Bijou lists their favorite films, first watches, and movie related experiences of 2022! Did any of your favorites make the list? Read on to find out...
Harry Westergaard (Executive Director)
Top 10 Films of 2022
- Elvis (Baz Lurman)
- Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg)
- Magic Spot (Charles Roxburgh)
- The Novelist’s Film (Hong Sang-Soo)
- RRR (S.S. Rajamouli)
- Both Sides of the Blade (Clarie Denis)
- Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
- Nope (Jordan Peele)
- Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (Tetsurô Kodama)
- Funny Pages (Owen Cline)
Top 10 Discoveries
- Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)
- Every Man for Himself (Jean Luc Godard, 1980)
- Bride of the Monster (Ed Wood Jr, 1955)
- Deadly Weapons (Doris Wishman, 1974)
- Head (Bob Rafelson, 1968)
- The Matrix (Lana and Lilly Wachowski, 1999)
- Truck Turner (Jonathan Kaplan, 1974)
- Cecil B. Demented (John Waters, 2000)
- Welcome Home Brother Charles (Jamaa Fanaka, 1975)
- Je Tu Il Elle (Chantal Akerman, 1974)
Top 5 Movie Experiences
- Visiting Scarecrow Video in Seattle. I’m a big Blu Ray/DVD collector so I was in heaven in this store. It has sections for each major auteur, every genre and its niche subgenres and most importantly, all the famous slapstick comedians. I could live in a store like this, but I only spent a couple hours there in January when I was in town (and walked away with a VHS copy of The Caddy).
- Watching Flesh for Frankenstein in 3D at Late Shift at the Grindhouse. I hadn’t seen a movie in 3D since I was a kid before this, and have never had a particular fondness for it until this screening. There are the usual gimmick shots, but the 3D in Morrisey’s film unlocks a new beauty to outdoor cinematography, like a more tangible deep focus. It has to be seen to be believed.
- Bringing Up Baby on 35 mm for Bijou After Hours. This was my first viewing of the classic screwball comedy and it was nonstop laughs from beginning to end. A treat to experience it for the first time on film.
- Rewatching The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for class. I hadn’t seen it since my grandpa made me watch as a kid. I was moved by the film’s intelligent and melancholy meditation on American politics, and it caused me to go on a mini John Ford marathon.
- Marathoning the Matrix series over the summer. The first one is a modern classic of course, but each of the sequels is at least interesting in its own way. You have to give props to the second one for that freeway action scene. About one of the only times American action cinema has come close to Hong Kong levels of craft.
Matthew Huh (Programming Director)
Top 10 Films of 2022
- Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert)
- The Batman (Matt Reeves)
- Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
- Babylon (Damien Chazelle)
- Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (Dean Fleischer-Camp)
- Fire of Love (Sara Dosa)
- Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino)
- TÁR (Todd Field)
- Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski)
- Nope (Jordan Peele)
Top 10 Discoveries
- Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
- Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998)
- The World’s End (Edgar Wright, 2013)
- Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)
- Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)
- One Cut of the Dead (Shin’ichiro Ueda, 2017)
- Irma Vep ( Olivier Assayas, 1996)
- Chungking Express (Dir. Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
- Original Cast Album: Company (D.A. Pennebaker, 1970)
- RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)
Top 5 Movie Experiences
- Bones and All (ReFocus opening night) @ Englert Theatre - A treat to see a (quasi) premiere screening with an enthusiastic crowd. Seeing a bunch of movie lovers watching this film with screenwriter David Kajganich and author Camille DeAngelis in attendance was super memorable. And the movie was great too!
- Everything Everywhere All at Once (opening night Q&A w/ Son Lux) @ FilmScene at the Chauncey - Everybody was blown away by this film. Non Stop laughter, cheering, and tearing. We all knew that the film we just watched would be remembered for decades on end.
- Top Gun: Maverick (IMAX/Dolby Cinema) @ AMC Hawthorn/Niles - Saw this film three separate times in premium formats because it was so entertaining. This is what blockbuster filmmaking is all about. Thrilling practical action, the sound cranked up, and the biggest image possible made for one of my favorite first run theater experiences.
- Clerks III (Q&A w/ Kevin Smith) @ Englert Theatre - While not a great movie, it was cool to finally see Kevin Smith in person. Despite mixed feelings about the film, the audience was clearly having the time of their lives. Fans knew what they were in for, and most got exactly that.
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (IMAX) @ AMC Niles - A bucket list item checked off. Finally got to see one of my favorite films in a theater. Saw this with my parents, who both saw the film upon initial release in 1982. It was great to share those memories and create new ones together.
Kat Trout-Baron (Director of Outreach)
Top 10 Films of 2022
- Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
- The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg)
- Babylon (Damien Chazelle)
- TÁR (Todd Field)
- Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
- Nope (Jordan Peele)
- RRR (SS Rajamouli)
- Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski)
- Saint Omer (Alice Diop)
- Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
Top 10 Discoveries
- Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992)
- My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991)
- Mikey and Nicky (Elaine May, 1976)
- Good Morning (Yasujirō Ozu, 1959)
- Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)
- Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki, 2004)
- Fallen Angels (Wong Kar Wai, 1995)
- Bound (Lana and Lily Wachowski, 1996)
- All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)
- The Red Shoes (Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell, 1948)
Top 5 Movie Experiences
- Punch Drunk Love: Punch Drunk Love was the first film I programmed with Bijou! I was so nervous about the screening and the turnout, so seeing it do well was exhilarating. It felt like the start of a new chapter!
- The Godfather / Lost Highway: I did a double feature of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and David Lynch’s Lost Highway, which sounds like an eclectic pairing (it is), but I had a grand old time. I saw them at the American Film Institute campus in Maryland, which has an old movie theater with curtains in the middle. I was so happy that day until I lost my metrocard.
- Top Gun: Maverick: I saw Top Gun: Maverick with my brother in Philadelphia. It was the first time I saw him in a year and the first time I saw his new apartment in the city. I was so happy to be with him and to support queer cinema. We spent the entire time dissecting the homoeroticism of Top Gun and bought a minion popcorn bucket.
- Seeing Bringing Up Baby on 35mm was a dream come true. It was the first time I realized how special seeing stuff on film was. It was delightful to see an audience enchanted with screwballs and Cary Grant at his most gender envy.
- Avatar 2: The Way of the Water: The lovely Grace Mccabe drove a gaggle of fools (which included me) to see this in Davenport. The drive was as intense as Sam and Frodo’s trip to Mordor (possibly even more extraneous). It was all worth it when we sat in front of the IMAX screen with our 3D glasses. I cried, saw Tom Cruise do stunts, and had the most delightful ICEE of my life.
- BONUS: Bones and All at Refocus: The obvious choice. It was so cool to see this in the Englert and to speak to the writer afterward. Definitely an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life.
Emma Pech (Marketing Director)
Top 10 Discoveries
- Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975)
- Bound (Lana and Lilly Wachowski, 1996)
- Fig (Ryan Coogler, 2011)
- Tangerine (Sean Baker, 2015)
- Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)
- Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)
- A Trip to the Moon (Georges Méliès, 1902)
- Lemonade (Beyoncé, Kahlil Joseph, Dikayl Rimmasch, Todd Tourso, Jonas Åkerlund, Melina Matsoukas, and Mark Romanek, 2016)
- The East (Zal Batmanglij, 2013)
- School of Rock (Richard Linklater, 2003)
Honorable Mentions, or Gonorable Morbtions: Morbius (2022, dir. Daniel Espinosa) and Goncharov (1973, dir. Matteo JWHJ0715 or Martin Scorsese)
Davy Behm
Top 10 Films of 2022
- Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
- Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (Dean Fleischer-Camp)
- Bodies Bodies Bodies (Halina Reijn)
- Skinamarink (Kyle Edward Ball)
- Little Nicholas - Happy as Can Be (Benjamin Massoubre)
- The Bob’s Burgers Movie (Lauren Bouchard and Bernard Derriman)
- Nope (Jordan Peele)
- White Noise (Noah Baumbach)
- Pinocchio (Guillermo Del Toro)
- Turning Red (Domee Shi)
Top 10 Discoveries
- It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt)
- World of Tomorrow (Don Hertzfeldt)
- Swiss Army Man (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
- Eraserhead (David Lynch)
- Blue Velvet (David Lynch)
- Boy (Taika Watiti)
- The World’s End (Edgar Wright)
- Coraline (Henry Selick)
- The Wolf of Snow Hollow (Jim Cummings)
- Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen)
Dylan Masse
Top 10 Films of 2022:
- Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
- Marcel The Shell with Shoes On (Dean Fleischer-Camp)
- RRR (S.S. Rajamouli)
- The Northman (Robert Eggers)
- Decision to Leave (Park Chan-Wook)
- Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
- Broker (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
- Inu-Oh (Masaaki Yuasa)
- Nope (Jordan Peele)
- Jujutsu Kaisen 0 (Sunghoo Park)
Top 10 Discoveries:
- A Bride For Rip Van Winkle
- Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
- Marcel The Shell with Shoes On (Dean Fleischer-Camp)
- RRR (S.S. Rajamouli)
- The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (Lau Kar-leung)
- The Northman (Robert Eggers)
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell)(bijou screening <3)
- After the Storm, and all other Kore-eda stuff i watched this year
- Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott)
- Bound (Lana and Lily Wachowski) (another bijou screening <3)
Grace McCabe
Top 10 of 2022:
- Meet Me in the Bathroom (Will Lovelace, Dylan Southern)
- EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
- Avatar: The Way of the Water (James Cameron)
- The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
- Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
- Three Thousand Years of Longing (George Miller)
- Babylon (Damien Chazelle)
- Saint Omer (Alice Diop)
- The Batman (Matt Reeves)
- Barbarian (Zach Creggor)
Top 10 New Discoveries:
- Ultraviolet (Kurt Wimmer)
- Blue Velvet (David Lynch)
- Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Desert Hearts (Donna Dietch)
- Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
- Equilibrium (Kurt Wimmer)
- Castle in the Sky (Hayao Miyazaki)
- Super Dark Times (Kevin Phillips)
- New York Ninja (Original director: John Liu, "Re-director:" Kurtis M. Spieler)
- Last and First Men (Jóhann Jóhannsson)
Top 5 Movie Experiences:
- Avatar 2: The Way of Water: We entered the splash zone.
- Army of Darkness: Big Grindhouse sweep
- Elvis: I didn’t mean to see this. But I sat down in the theater and my butt didn’t move for 2 hours and 39 minutes.
- Journey to the Center of the Earth: SEAAAN
- Bones and All: Film major homecoming.
Daniel McGregor Huyer
- The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg)
- Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
- Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
- Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
- The Batman (Matt Reeves)
- Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski)
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Joel Crawford)
- Babylon (Damien Chazelle)
- Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
- Nope (Jordan Peele)
Alania Mysak
Top 5 of 2022:
- Top Gun Maverick (Joseph Kosinski)
- Avatar The Way of Water (James Cameron)
- The Batman (Matt Reeves)
- The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg)
- Elvis (Baz Luhrmann)
Top 5 Discoveries:
- Before I Disappear (Shawn Christensen, 2014)
- Jo Jo Rabbit (Taika Waititi, 2019)
- A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992)
- Parasite (Bong Joon-Ho, 2019)
- A Quiet Place (John Krasinski)
Top 5 Movie Experiences:
- Watching Top Gun Maverick in theaters and hearing the audience react to the movie.
- Watching A Quiet Place with my family and hearing them laugh at me screaming at the jump scares.
- Watching JoJo Rabbit with my sister while we discussed the story elements out loud.
- Watching Parasite In the library while being amazed at all the twists and turns.
- Watching House with a bunch of friends, which one of them recommended, and being totally shocked by what we saw.
Aly Shamburg
Top 5 New Films:
- (tie) The Fabelmans (dir. Steven Spielberg)- Deeply personal to me. Beautifully complex.
- (tie) Benediction (dir. Terence Davies)- One of the most quietly powerful films I’ve seen in recent memory.
- The Banshees of Inisherin (dir. Martin McDonagh)
- Moonage Daydream (dir. Brett Morgen)
- Elvis (dir. Baz Luhrmann)
Top 10 New-to-Me Films:
I could have just as easily made this list with just Old Hollywood films but I decided to go for more modern picks
(In chronological order, *= favorite)
- Kiss Me Deadly (dir. Robert Aldrich, 1955)
- Sleepless in Seattle (dir. Nora Ephron, 1993)
- The Hudsucker Proxy (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, 1994)*
- Crash (dir. David Cronenberg, 1996)*
- Broken (dir. Rufus Norris, 2013)*
- Macbeth (dir. Justin Kurzel, 2015)
- The Death of Stalin (dir. Armando Iannucci, 2018)
- Shirley (dir. Josephine Decker, 2020)
- The Kid Detective (dir. Evan Morgan, 2020)
- Dune (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2021)
Chris Soseman
Top 10 Films of 2022
- Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
- Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
- The Batman (Matt Reeves)
- Marcel The Shell with Shoes On (Dean Fleischer-Camp)
- Barbarian (Zach Cregger)
- X (Ti West)
- Pinochio (Del Toro)
- Watcher (Chole Okuno)
- The Northman (Robert Eggers)
- Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund)
Top 10 Discoveries
- Lake Mungo (Joel Anderson, 2008)
- Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks,1938)
- Meet the Feebles (Peter Jackson, 1989)
- Bound (Lana and Lilly Watchowski, 1996)
- Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1973)
- Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936)
- Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975)
- Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)
- Wrinkles (Ignacio Ferreras, 2012)
- Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981)
Top 5 Experiences
- In Bruges (Bijou)
- The Nice Guys (Bijou)
- Lake Mungo (Late at night, by myself, blown away)
- Bringing Up Baby (Bijou)
- Fantastic Mr. Fox (Rewatch for class)
Dana Woolery
Top 10 movies of 2022 (As of this moment)
- Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
- Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
- Tar (Todd Field)
- Bros (Nicholas Stoller)
- Nope (Jordan Peele)
- Babylon (Damien Chazelle)
- Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund)
-
Little Nicholas - Happy as Can Be (Benjamin Massoubre)
-
RRR (S.S. Rajamouli)
- Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
Top 10 Discoveries (in no order)
- Wattstax (Mel Stuart, 1973)
- Cornbread, Earl and Me (Joseph Manduke, 1975)
- A New Leaf (Elaine May, 1973)
- Ryan’s Babe (Ray Ramayya, 2000)
- Tower (Keith Maitland, 2016)
- Wrinkles (Ignacio Ferreras 2011)
- Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)
- No Name on the Bullet (Jack Arnold, 1959)
- Eddie Presley (Jeff Burr, 1993)
- Dr Seuss’s The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (Roy Rowland, 1953)
Top 5 Film Experiences:
- Everything is Terrible: Kids Club (An Honorable mention for favorite of the year too)
- Bijou Valentines screening
- Austin Powers Marathon
- Blue Carpet Bash
- Watching bad movies with friends.