz's funny and stirring music biopic Bamse; and finally Christian Tafdrup's pitch-black horror satire Speak No Evil.

The Bottom list of the year only packs one title, Christophe Barratier's glossy, so-so Le Temps des Secrets, a film destined to leave the list in future editions of the lists, as it really isn't too shabby after all.

The year's many problems are also reflected in a wealth of flops, as much fewer than usual of the year's films reached success theatrically. This will be reflected also on future editions of the lists, as more films are reviewed.

Biggest flops of the year:

[The loss is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing costs and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account]

1. Le Temps des Secrets - 8.3 mil. $ range

2. Speak No Evil - 2.52 mil. $ range

3. Holy Spider - 1.95 mil. $ range

4. Bamse - 1.83 mil. $ range

= Combined losses: 14.6 mil. $

Biggest hits of the year:

[The gain is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing costs and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account]

1. Top Gun: Maverick - 425.48 mil. $ range

2. Elvis - 29.4 mil. $ range

3. Avatar: The Way of Water - 7.08 mil. $ range (and counting)

= Combined profits: 461.96 mil. $ range

2022 titles currently on the watch-list:

Dark Glasses, X, When You Finish Saving the World, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, The Batman, De Forbandede År 2, The Northman, Close, Triangle of Sadness, One Fine Morning, Crimes of the Future, Will-o'-the-Wisp, Jurassic World: Dominion, The Whale, Peter von Kant, Funny Pages, Pearl, Fire of Love, I Love My Dad, The Banshees of Inisherin, Emily the Criminal, Barbarian, The Fabelmans, Moonage Daydream, Freedom on Fire: Ukrain'es Fight for Freedom, Armageddon Time, Tár, Beautiful Beings, Retrograde, Terrifier 2, Blonde, Bones and All, Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

Previous annual lists: