The Banshees of Inisherin

Unranked at the time of writing.

At the time of blogging, this is not ranked in IMDb's Top 250, although its score is high enough to be (presumably, it doesn't yet have enough regular American voters), and it certainly deserves to be.

2022 has been an amazing year of film for me: there has been not just one - not even two - but three contenders for new all-time faves. The third being this one, in case that wasn't clear...

I like a lot of film in my film. Many of my favourites are dense and dizzying (check out some of my top picks in the sidebar to the right). But I have a huge amount of admiration for a film that takes a simple premise and sticks to it with absolute purity. In this case, the simple premise is: in a small Irish community, 1920s, one character decides he no longer wants to be friends with his best friend. That's it. That's the whole film right there. And it's thoughtful, moving, beautiful, gentle, shocking, and - for all its darkness - surprisingly funny.

Writer-director Martin McDonagh previously paired these two leads, Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, in his debut feature In Bruges from 2008, which stood out as a memorably quirky black comedy. In the intervening years, McDonagh - primarily a playwright - has refined his filmmaking craft, while keeping a firm hold on his darkly twisted sense of humour.

I hope this film gets the audience, and recognition, it richly deserves.

Top Gun: Maverick

#45 at the time of writing.

I recently had the best week in cinema I've had in 20 years, having seen two mind-blowing smash hits back to back: Everything Everywhere All At Once, and this action masterpiece.

I haven't re-watched the original Top Gun for many years, and I don't think you need to have watched it at all to enjoy this sequel. (I suspect the original has aged - I seriously doubt it could be as exhilarating as this new incarnation.) I mean, sure, it's military propaganda, and it stars Tom Cruise whose dodgy Scientology connections have apparently included the perk of having been preserved in aspic for the last 35 years, but it's the most thrilling action film since Mad Max: Fury Road - or, perhaps, since ever.

You definitely want to see this on as big as screen as possible. It is incredible how face-meltingly well the G-forces have been captured as we go along for the ride in those fighter jets, preparing for a wonderfully improbable Death Star trench run.

And the emotional beats are well pitched, both in-story and meta - from the nostalgic nods to the original film's homoerotic brand of machismo, to seeing Val Kilmer on screen despite his acting career having been ended by throat cancer (he cannot talk at all, and his few lines in this film are emulated by an AI).

Took my breath away.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

#142 at the time of writing.

More than a third of my top 30 films of all time are from the years 1999-2001 - check out my list in the sidebar - and I think that's testament to the age I was when I first watched them (19-21). I was young and impressionable, and the mark those films left on me will stay with me for life.

But that means new-to-me films start at a monumental disadvantage; how can anything new possibly hope to change my life now that I've seen it all before? After thousands of films and increasingly entrenched tastes, how can anything blow my mind anymore?

This is how.

Everything Everywhere All At Once is the most bonkers and ambitious film I have ever seen - and it's about laundry and taxes. That mismatch is part of its genius; it tells an impossibly grand story while remaining grounded throughout. The Daniels went for a maximalist style that conveys how overwhelming our modern world is - but ultimately this is the story of a struggling Chinese immigrant family just trying to get along.

This cerebral sci-fi kung fu thriller does so much exactly right, and manages to be like nothing else I've ever seen. I love that the characters switch between Chinese and English throughout. I love the bagel and the googly eye symbolising nihilism and existentialism. I love the myriad of references to some of my favourite films, especially The Matrix, Ratatouille, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I love that this was Ke Huy Quan's first major on-screen role since Indiana Jones and The Goonies. I love that Michelle Yeoh cried when she talked about how validated she felt by being asked to play such a versatile character (and, wow, she knocked it out of the park). I loved it so much, that I went back to watch it a second time at the cinema... and then a third time... and then once more at home with my daughter, all within the space of a couple of weeks.

It was released at the same time as another multiverse movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which had eight times the budget and wasn't even half as good.

Everything Everywhere All At Once rockets into my favourite films of all time - not just into the top 30, not even the top 10, but the top 3. I'm thrilled that my mind can still be blown.