No year in review would be complete without a thank-you to our writers. Time and again, they reminded us that cinema is not only alive and well, but it is also always transforming; the filmmakers and festivals covered here push the boundaries of what we took for granted about the medium.
Here’s a quick overview of what we published in 2022—and, for many more excellent pieces, we encourage you to browse our archive using the “explore” tab on the homepage.
ESSAYS
Contemporary Cinema:
- When Propaganda Fails: Adam McKay's Don't Look Up by Ryan Meehan
- The Horse in Motion: Jordan Peele's Nope by Blair McClendon
- The Many Faces of Michelle Yeoh by Sean Gilman
- Hall of Mirrors: James Gray's Armageddon Time and Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans by Kelli Weston
- Nameless Energies: Don DeLillo at the Movies by Leonardo Goi
- The Voice of a Generation: The Trope of the "Complex Female Character" by Rafaela Bassili
- Hong Sang-soo's Homecoming by Jawni Han
- What Is Refugee Cinema About? by Vinh Nguyen
- What I Learned Translating Decision to Leave by Darcy Paquet
- Are You Ready to Rock?!: The Transformative Animation of Masaaki Yuasa by Jennifer Lynde Barker
- Long Live the Old Flesh: The Late Style of Crimes of the Future by Robert Rubsam
- S.S. Rajamouli's RRR: Myth and Men of Marble, Sculpted and Scorched by History by Ruairi McCann
- Being Nicolas Cage by Egor Sheremet
- I’ll Be Your Mirror: Disability in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Films by Emerson Goo
- Black to the Future: Will Smith, After Earth, and Gemini Man by Bliss Fields
- From Strength Comes Forth Sweetness: Top Gun: Maverick and Tom Cruise’s Terribilità by David Garry Hughes
- The Ajabu Ajabu Collective and the Preservation of Tanzanian Film by Elisha Tawe
- Shot Verse Shot: Benediction and Poetry in Cinema by Dan Schindel
- The Action Scene: Carter and Cinema as Stuntwork by Jonah Jeng
- The New Spanish Strange Wave by Anna Bogutskaya
Repertory Cinema:
- Hugo Fregonese: Escape Artist by Imogen Sara Smith
- The Right to Refuse: The Films of Kinuyo Tanaka by Kelley Dong
- Joan Didion’s Hollywood and Play It as It Lays by Kayleigh Donaldson
- Haunted Intimacies, Flickering Melancholy and the Black Queer Imaginary in the Films of Edward Owens by Yasmina Price
- Dziga Vertov's Long-Lost Films by Dorota Lech
- Permanent Revolution: Forgotten Filmmakers of the French New Wave by Daniel Fairfax
- Isles of Passion: Metin Erksan’s Time to Love by Kutlukhan Kutlu
- Betzy Bromberg's City Girls by Caitlin Quinlan
- Jacques Rozier's Vacationscapes by Patrick Preziosi
- Apartment Stories: Helga Reidemeister’s Der gekaufte Traum and Von wegen ‘Schicksal’ by Phuong Le
Books:
- Hot Thoughts, Part Deux: Michael Mann's Heat 2 by J.D. Connor
- All of Society’s Bastards: Pierre Clémenti and A Few Personal Messages by Madeleine Wall
- The Image Book: Serge Daney's The Cinema House & The World by Thomas Quist
- A Single Dewdrop: The Pleasures of Satyajit Ray: Miscellany by Arun A.K.
New Media:
- "The Raw Material of History": Jon Bois in the Age of Everything by Frank Falisi
- Cutscenes: Breaking the Rules with Total Refusal by Matt Turner
- Watch and Listen: Charlie Shackleton's As Mine Exactly by Simran Hans
NOTEBOOK PRIMERS
The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history. Here are a few sterling deep-dives from this year:
- Screwball Comedy by Olympia Kiriakou
- Juliet Berto, Phantom Lady Over Paris by Dana Reinoos
- Feminist Film Collectives by Rachel Pronger
- Lucile Hadžihalilović by Saffron Maeve
- India's Fight for Independence by Soham Gadre
- Abortion in Cinema by Kat Sachs
- Eco-Horror by Danielle Burgos
- Charlie Chaplin by Megan Feeney
- Lars von Trier by Jeremy Carr
INTERVIEWS
- Nathaniel Dorsky in conversation with Maximilien Luc Proctor
- Joachim Trier discusses The Worst Person in the World with Elissa Suh
- Martine Syms discusses The African Desperate with Maya Binyam
- Ashley McKenzie discusses Queens of the Qing Dynasty with Lawrence Garcia
- Mike Hodges in conversation with Matt Thrift
- Discussing Douglas Sirk with Todd Haynes by Keva York
- John Smith in conversation with Sophia Satchell-Baeza
- Kelly Reichardt in conversation with Laura Staab and Christopher Small
- Brooke Adams in conversation with Madelyn Sutton
- Miryam Charles discusses This House with Marius Hrdy
- João Pedro Rodrígues discusses Will-o'-the-Wisp with Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal
- Kier-La Janisse in conversation with Margaret Barton-Fumo
FESTIVALS
Alongside dispatches from Berlin, Cannes, Venice, and TIFF, our writers meditated on a fluctuating festival ecosystem, alternately thriving and precarious:
- State of the Festival: Treasures from the Jeonju Cinema Project by Christopher Small
- Defiance Through Form (Jihlava International Documentary Festival) by Sofie Cato Maas
- The Future of Attention: Inside Locarno's Ambitious 24-Hour Talk by Dini Adanurani
- State of the Festival: Invisible Cinema at the 60th Viennale by Jordan Cronk
- Beneath the Wave, an Ocean: The Yugoslav Black Wave and its Forerunners (Il Cinema Ritrovato) by Fedor Tot
- Out Of the Past: The 6th Annual Nitrate Picture Show by Joshua Bogatin
- Festival Roundtable: Toronto 2022: Juan Barquin, Inney Prakash, and Sophy Romvari in conversation with Notebook's Daniel Kasman and Chloe Lizotte
AUDIO / VISUAL
Last but never least, some multimedia coverage to delight your eyes and ears:
Soundtrack Mix by Florence Scott-Anderton
- Forever Blue: An Ode to Derek Jarman
- Storytelling Rhythm: Tôru Takemitsu
- Inmemory: A Letter to Chris Marker
Movie Poster of the Week by Adrian Curry
Video Essay
- Paul Verhoeven's Dreams of Excess by Manuela Lazic and Alessandro Luchetti