26. Megadoc – I love a good behind-the-scenes, warts-and-all, making-of documentary, and this one, directed by Mike Figgis about the creation of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, is fascinating.

25. Companion – Sophie Thatcher is terrific, and Jack Quaid does a nice job playing against type, in this clever sci-fi thriller.

24. Predator: Badlands – Director Dan Trachtenberg takes every opportunity to do something cool and interesting and unexpected – starting with making The Predator the protagonist – with his latest entry in the Predator franchise.

23. Sisu: Road to Revenge – Aatami Korpi is back and full of even more sisu than before as he attempts to single-handedly relocate his family home in this bloody, violent, over-the-top, physics-defying sequel.

22. The Luckiest Man in America – If I had the power, I’d put the always great Paul Walter Hauser, who stars in this based-on-a-true story about a guy who figures out how to beat the 80s TV game show Press Your Luck, in every movie.

21. The Order – A tight, beautifully shot true-crime thriller about an FBI investigation into a Washington-state-based white supremacist organization. Jude Law is especially good as the lead investigator.

20. The Legend of Ochi – A young girl attempts to return a baby ochi (a monkey-like forest creature) to its ochi pack in this The NeverEnding Story/The Dark Crystal/live-action Studio Ghibli-esque fantasy.

19. Materialists – More of a realistic-romance than the romantic-comedy it was marketed as, Celine Song’s follow up to her critically-lauded Past Lives both subverts and respects the genre’s conventions.

18. Black Bag – I’m super ticked that we’re not getting the Steven Soderbergh-directed, Adam Driver-starring The Hunt for Ben Solo, or the black-and-white, 60s-set, Tony Gilroy-written, Steven Sodergergh-directed Bond movie, but at least we DO keep getting smart, lean David Koepp-written, Steven-Soderbergh-directed genre exercises like the twisty spy thriller Black Bag.

17. Dangerous Animals – I knew this shark killer movie (i.e., a movie about a psycho who uses sharks to kill people) would be intense and bloody, what I didn’t expect, what I was delighted to discover, was that it also manages to sneak in some moments of sublimity.

16. A House of Dynamite – Kathryn Bigelow has always brought an intense immediacy to her movies, and her latest, which covers the real-time reaction (told from three different perspectives) to a possible nuclear attack on the U.S., puts her talents to great, albeit harrowing-to-watch, use.

15. Train Dreams – This episodic, Terrence Malick-esque story of a logger (played by Joel Edgerton) living and working in the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the Century is a beautiful, profoundly moving meditation on the thesis that every life is remarkable.

14. The Life of Chuck – See above, but replace the lumberjack for a boy/man named Chuck Krantz and swap out the Malick-y nature stuff in an old-timey rural setting with a Mike Flanagan-adapted, Stephen King urban-based story set in modern times.

13. Superman – James Gunn makes the first kitchen sink superhero movie, in that, thanks to his position as the CEO of DC Studios, he was able to throw whatever he wanted into his big, joyful, vibrant Superman. Pocket Universe? In. Supes fighting a kaijui? In. Mr. Terrific, Guy Gardner, AND Metamorpho? In, in, and in.

12. Predator: Killer of Killers – Dan Trachtenberg somehow managed to release TWO great Predator movies in one year. This exhilaratingly choreographed animated anthology gives us four awesome fights: Predator vs. Viking, Predator vs. Ninja, Predator vs. U. S. Navy WWII fighter pilot, and a bonus round I won’t spoil.brutality.

11. Mickey 17 – It’s been said that one of the great things about Die Hard is that it introduces a new character every 10 or so minutes. The astonishingly original Mickey 17, Bong Joon Ho’s adaptation of Edward Ashton’s Mickey7 novel, does something similar, but instead of introducing a new character, it keeps dropping wild new ideas, each one of which could well serve as the basis for another entire movie.

10. Marty Supreme – Marty Supreme reminded me a lot of last year’s The Brutalist, in that they’re both long, mid-20^th centurty period movies, both are shot on film, and both are about a man’s relentless, unquenchable quest for success. Unlike The Brutalist, though, Marty Supreme isn’t grim and oppressive, and, most importantly, it sticks the landing.

9. The Ballad of Wallis Island – To really get into why I love The Ballad of Wallis Island as much as I do would require me to spoil a key plot point, which I wouldn’t dare do. Instead, I’ll just say that this is a terrific movie about a trio of interesting, fully realized people, one of who has contracted the other two to play a concert for him.

8. The Lost Bus – Co-writer/director Paul Greengrass has a remarkable ability to make his docudramas feel overly realistic, and his latest, The Lost Bus, is his most impressively immersive yet. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have believed that this movie was shot during an actual out-of-control wildfire. Then again, I guess I don’t know for certain that it wasn’t.

7. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery – I usually don’t like movies or TV shows that are overly religious, and I especially dislike ones that require me to listen to religious sermons. As such, I was surprised by just how much I liked Rian Johnson’s latest Knives Out mystery, which is set primarily in a church and involves two priests who gives sermons. Thanks to Johnson’s clever direction and thematically rich writing, plus the gorgeous cinematography of Steve Yedlin (Johnson’s long-time DP), this entry is my favourite of the Knives Out trilogy.

6. September 5 – This real-time, real-life thriller about the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis, as told from the perspective of the ABC Sports team, who, as luck had it, were the only broadcasters in a position to cover the events as they were immediately unfolding, is absolutely riveting.

5. Secret Mall Apartment – Something that I’m constantly struck by is the notion that while some people (unfortunately, they’re often in positions of power) do everything they can to make the world a worse-off place, there are others who’re quietly doing the opposite, who’re doing cool, interesting things in order to make life even just a little bit better, sometimes for the benefit of others, sometimes just for themselves. This wonderful documentary is about a group of the latter type of individuals, i.e., a collective of artists who made, as the title suggests, a secret apartment in a mall.

4. Eddington – Kudos to writer/director Ari Aster for having both the cache and the cojones to make a second kitchen sink movie in a row. While not as crazy, or as long or exhausting, as Beau Is Afraid, this wonderfully unpredictable COVID-set story still goes plenty nuts.

3. Weapons – I recently re-watched this horror/thriller about a bunch of kids from the same elementary class who all go inexplicably missing, and, despite already knowing every beat, I liked it even more the second time around. Writer/director Zach Cregger infuses every moment, every shot, every narrative turn, every line reading, with a palpable joy of filmmaking.

2. One Battle After Another –There are few things more enjoyable than getting to watch a boldly original movie, especially one that’s the product of an innovative filmmaker like Paul Thomas Anderson who’s been given the broad canvas and extensive resources to fulfill seemingly all of his creative whims.

1. Flow – Simply put, this animated story about some critters trying to navigate what might be the end of the world is one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that its main character happens to be a cat, aka, the universe’s greatest invention.