Not to call it a day on 2021, but as I was compiling a rough draft to start writing my annual most anticipated movies list, I was struck by the sheer volume of potentially great movies we might be getting next year.
I’m not even counting blockbusters that have the goods, on-paper at least, to be great; those include “Mission: Impossible 7,” “Avatar 2,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3,” “Thor: Love and Thunder,” “John Wick: Chapter 4,” and “Knives Out 2.”
As we begin to (hopefully) emerge from the pandemic, things are beginning to look up. The movies have been, like many other industries, adversely affected by these last 20 months, but things seem to be on the upswing with close to a thousand productions having already been greenlit this year alone.
With vaccinations helping curb fears, filmmakers/actors going back to work and an inevitable boom of films headed our way, we are in for an cinephiles wet dream in 2022. If we select our anticipated 2022 films solely on the billed directors, there will be an abundance of riches — 42 titles, and I’m sure there are some others I’m missing here.
The below films have either started production or are in post-production, so, unless some kind of bad luck arises for one of them, they will very much be released in 2022.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” (Martin Scorsese)
“The Killer” (David Fincher)
“The Northman” (Robert Eggers)
“Babylon” (Damien Chazelle)
“Armageddon Time” (James Gray)
“Asteroid City” (Wes Anderson)
“Disappointment Blvd.” (Ari Aster)
“Amsterdam” (David O. Russell)
”Poor Things” (Yorgios Lanthimos)
“The Fablemans” (Steven Spielberg)
“White Noise” (Noah Baumbach)
”Owl” (Kelly Reichardt)
“The Zone of Interest” (Jonathan Glazer)
“Crimes of the Future” (David Cronenberg)
“Bardo” (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
“The Whale” (Darren Aronofsky)
“Decision to Leave” (Park Chan-Wook)
“Fire” (Claire Denis)
“Tar” (Todd Field)
”Kimi” (Steven Soderbergh)
”Bones and All” (Luca Guadagnino)
“Next Goal Wins” (Taika Waititi)
“The Batman” (Matt Reeves)
”Kitbag” (Ridley Scott)
“Don’t Worry Darling” (Olivia Wilde)
“Bullet Train” (David Leitch)
“Nope” (Jordan Peele)
”Men” (Alex Garland)
”Pinocchio” (Guillermo del Toro)
“Elvis” (Baz Luhrmann)
“The Son” (Florian Zeller)
“The Stars at Noon” (Claire Denis)
“Blonde” (Andrew Dominik)
“The Bubble” (Judd Apatow)
“Women Talking” (Sarah Polley)
“3000 Years of Longing” (George Miller)
“Triangle of Sadness” (Ruben Ostlund)
“The Eternal Daughter” (Joanna Hogg)
“Tori et Lokita” (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
“Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure” (Richard Linklater)
”Rebel Ridge” (Jeremy Saulnier)
“Deep Water” (Adrian Lyne)
“The Way of the Wind” (Terrence Malick)
“Bee-Gees” (Kenneth Branagh)
“Infinity Pool” (Brandon Cronenberg)
“Beth and Don” (Nicole Holfcener)
“The End” (Joshua Oppenheimer)
“The Banshees Of Inseherin” (Martin McDonagh)
“Women Talking” (Sarah Polley)
What am I missing here?
Look for my 35 Most Anticipated Films list to appear sometime in December.