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Worst Films of 2022

2022 was a bad year for movies. Yes, it had its great feats, but for the most part the films ranged from just solid to disappointing to downright mediocre and even terrible. For this list, I am going to highlight only the worst that this year had to offer, especially focusing on the movies that were both bad and immensely disappointing.

5. R.M.N.

This is just one of many movies on this list that are directed by directors that I genuinely love, but they ended up disappointing me. Cristian Mungiu surely is one of the best European directors in recent history, but here gone was his usual subtlety and sophistication in favor of blatant extremities and overgeneralizations. How he treated the issue of migration was horrendous, so I had to include this politically asinine movie on this list.

4. White Noise

Next one is Noah Baumbach, a director that I usually really like, but this year he delivered his worst work yet. White Noise is a film that tries to be this genre-bending showcase of different tones and experiences, but it fails miserably at every single one of them. Even worse is the dialogue itself, which is ridiculously ostentatious and just plain annoying. It’s a great example of the worst tendencies of postmodernism.

3. Bardo

As for Bardo, this film is directed by Inarritu, a director whom I really dislike. He made some great movies early on in his career, but every single one of his more recent efforts was insufferable. Bardo is his worst movie since ‘The Revenant’ as it’s so hopelessly pretentious in its narrative and style that it became a chore to sit through. He set out to combat his detractors, but ended up only confirming that our collective fears about him have been right all along.

2. Blonde

Andrew Dominik is usually a great director also, but this was his colossal failure. Blonde is a nasty movie that is the case of extreme exploitation bordering on misery porn that portrays Monroe as a victim without ever developing her properly. It’s very well acted and shot, but watching it will only make you exhausted due to its horribly miserable tone throughout.

1. Men

And the number one goes to Alex Garland’s Men. Both of his previous movies ended up on my top ten best lists, but this time around the opposite happened as Men is truly a terrible movie that is miscalculated and extremely limited in its appeal. It represents modern elevated horror at its absolute worst with its pseudo-intellectual gibberish and strange imagery that is more repulsive than ever really creepy while its politics are truly indefensible.

Honorable Mentions:

Pinocchio – Totally unnecessary and just horribly inept in every way, Disney’s live-action Pinocchio remake does have a great ending, but otherwise it’s a pale imitation of the classic original.

The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild – This Ice Age film is basically Indiana Jones for kids. It focuses on the most annoying characters in the roster. This franchise should just go away already.

Black Adam – Featuring messy world building and atrocious VFX, Black Adam is a badly plotted, tedious superhero flick that is the worst entry in the DCEU so far.