Rory Doherty reflects on the past year of British cinema, highlighting the superb and successful films of 2022. Turns out, it’s been a jolly good year!
Also, check out our regional round-ups of 2022 highlights from cinema of New Zealand and Australia.
British film has a lot to be proud of in 2022, especially with several of its money-makers still drawing in audiences in the latter weeks of the year. It was a year where new creative voices shone as brightly as established talents—both in front of and behind the camera. And with a number of films building a momentum that will carry them into next year’s domestic and international awards, it’s not like we’ll be forgetting our highlights in a hurry. Here’s some of the films and talent we loved in 2022.
If there’s one thing the UK will never get sick of, it’s a well-crafted emotional drama. We saw a good deal of variety in the 2022 offerings, but they overlapped in curious ways. Aftersun will undoubtedly go down as the victor of British cinema this year—despite being set nearly exclusively in Turkey. Scottish debut filmmaker Charlotte Wells made waves with her father-daughter drama starring rising star Paul Mescal and breakout talent Frankie Corrio—we’d be sick of hearing this title banded about so much if it weren’t just so darn good.
Aftersun
Another beautifully shot, delicately handled reflection on age and relationships came with Living—which continued the history of Japanese-to-English-language remakes with a shifting of Akira Kurosawa’s treatise on humanity Ikiru to a 1950s England setting. Great word-of-mouth and persistent goodwill for its star, Bill Nighy (in one of his finest performances) led to a lot of audience love, pushing the film into the top 10 highest-grossing British films of the year.
Lionsgate also benefited from pushing for a theatrical release of another Love, Actually star’s latest film, with the gentle dramedy Good Luck To You, Leo Grande. Emma Thompson found herself both in her element and pushing her boundaries with a chamber piece about several meetings her widowed character has with a younger sex worker, played by a confident Daryl McCormack. It went straight to streaming in the US, but it’s great to see audiences willing to turn up to cinemas for fresh stories.\
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
There were more period dramas in 2022, with famous writers having a moment from debut and long-standing directors both. Frances O’Connor’s Emily Brontë biopic Emily was a worthy lead role for Sex Education star Emma Mackey (sidenote: the Sex Education cast have had a stellar year, with Aimee Lou Wood co-starring in Living and Ncuti Gatwa cast as… well, no need to remind you). Emily promised to shake up the writer’s biopic and felt wild and tempestuous when it needed to, with a standout séance scene and a brilliant supporting cast. Benediction proved as free-flowing and delicate as director Terence Davies’ previous work, with Slow Horses’ Jack Lowden donning the role of war poet Siegfried Sassoon with a presence we’ll hopefully see more of in the future.
The wild countryside wasn’t just a site of deep thought and serious emotions in 2022; a fair share of movies decided to get weird there too. Folkish horror Men, bumbling robot comedy Brian and Charles, and social anxiety horror All My Friends Hate Me took genre storytelling out to the moors and valleys, for all varieties of scary, funny, and outlandish journeys. As it turns out, the more successful ones were the films that didn’t take themselves seriously, as Brian and Charles and AMFHM shed a light on rising British comics who are sure to keep us laughing through 2023 and beyond.
British cinema has never seen anything wrong with a charming, affable, and distinctly light film, one that often puts an experienced and much-admired actor in the lead for some unlikely adventure. This year, we got to see a hunt for the remains of a Middle Ages king, a fashion trip to Paris, and an art heist—courtesy of Sally Hawkins, Lesley Manville, and Jim Broadbent respectively. These inoffensive films often come from dependable British directors and go down a real treat: not the most eye-opening filmmaking, but lovely nonetheless.
The Lost King
A couple of unexpected franchises manifested in 2022, expanding the universe of period-set properties for older audiences across the country. Downton Abbey: A New Era and The Railway Children Return both benefited from featuring original cast members with their shared trips down both memory lane and towards new horizons.
The bigger, splashier British films of 2022 both were rooted in West End theatre. Matilda adapted Tim Minchin’s musical adaptation of the Roald Dahl book, and well-directed musical numbers and a winning cast (Emma Thompson, again, as well as Stephen Graham and Lashana Lynch) pushed this joyous song-and-dance version of a classic book to the third-highest box office spot—and it’s still climbing. The Knives Out-esque See How They Run packed its cast with glittering British TV and film names (as well as a few Hollywood ones), as a murder in the heart of the West End staple The Mousetrap causes shockwaves in ’50s London. The films are so brazen with their desire to entertain us, it’s hard to resist their open charm.
There’s some notable Irish co-productions in 2022 as well—Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin will represent the emerald isle at the Oscars just as Kenneth Branagh’s ultra-successful Belfast did last year. Even discounting all the exciting British films to look out for in 2023, with such a dynamic range of talented actors making a name for themselves, we won’t be seeing a shortage of exciting and fresh stories any time soon.
