The Very Best Movies Of 2022, Ranked
It’s official: the Academy has spoken, and Everything Everywhere All at Once has claimed the coveted Best Picture prize at the 95th Academy Awards. But of course, there were many, many other fantastic movies that hit theaters in 2022. Things were looking good as early as January with the release of a new Scream film, and they stayed strong right the way through to the blockbuster release of Avatar: The Way of Water in December. But which movies released in 2022 were the absolute best of the best, according to critics and audience ratings? And how did they fare at the Oscars?
How we calculated our scores
To create our list of the greatest movies of 2022 we first looked at this year's 100 highest-rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes. We then combined the ratings from IMDb, Metacritic, the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, and the Rotten Tomatoes audience score for each film — multiplying the IMDb score by 10 to make the math work — and arrived at an average score for all of them. The movie with the highest average is calculated to be the best movie of 2022, with any ties broken by the IMDb score.
40. Prey
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Stars: Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Stormee Kipp, Michelle Thrush
Genre: Sci-fi, action
Our Score: 77.25
Predator was an action classic that kickstarted a franchise and spawned countless iconic lines. But after 35 years of not-always-great sequels, Prey finally bucked the trend and delivered the follow-up fans had longed for. The action is great, the characters are real, and the Predator is back to its bloody best.
39. Barbarian
Director: Zach Cregger
Stars: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, Matthew Patrick Davis
Genre: Horror
Our Score: 78
In what was a frighteningly good year for horror movies, Barbarian proved to be the one that got everybody talking. But all people were really saying was, “You have to go see this movie.” After all, Barbarian is full of shocking twists and turns — and it’s best enjoyed if you go in completely blind to its many secrets. Fair warning, though: the ending is gnarly.
38. The Menu
Director: Mark Mylod
Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Hong Chau
Genre: Horror, comedy
Our Score: 78
It would be easy to go overboard with the foodie puns when writing about a movie called The Menu. But we won’t bore you with stale cliches about the movie serving up delicious body horror that can sometimes be hard to swallow. No, we’ll just tell you that critics and audiences agreed that The Menu will leave you hungry for more.
