Welcome to the annual New Year's edition of 6 Flicks Picks to ring in 2022!
This segment was absent for a good portion of 2020 as well as the entirety of 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt on most movie premieres. Now that films are being released on a more regular basis, it's time to go back to breaking down the movies that are set to come out each particular month and settle on the six best options (from a personal perspective).
This particular post, though, switches up the formula just a tad by looking at the current overall release schedule from January 1st and asks the even more daunting question: If you could only watch six movies for the entire year, which ones would those be?
Obviously, not every film that will come out this year is currently announced, and I haven't seen trailers for the vast majority of them. That is part of the fun when you can look back and see which movies you enjoyed more and which ones were surprises.
Without further ado, let's take a look at what makes my cut for 2022!
6 FLICKS PICKS FOR 2022
As films still aren't being as widely released as they used to (STILL...ugh) and another variant is making things worse, some of these films have little to no information about them and many of them may even be pushed back to further release dates. But as far as January 1st is concerned, here are my top 30 picks.
Bottom Tier Honorable Mentions:
30. John Wick: Chapter 4 — I still haven't seen a single John Wick film. However, they look interesting. I'd like to get the time to binge the previous 3 before this comes out (if I like them, that is).
29. 65 — An astronaut crashes on a planet and finds out that he's not alone. That's all we know. It sounds interesting, but without seeing anything about the movie beyond that description and that Adam Driver is in it, it's hard to rank this higher.
28. Halloween Ends — Boy, that last film was pointless, wasn't it? Way to stretch out a story. But I'm curious how they plan on "finishing" this and I want to see if they stick the landing.
27. Turning Red — It's Pixar. While it doesn't come off to me as the most interesting concept, it's still Pixar, so I trust it'll be decent.
26. Deep Water — Virtually nothing about this movie has been released. The idea sounds intriguing. Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas are good actors, so they could pull it off, too.
Low Tier Honorable Mentions:
24. Secret Headquarters — Is it a comedy? A drama? Both? Does it look cheesy and stupid, or is it going to be something right up my alley? Virtually no information about this one, too, so I'm flying blind.
23. Samaritan — Just the same as Secret Headquarters, but this seems to be set as a dramatic film. Maybe it's got the right level of grit, but maybe it's just something that frames itself as "a dark take on superheroes" and actually sucks. Without a trailer, it's impossible to know.
22. Uncharted — I never played the video games or had much interest in them. The trailer looks generic as all hell, but maybe it's a fun action flick to pass the time?
21. The 355 — Speaking of generic action flicks, that's what this could very well be. However, I do think it looks more interesting than Uncharted. I'd imagine this is the type of film I'd watch, go "that was alright" and then never really think about again. But the same could be said for other movies that surprised me.
20. Top Gun: Maverick — Top Gun's decent. It's not some movie I'd recommend to a lot of people, but for watching it just in the past few years for the first time ever and not when it had originally come out (where I'm sure I'd be more inclined to accept it for what it was), I enjoyed it enough to want to see this follow-up.
Middle Tier Honorable Mentions:
18. The Black Phone — Cool concept. This is the only horror film on this list. My wife brought it to my attention and I normally don't find horror movies too up my alley, but this got my vote for a future ticket, for sure.
17. Avatar 2 — Let's see what this shit's all about. Avatar didn't impress me all that much, to be honest. The visuals were great for its time, but the story itself wasn't something that made me want to see a sequel. After all these years James Cameron's been working on this as arguably his biggest passion project, I want to see what he was obsessed about. But it's still Avatar. There are much bigger fish to fry, so to speak.
16. DC League of Super-Pets — Krypto and all? Okay. This is the type of movie I'd have pitched to WB to make a long time ago, because it's such a softball move. You get the superhero crowd and the animated kid audience and the families.
15. Lightyear — This is so interesting. A prequel that doesn't even address Toy Story itself, but treats some of the backstory like a legit tall tale or something? The idea of casting Chris Evans and not just going with Tim Allen took me by surprise.
14. Morbius — Oh boy. This can't be good, right? But it's a Spider-Man property. I'll be seeing it even if the reviews come out that it's a 0/10 film.
Top Tier Honorable Mentions:
12. Creed III — What's the story here? I still don't even know. But these past two films were rock solid and the Rocky franchise as a whole tends to have good stories, even if the execution per movie isn't particularly good.
11. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom — Superheroes. Even Aquaman. Cool.
10. The Flash — Michael Keaton's Batman is back?!
9. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — I'm still in the camp that I don't know how this movie is going to work without just recasting T'challa. I understand why they wouldn't want to, but how do you spend the last films building up that character and doing stories about unknown family members and resurrections and all, just to have the character die off and get replaced with someone new? I'm worried about it, but I loved the first film, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt to have it this high up.
8. Mission: Impossible 7 — These movies keep getting better and better. By Rogue Nation, they sold me that I'm going to love the next installments, too. Opening night, for sure.
7. Black Adam — The Rock is so passionate about this that even I, who doesn't love the Shazam line and saw no reason for a Black Adam solo film, am being convinced that this is going to kick ass.
What Made the Final Cut:
6. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 — The first one was surprisingly really good. Now that we've seen the trailer for #2 and it not only includes Tails, but Knuckles, and seems to be following the most logical plotline, I'm confident this will be a success, too.
5. Mario — I'm so curious about this. The idea of Chris Pratt as Mario sounds so off, but for them to be making a movie after all these years is very cool to try. Since it's unknown, that's why it's slightly above Sonic 2.
4. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) — The first one is SO good. There was no way this wasn't making the top 6. Give me everything Spider-Man, as it's my #2 favorite superhero character.
3. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — I almost had this at #2 because I'm fairly sure we're going to see some cameos from X-Men characters and variants and all sorts of crazy stuff. However, I ultimately chose to put it in the #3 spot because I'm not the biggest Doctor Strange fan, I don't care about America Chavez, and there's a chance this is less a buffet of amazing things and more just a collection of some appetizers. Still, after Spider-Man: No Way Home, I'm more excited than ever about this movie.
2. Thor: Love and Thunder — Ragnarok was a lot of fun and the MCU gets priority with these things due to my massive fandom and their impressive track record (outside of Eternals).
1. The Batman — It's a Batman movie. Of course it's toward the top. Batman's my favorite fictional character ever created in any medium.
WHICH MOVIES ARE YOU INTERESTED IN CHECKING OUT?
TELL US IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!
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