Robert Horton is a Scarecrow board member and a longtime film critic. He will be contributing a series of “critic’s notes” to the Scarecrow blog—a chance to highlight worthy films playing locally and connecting them to the riches of Scarecrow’s collection.

2022 is finished and from this perspective, it feels like a down year for movies. I have no doubt that in the future some films that struck me as wanting will grow in stature, and I will discover as-yet unwatched titles of merit. Still: disappointing. 

Maybe at that future date, I will want to rank the films in order of preference. Having watched a huge number of them in the last month, this is challenging—it’s not like years past, when I had the chance to live with movies for a while before ranking ’em. Here are the good things, in different groups of urgency.

Top tier:

Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg).

Happening (Audrey Diwan).

The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg).

Tár (Todd Field).

Second tier:

The Quiet Girl (Colm Bairéad).

The Banshees of Inisheran (Martin McDonagh).

Hit the Road (Panah Panahi).

In Front of Your Face (Hong Sang-soo).

EO (Jerzy Skolimowski).

Watcher (Chloe Okuno).

Third tier:

Ultama (Alejandro Loayza Grisi).

The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg).

Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).

Close (Lukas Dhont).

Three Minutes: A Lengthening (Bianca Stigter).

Murina (Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic).

Benediction (Terence Davies).

January 6, 2023

Robert Horton is a member of the National Society of Film Critics.