The 50 Best Movies of 2022

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – January 4, 2023

Here is Metacritic's final list of the 50 best-reviewed movies of 2022, ranked by Metascore. This list only includes films receiving at least 7 reviews from professional critics.

All films released between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022 in at least one U.S. theater or directly to streaming or VOD/digital services were eligible for inclusion. Short films and reissues are excluded. Titles are ranked by Metascore (a weighted average of scores from top professional critics) prior to rounding based on scores as of January 1, 2023.

Additional content by Keith Kimbell.

10 of 25 photo by Netflix/Participant

87 Descendant

(#14) Netflix's highest-scoring original film of 2022 is also one of the year's best-reviewed documentaries and a potential Oscar nominee after landing on the Academy's documentary feature shortlist. Descendant ventures to the Mobile, Alabama suburb of Africatown, where many of the residents can trace their lineage to ancestors brought to America illegally on the slave ship Clotilda in 1860. The remains of that sunken ship were recently discovered, forcing the descendants of Clotilda survivors to confront their family history anew. And director Margaret Brown is there to capture this reckoning and show how the events of over 160 years ago still have an impact on lives today.

Watch it on Netflix

“Descendant isn’t just necessary. It’s urgent.” —G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle

Where To Buy