James Cameron-Wilson Looks Back at the Year of 2022
The first thing that struck me about my top-ten is that four of my favourite films were directed by women: id est, Maria Schrader’s She Said, Sally El Hosaini’s The Swimmers, Mimi Cave’s Fresh and Frances O’Connor’s Emily. This would have been unheard of a decade ago. And my list doesn’t even include the much-touted Sarah Polley for Women Talking, Gina Prince-Bythewood for The Woman King or Charlotte Wells for Aftersun. I am a huge fan of Ms Polley, but have yet to catch up with her latest film, which doesn’t open in the UK until February 10.
And interestingly, following the barbed accusations jabbed at the Golden Globes for a lack of inclusivity, this year that august organisation failed to nominate a single woman in the best director category. Instead, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association opted to spotlight the work of such exciting newcomers as James Cameron, Baz Luhrmann, Martin McDonagh and Steven Spielberg. Forgive my sarcasm.
Commercially, it was also a terrific year for Tom. Tom Cruise, a box-office titan if ever there was one, enjoyed his biggest success yet, with the eventual release of Top Gun: Maverick, which grossed a staggering $1.487 billion worldwide. And then there was Tom Hanks, whose turn as Colonel Tom Parker in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis was the year’s eighth highest-grossing film at the UK box-office, followed by Uncharted at tenth place. The latter stars Tom Holland, whose previous movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home, pulled in a staggering $1.916 billion, making Mr Holland Britain’s most commercially viable actor. In spite of the cost-of-living crisis, big money was still swashing around, with Netflix offering huge sums to its top talent, paying the British actress Millie Bobby Brown $10m to star in Enola Holmes 2. That’s a lot of dough for a 17-year-old (she’s 18 now, but still…).
And talking of sequels, it was more than dispiriting to note that eight of the ten highest-grossing films in Britain were all continuations of previous ventures, from Top Gun: Maverick to the dire Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Still, there was originality elsewhere and I’d like to draw attention to five other titles that just escaped my top ten: The Worst Person in the World, The Good Nurse, Hilma, I Came By and The Metamorphosis of Birds, the last-named also directed by a woman, the Portuguese Catarina Vasconcelos. So there..
James Cameron-Wilson’s Favourites:
