(SPOT.ph) The year is 2022. Movies are hitting new strides on streaming and back in cinemas on a regular basis, after years of uncertainty. Moviegoing is looking bigger than ever, as the Marvel film Morbius has made $100 morbillion at the box office, Minions: The Rise of Gru looks on track to sweep all the Academy Awards, and Will Smith continues to be the least problematic and most employed actor in Hollywood. Okay, don't fact-check any of those, except for the fact that movies are back! And we've seen more than a handful of top-quality ones in just the first half of this year alone.
From popular films like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to David Cronenberg's return to body horror in Crimes of the Future, which even Netflix wouldn't release, it's clear we've had an interesting selection of films to choose from this half-year. For this list, we've rounded up movies that you absolutely cannot miss out on, whether it be because of how good they are or how rich the conversation regarding them has the potential to be.
Also read: 10 Exciting Titles Coming to Netflix This July
From the first half of the year, here are the best movies 2022 that you shouldn't miss out on:
RRR
First up is RRR, the film that hit #1 on Netflix Philippines, coincidentally not long after we wrote about how it blew our minds. We're not taking credit, but don't bet against this movie. The film centers on two heroes of the Indian revolution who are initially pitted against each other, only for them to end up the best of friends. It has a rich story about friendship set to the backdrop of bombastic action sequences and breathtaking musical numbers. It's India's most expensive blockbuster and you feel that in every second of its three-hour runtime. Don't be one to miss out on one of the two films this year that are taking the world by storm.
RRR is streaming on Netflix.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The other film that's taking the world by storm this year? The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once. What started off as a relatively low-budget sci-fi/action flick starring Michelle Yeoh has launched into a global phenomenon, as it's still currently rolling out in cinemas worldwide. It's rather fitting for a film that itself starts as a seemingly mundane family drama, before it spirals into multiversal mayhem. Tackling themes of generational trauma and cynicism against an infinite, apathetic multiverse, Everything Everywhere All at Once definitely opens up the door to substantial and nuanced conversations with your friends. Oh, also it has a fight scene with buttplugs.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is currently showing in Philippine cinemas.
The Batman
Robert Pattinson is now our ninth actor to don the cowl as Batman on the big screen (yes, we count Kevin Conroy and Will Arnett) and his take on the Caped Crusader seems just as fresh as it did when Adam West brought Batman: The Movie to life in 1966. Reimagined as a gritty, detective story, The Batman takes us to the darkest depths of Batman's soul, only for it to switch gears and deliver one of the most hopeful superhero endings of recent years. The film explores a Gotham City that feels the most lived-in, as well as the similar minds of Pattinson's Batman and Paul Dano's Riddler, all of which make for a gripping and immersive three-hour experience that DC is not likely to top anytime soon.
The Batman is streaming on HBO Go, iTunes, and Google Play.
Top Gun: Maverick
Of course, the movie that all dads, titos, and titas couldn't stop talking about would make this list. The sequel to the 1986 classic, Top Gun: Maverick is a technical marvel, boasting an incredible, new range of digital photography via fighter jets. Maverick captures the magic of the original, rides off nostalgia for its story beats, but also has Tom Cruise deliver an emotional, retrospective look at who Maverick is and (meta-textually) who Cruise himself is as an entertainer. It still remains as one of the cinematic events of the year, which is impressive, given how most of it is either just Cruise hanging out or making loud grunts from inside a cockpit.
No streaming release date has been given for Top Gun: Maverick yet.
Hustle
Whether you think Michael Jordan, Kobe, or Lebron is the greatest of all-time when it comes to basketball, we can probably all agree that Adam Sandler is the GOAT when it comes to Netflix comedies. For Hustle, however, the Sandman takes on the role of a middle-aged, aspiring assistant coach in what is more of a sports drama. Starring a plethora of NBA players, Hustle follows your typical inspiring underdog story, but is lifted to new heights because of the performances of Sandler and NBA player Juancho Hernangomez, who portrays the Spanish recruit Bo Cruz. There's also a Rocky-style training montage that lasts for about 20 minutes. Honestly, insane.
Hustle is streaming on Netflix.
The Northman
The unique sensibilities of filmmaker Robert Eggers has delivered us the demonic horror film The Witch and The Lighthouse, a homoerotic, 19th century dramedy between Pattinson and Willem DaFoe. This year, Eggers' latest outing is a Norse revenge thriller starring Alexander Skarsgård and his six pack. It's an engrossing deconstruction of revenge-driven narrative but also an exploration of why the inherently masculine myth exists. That's the line you can use to impress the film buffs, anyway. Mainly, we enjoyed it because of Skarsgård's descent into animalism, Ethan Hawke and Nicole Kidman doing Scandanavian accents, and Anya Taylor-Joy appearing as a witch from the forest.
No streaming release date has been given for The Northman yet.
Turning Red
There was barely any word of mouth surrounding Pixar's release from early this year, Turning Red, and what few buzz it generated was mostly mixed. However, we were surprised while watching the film how charming, visually dynamic, and overall, how resonant the story was. Maybe we're just suckers for weird, idiosyncratic stories set in the 2000s, or maybe we're just over the standard photo-realistic animation that Disney has been putting out lately. Whatever the case, Turning Red was both a blast and a breath of fresh air for Western animation. Don't let the talk around this movie dissuade you. Check it out and brace yourself for a certain scene set in a convenience store.
Turning Red is streaming on iTunes and Google Play.
Also read: Turning Red’s Sandra Oh and Rosalie Chiang on Accepting All the Cringe of Your Growing-Up Years
Ambulance
Interestingly, even with Top Gun: Maverick out this year, it's Michael Bay's Ambulance that feels like the most Tony Scott action film we've got all year. The film centers on Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, a pair of brothers who are forced to take command of an ambulance as a getaway vehicle, after their bank robbery goes sideways. Aside from overall just being a shot of adrenaline to your body, Ambulance can be considered one of Bay's finest due to two simple factors: excessive use of drone camera footage and Gyllenhaal just screaming all of his lines. How could Bayhem get any better?
Ambulance is streaming on iTunes.
Kimi
Steven Soderbergh's Kimi is an interesting one for how it incorporates COVID and isolation into its story, without it entirely being a story about the pandemic or quarantine. Zoë Kravitz stars as a tech worker, who does all her work from home, despite COVID restrictions letting up, because people and the invisible threat of the virus cause her too much anxiety to leave. Wow, a character everyone can relate to! Anyway, she's eventually forced to leave after she discovers a murder at her work (like Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, but through computers, essentially). The thriller clocks in at only an hour and a half, so trust that it's to-the-point and effective.
Kimi is streaming on HBO Go and Google Play.
Elvis
Recently released in cinemas, Elvis is a musical biopic from the flashiest director in the biz' Baz Luhrmann. Think of every single interesting angle to approach an Elvis Presley movie with, and we can guarantee that the film tries it all! It almost never fleshes any of these approaches out beyond what you'd normally get from your typical Wikipedia-plotted biopics, but the film makes up for it in the selling of the grandeur and addictiveness of the superstar's lifestyle. Haven't seen rockstar musical numbers done that well on the big screen since Bradley Cooper in A Star is Born. Just electrifying energy that you can feel reverberate among everyone in the audience.
Elvis is currently showing in Philippine cinemas.
Also read: Elvis Has Left the Building: Here Are 10 Musical Documentaries You Can Stream on Netflix
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