Welcome to the 2022 SiftPop.com Sifties!
This year, the SiftPop writers came together to nominate five movies for Best Narrative Experience. A film’s narrative often plays a large role in its overall quality, and we wanted to recognize that with this award!
2022 was a great year for stories at the movies. Between two siblings’ attempt to capture spectacle, a clever murder mystery, two friends going through a breakup, a family traveling through the multiverse on their way to reconciliation, and a group of rich people eating at a high-end restaurant, there was a wide variety to appreciate. The SiftPop crew nominated five films for Best Visual Experience: The Menu, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, The Banshees of Inisherin, and Nope. Here’s how the voting played out:
There’s been no shortage of social commentary in film this year, especially regarding the popular “eat the rich” message. In fact, you could enjoy a nice triple feature from 2022 with these themes with Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and this tremendous flick, The Menu. This film features a narrative web that will twist and spin you around as you uncover more layers. There’s dark comedy, biting satire, deconstruction of art and those who obsess over and abuse it, and a large helping of hate towards the elite. The plot weaves together these themes, while maintaining over a dozen unique characters and balancing the fine line between horror and comedy. The Menu delivers a raucously entertaining time, while providing timely commentary; it’s brilliant.
The premise of The Banshees of Inisherin is pretty simple and straightforward: One guy doesn’t want to be friends with the other guy anymore. Simple enough. But where this takes us in terms of story and narrative is truly special. Writer-director Martin McDonagh creates a compelling story out of people walking back and forth from their houses to the pub on a small Irish island. As Pádraic and Colm slowly work out their dispute (or don’t), there is a massive difference from where things begin to where they end up, and it’s thanks to McDonagh’s masterful writing and understanding of story that a simple premise can elicit such complicated feelings.
Jordan Peele has quickly become a master of high concept, thematically rich storytelling, and Nope very well could be his best example of this yet. It’s a movie about moviemaking, and it tells a story about the reasons why we (both filmmakers and audiences) are drawn to the concepts we’re drawn to. There’s a long list of movies about the chase for spectacle, but none do so as subtly yet bombastically, and as nuanced as Nope does. This story keeps you engaged from the moment it begins, and it’s the main reason why you can’t look away from the screen by the end.
With the return of Benoit Blanc, writer-director Rian Johnson delivers a film that takes the great detective on his next case, while also serving as a period piece, taking place in the COVID-19 pandemic. As a followup to an already airtight, fun, and clever murder mystery in Knives Out, Glass Onion doubles down on each of those adjectives. Each misdirect is carefully thought out, each character beat is perfectly presented, and the story as a whole is expertly plotted. With this raucous narrative, Johnson knows how to seamlessly blend humor, fun, entertainment, and thematic work all into an easily digestible and eminently rewatchable instant classic.
In the current film climate, the biggest desire among movie fans is for original stories made really well. While we do still love our next Star Wars, Fast and Furious, and 007 films, we want to get excited about the non-IP films as well. Enter, Everything Everywhere All At Once. While there are a million things to say about this film, the reason it tops this list is the fact that it feels so original. If you try to describe the premise, you can only do so by compiling a list of five or six wildly different films. Everything Everywhere All At Once is remarkable, and perhaps the biggest reason is that it tells the story of this family through the lens of laundry, taxes, the multiverse, and so much more.
Make sure to check out the previous 2022 Sifties winners, and don’t forget to check back tomorrow for the winner of Best Performance! You can also listen to the SiftPop writers’ top five movies of the year on the SiftPop Writers’ Room Podcast!